He was looking at her in a mocking, half-smile, as if to say that he had succeeded, after all, in winning her love. That he, the emperor with the soft pale body was also her roaring jungle mystic. He got out of the water and walked up to her.
‘Vik,’ she whispered. ‘Vik…’
‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘It’s me. Fooled you completely, baby. I told you, you would see something in the Kumbh Mela. This is what your father wanted you to see, Mia / Maya. This is what he wanted you to see. Wanted you to see how wrong a painting can be.’
‘I’ve also been blind, Vik,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t do it. You don’t have to. I’m here. I’ll always love you. Don’t do it.’
‘But,’ he beamed at her, ‘it’s too late now. I’m too far down the road. Besides, they’re waiting for me, you see. I must go. Wait for me, Mia. Wait for me. Wait for me on the other side of the river, once the ruffian is dead forever. You said you would walk the last and deadliest mile with me, didn’t you? Remember, you said you would walk with me down the last and deadliest mile? I’ll be waiting for you in Paradise.’
‘But why, Vik? Let’s run away together. Let’s go away. Please, let’s go away.’
‘No, I have to kill the terrorist, remember? I have to eliminate him so he doesn’t hurt and harm anyone any more. He is a curse, Maya. He is a curse who has to be finished.’
‘Vik, why?’
‘All I really wanted,’ he shrugged, ‘was to love and receive love, in the best purest form available. That’s all I ever wanted.’
‘Wait…’
He smiled and turned away. She pushed blindly through the crowd towards him. Tiger followed at her heels. But there were too many people between them. She thought she saw him dive into the water. She pushed on towards the banks. If she didn’t get to him fast enough, she knew she would never see him again.
‘No, Vik! Please! Come back.’
By the time she struggled through the crowded water and got to the river bank, Vik had gone.
‘Where’s that other man?’ she shouted to a nearby pilgrim. ‘Where did he go?’
‘He’s gone,’ said the pilgrim.
‘Where?’
‘Chala gaya bechara,’ the pilgrim pointed towards the gate. ‘Away from the river.’
‘Tiger!’ Mia turned desperate eyes to Tiger. ‘I must find him. I must find Vik. He’s about to do something terrible.’
‘What’ – Tiger shook his head confusedly – ‘terrible? What terrible?’
‘Please help me find him,’ Mia cried, her eyes liquid and huge with tears.
‘Of course, definitely, darling, my god, what is this mess, meri bachchi!’ Tiger looked bewildered. ‘Just call him from my phone quickly. Quickly.’
‘Vik?’ asked Mia on his mobile telephone, ‘Vik, it’s you, isn’t it? You are Karna.’
‘Yup,’ his voice was cheerful. ‘Sorry, baby. I’m afraid it is me.’
‘Oh god, how could I not have known? How could I not have known! My god, Vik, it’s you!’
‘Wait for me, Maya. We’re going to have a long and happy life together. It won’t be on earth but in a place more pure and perfect. You know, when I went to Alqueria, I realized that I saw you everywhere. I was – I am – so enchanted by you. I want to love you in the best possible way. I want to love you in the purest way, not in the impure way of Justin and his woman. The war must be fought. The war with one’s worse nature. The constant war within, remember what the Brothers said? The war between good and evil contained in one body?’
‘Vik…’
‘Being born is like dying, Maya. It is dying, which is like being born. Your father knew that. I know it too.’
‘Wait, please wait. Let me talk to you one last time.’
But he had disconnected.
‘No, please!’ she sobbed out loud. ‘Please come back. Please let me see you again.’
Tears came faster down her cheeks than the water of the Ganga. She had to go to back to Victoria Villa and wait for him there. No, she had to go to the ashram and find out what he planned to do. But they wouldn’t know anything. What should she do?
Sweat ran off her forehead. She felt feverish and the dust made her eyes water. The walkways and pontoon bridges were throbbing with thousands of soft footfalls. Buntings fluttered in the breeze, strung over the camps and along electric wires. Clusters of loudspeakers bloomed on electric poles, belting out announcements of lost widows and children.
