Where is Chandri now? Did she go sit with the dead body so that he may not be troubled? How will she stand that stench? He worried. He dived into the stream and swam around. Let me, he felt, let me stay here forever, swimming in the water. He remembered his boyhood days when he used to escape his mother’s overseeing eyes and run to the river. He was astonished that, after so many years, his boyhood desires had returned to him. To escape mother’s suspicion, he used to lie in the sand after the swim, dry himself before he went home. Is there any pleasure equal to rolling in the sun-warmed sands after a swim in the cold water? He didn’t want to go back to the agrahara. He got out on the bank and lay on the sands. In the heat of noon, the body dried quickly and the back began to burn.
Something occurred to him and he got up. Like an animal with his snout to the ground, he entered the woods where he had made love to Chandri. Even in broad daylight, it was shady and dusky there. In the bushes, it was quite dark, a humming dark. He stood at the place where his life had turned over. The weight and shape of their bodies still visible on the green grass. He sat down. Like an idiot, he pulled out blades of grass and smelled them. He had come from the death-stench in the agrahara; the smell of grass-roots smeared with wet earth held him in its power like an addiction. Like a hen pecking at and raking the ground, he pulled at everything that came to his hand and smelled it. Just sitting coolly under a tree had become a fulfilment, a value. To be, just to be. To be; keen, in the heat, the cool, to the grass, the green, the flower, the pang, the heat, the shade. Putting aside both desire and value. Not leaping, when the invisible says “Here!” To receive it gratefully. Not climbing, not reaching out, not scrambling. A small sprout of sarsaparilla touched his hand. He pulled at it. The sarsaparilla was a firmly rooted, long creeper, and it did not yield to him. Unlike the grass, it had sunk roots into the hard ground beneath the soft topsoil. He sat up and tugged with both hands. He severed half the length of the mother root, and the sarsaparilla creeper came to his hand. He smelled it. The root had earned a fragrance, existing there, a kin knotted into the heat and the shade, sod of the earth and the space above it. The smell of it reached into him, sinking into his five-fold breath of life. He sat there, smelling it like a greedy man. The smell settled in the nostril, the sweetness entered his blood; soon the experience of fragrance passed, and he was left unsatisfied. He put aside the root and smelled the forest smells, and returned to the sarsaparilla, its smell made new. He came out of the forest and stood looking at the vishnukranti flowers, now become as sapphires dotting the shade— looking at them as if mere looking was wealth. Got into the stream once again and swam around. Stood in the deeper part where the water came to his chin. Fishes mobbed him, prickled at his ticklish toe-spaces, armpits and ribs. Like a ticklish boy, Praneshacharya exclaimed, “Ahaha,” and fell then swimming into the water, climbed onto the bank and stood in the sun till he was dry. He remembered it was time to give his wife her gruel, and walked quickly back to the agrahara.
All at once he saw again the crows, the vultures—felt a sudden slap on his face. When he came home, his wife’s face looked hot and flushed. “Look here, look here!” he cried to her. Had the fever risen? How can I touch a woman polluted by her menstrual blood? “Che!,” he said to himself in self-disgust, catching himself at his own hesitation; he touched her brow and drew back startled. Not knowing what to do, he put a wet cloth to her brow, he pulled her blanket aside suspiciously and examined her body. There was a swelling, a bubo on the side of her stomach. Was it the same fever that took Naranappa? He rubbed on a stone all the herbs he knew, separated her lips and poured emulsions into her mouth. None of the medicines went down her throat. “What’s this new ordeal now?” he thought, pacing up and down. The din of crows and vultures grew unbearable, the stench seemed to craze his wits. He ran into the backyard. Stood there in a dimness, not seeing the passage of time. Evening came. He was relieved to see the crows and vultures disappear, came in distraught that he had left his sick wife alone all this while. In fear, he lit the lamp and called to her. “Look here, look here!” No answer. The silence seemed to howl. But suddenly his wife let out a shriek that left him speechless. The long raucous pitiful cry touched him in the rawest flesh, and he shivered. When the howling stopped, it was like darkness after a flash of lightning. He could not bear to be alone there. Before he knew what he was doing, he was running to Naranappa’s house, calling out to Chandri. “Chandri! Chandri!” But there was no response. He went in. It was dark. He searched in the middle room, the kitchen. No one. Just as he was about to climb the stairs, he remembered there was a corpse in there; a fear returned, as in childhood when he had been afraid to enter a dark room, fearing a goblin there; he came home running. When he touched his wife’s forehead, it was cold.
He walked all the way to Kaimara in the dead of night with a lantern, and as he entered Subbannacharya’s house, behind him came the four brahmins saying, “Narayana, Narayana”; they had wet dhotis on their heads after the cremation of Dasacharya. He