She ran through the Mela, her mind split in many directions. She was looking for her lover. She was looking for her husband. She grew bigger than her father’s painting. She tossed Anand aside. Anand had wanted her to visit the Kumbh so she would rid herself of her dependence on him, free herself from her father and realize how partial his vision had been. He had tired of her, had been exhausted by her dependence. To acquire one’s own vision was the greatest gift. Not vision that was bottled and canned and purchased for a price. Without one’s own true vision one may as well be blind. As blind as the British were about a country they ruled. As blind as Indi was about her son. Anand had removed himself from her life so she would no longer remain blind.
She heard a prayer from one of the pilgrims: I am the ever-shining unborn, one alone, imperishable, stainless, all-pervading and non-dual – that am I, and I am forever released.
‘What does this mean?’ she asked him, clutching his arm. ‘What’s this prayer?’
‘Non-duality,’ he replied. ‘All in the end is One. Him. The Brahman. In the end there is only One. It is the philosophy of Advaita.’
ALQUERIA, GOA
That night, a man in a white shirt walked calmly up the zigzag in Alqueria. He carried his Smith & Wesson in his hand and strapped to his back was a quiver of arrows. He walked past Indi’s abandoned cottage, towards Sharkey’s Hotel. Tears gathered in his eyes and trickled into his beard. He was a half-man, inadequate, humiliated by her imposing brilliance. He was the perpetual also-ran, the number two, the ignored one, cast aside, never able to win his father’s love.
She was always number one. She was the primary force in the world. Always contemptuous of him. Contemptuous that he wasn’t clever enough, contemptuous of his business, his silly little make-up shop, his ridiculous parties. She, Magsaysay award winner and civil servant, had done real work. She had built roads and bridges and carried war widows to safety. She had started schools, she had moved a prime minister. What had he done? Sold lipstick to Bollywood. Sold eyeliner to The Body Shop.
He was only a little decoration. A mere paper flag flying on an impressive edifice constructed by her; flimsy compared to her granite achievement.
Her unseeing presence was suffocating. He had not been able to breathe. Her beauty, the absurdly perfect, sensuous beauty that crushed all opposition; that had turned his father into a spineless worm.
She was so tall, just a few inches shorter than his six feet. She had never soothed his inferiority.
Nor had his father.
Instead, they had both recoiled from his insufficiency, recoiled in revulsion. Preferring to live in their own world, far away from the unchangeable fact of his own mediocrity. The love that they shared was so formidable, so perfect, so majestic, that it was only the ultimate act by him that could defeat it.
A final heroic flourish that would reduce a lifetime’s commitment to nothing but a silly teenage crush.
It was late. The police detachment posted at Sharkey’s was snoring on the beach. He knew all the hotel fuse-boxes well and set all the wires alight. He had been to Alqueria so many times as Karna. He had snarled up the computer system, flung the dead rats in, put a bullet through Francis Xavier and dressed his mother up in bed with hibiscus flowers in her hair.
The wires began to burn – blue tongues of flames snickering along the walls. He stood back, framed by the fire like a thoughtful Jesus and felt gratified at how easily a fire could begin if it was started right. How obedient a fire was. It did exactly what you wanted it to; it was a mis
take to think that a fire was uncontrollable. In fact, a fire required nurturing, guidance and hard work. It pulled itself back constantly and had to be gently pushed along to its full potential. Flames began to snake up towards the rooms and the sleeping guests began to stir with the smell of smoke.
The police were still sound asleep on the beach; snoring off their beer and toddy. He shouted upwards into the sky. Shouted out his creed: the world was becoming value-less, pornographic, the female ego was ruining the planet. His shouts grew louder and louder until the waiters who were sleeping in the kitchen woke up, saw the fire, shook the police awake and telephoned Justin in St Theresa’s Hospital.
By now Sharkey’s Hotel was roaring with fire. Some of the residents of the upper floor were already charred. Others had begun to jump out from the windows, throwing their children onto the beach. Screams and wails filled the air as villagers came shrieking up and Father Rudy rushed down from Santa Ana still in his pyjamas. Holding Indi’s hand, Justin walked slowly forward. Hot black fumes from the kitchen went spiralling up the banyan. Karna’s shirt billowed in the breeze.
On his back was his quiver of arrows and a bow strapped across his chest.
‘Who are you?’ Indi shouted. ‘What do you want?’
‘Close down this hotel!’ Karna shouted. ‘This hotel is a crime against the Almighty Presence!’
She had recognized her Phantom Listener a long time ago. Ever since the attack on her in her cottage, she had known, but not admitted to herself because she could not accept it. She knew that he had passed into a realm she had no idea of, that she could not only not see, but not even understand. I know who you are, her heart spoke. I’ve always known. I’m your enemy. I, in my huge noisy existence, I who will never be pure. You will set up pure enclaves for me, but I will come flying at you with my impure body and laugh at you.
Justin walked towards him. ‘Come here,’ his voice was calm. ‘Come, we can talk. Come.’
‘Get out!’ Karna screamed. ‘The whole place is on fire. Can’t you hear the people burn? Don’t try to save it or you’ll die.’
Justin stared at his dark mirror image. Here was his son whichever way you looked at it. The same height, the same hair, the same beard and the same eyes. In his disguise, (too stated and explicit) he was identical to his father. A childish voice clamoured loud and clear in his inner ear:
Justin! Justin, Indi’s lover! Why did you choose her and not me? Why did you love her so much that you had nothing left for me?
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ shouted Justin in his stomach. ‘You belong to a world far bigger than the one you imagine.
I cared and loved you as much as I could, with the leftovers of my selfish love for your mother. But I taught you to look for meaning in the hollows of a silk cotton tree. To me, that was enough.’
‘You are corrupting this village!’ shouted Karna. ‘You should know that there are people who oppose you. That you can’t do as you want and get away with it all the time. You have obscene values!’
‘It is you who is obscene!’ shouted Indi. ‘It is you who has corrupted religion and turned his back on god.’
‘Shut up!’ Karna shouted back.
‘Leave us alone!’ cried Justin. ‘We’re not trying to destroy anything. Leave us in peace!’
‘You are evil!’ Karna shouted again. ‘You are violating the laws of the Almighty Presence.’
‘Evil?’ Indi drew herself up and flung the words at him. ‘How dare you, Vikram? Come on now, pull yourself together, you little idiot. Enough is enough.’
Her condescension infuriated him, as it always had. He became enraged that she dared to claim the authority of motherhood. He screamed. The scream was so high-pitched that the abolim flowers in the village courtyards flew into the air.
Once, on a dark night, when Justin had walked the Victoria Villa lawn with Vik on his shoulder, he had pointed towards Orion in the sky. See, he had pointed. That’s Orion, the hunter. Orion is brave and strong and that’s how you must be.
Karna raced towards the restaurant. Indi blundered towards the sound of his voice, her cane swinging ahead.
‘Vikram!’ Indi shouted, her voice cracking, ‘I know it’s you. You killed Francis Xavier! There are people dead, burned beyond recognition, because of your hate. Listen to me! Listen to me! We can talk! We can negotiate! I know it’s you! I’ve known for a long time. Stop now! Stop where you are!’
‘You?’ his voice took on its usual politeness when he addressed her. ‘Who are you to talk to me? I don’t even know your name. I never have!’
By now the police were pushing their way towards the burning hotel. A few guests staggered out, their clothes in flames, as villagers rushed to wrap their burning bodies in blankets. Children with sooty faces wandered crying through the smoke.
‘Indi!’ shouted Justin. ‘Come away from him. Come away.’
She turned her face towards the strongest smell of fire. Then threw away her cane and ran, arms outstretched, towards the smell and the sound of Karna’s voice. As she came blundering at him, he took aim with his revolver but hesitated for a moment. True to family tradition, where his mother stood, he saw the Four-Armed-One. In place of Indi, he saw the same ancestress of death who had visited every member of his family – including his grandfather Ashish Kumar – when death was imminent. There she was, two arms akimbo, two others raised above his head. A woman with long black hair and his mother’s sea-storm eyes. She crossed and uncrossed her arms. She smiled but she had come for him. She had come to carry him back to the ocean. The family curse was upon him.
‘How dare you bring me into this world,’ he shouted in his heart, ‘and make me wait for you? Make me become your sidekick, your also-ran because I wasn’t as clever as you, as blind as you or as beautiful as you? But now I’m ahead of you because my life is a one-way ticket to Paradise.
In Paradise I will reign as a conqueror of death itself. My cause will remain, my crusade against women like you will go down in the annals of history. I will win the last and holiest war by being dead and leaving you to mop up my remains. I will fight in two realms, my spirit will tower over the earth, unforgettably and my cause against you, against your ego will be imbued with a nobility and a magnificence that will endure for centuries.’
He hesitated, transfixed by his vision.
She came lurching towards the direction of his voice with a long scream, lunging at him to try and pull him away from the fire. But it was too late. The revolver flashed and he fell back into the door of the restaurant which had become an open mouth of pure fire.
Sharkey’s Hotel was smoking from the roof and walls like an illuminated gas chamber. She heard the gunshot; she felt the warm flare of the flames as they fed on his body. She knew immediately what had happened. As District Magistrate in Siliguri, she had once given shoot-at-sight orders to quell a lynch mob that had gathered around a house. Fugitives had cowered inside, while outside, bloodthirsty faces had bobbed up and down brandishing knives and axes. She remembered clearly the face of the ringleader, his eyes wide open, yet somehow calm, as he strode around with his chest thrust forward as hysterical laughter boiled in his throat, daring the police to fire at him. She had jumped off the jeep – how clearly she had seen the road ahead at that time – and faced him. He had taunted her, daring her to act, even made a lunge for her chest…a skinny boy from his group had suddenly dashed at the policemen waiting behind and thrown a knife into a policeman’s belly. Indi had raised her hand in command shouting at him to stop but the ringleader ignored her. He had walked straight into a hail of bullets. He had made no attempt to run, had made no attempt to save himself; he had walked into the line of fire like a bride walking up to the altar, as if summoned at last to receive the prize he had always craved. He had been killed almost immediately, the mob had melted away, leaving her to gaze on the fallen young body, his pockets bulging with ammunition.
Why had he not run, she had wondered later. Why had he thrown his life aw
ay, that strapping youth blessed with good looks, an education – indeed with everything that others would have cherished? He had walked to his death in a swagger of bravado, daring others to follow, a final act of masculine potency, a shot perhaps at world conquest. His expression when he died had been one of dull accomplishment, the weary responsibility of a completed task, like a CEO satisfied with his balance sheet.
She had read of the death cults through history that had spurred young men to glorious suicide rather than banal surrender to humdrum circumstance. The kamikaze pilots of Japan, the samurai before them, sanctioned to sacrifice their lives if they had been humiliated or dishonoured. Death was heroic; light as a feather. Honourable manhood rising in a giant wall of steel before the mere bullets of everyday existence.
Perhaps the ringleader’s mission had been to die like a hero before a woman, so that his death would tower over her even though his body crumpled at her feet.
She had not regretted the command to open fire. A law and order problem had been confronted and dealt with in the best possible manner. Best was the wrong word. The situation had been dealt with in the only manner that was possible. When a civil servant gives orders for the police to fire, she makes a tryst with death. She knows that sons and brothers will be torn away from their families by her act. But she stands, in that instance, for progress, for rationality, for the reasonable way forward. She must turn her back on death cults and calls to suicide. Because there are rules on which democratic societies are based and those rules must be followed, however glorious or heroic it may be to disobey or to rebel.
Yet, in this case, unlike in the case of the rioters, she had played a part in the creation of the problem. She had been the reason for the problem itself, not, as in Siliguri, the bringer of a solution.
Blind Faith Page 22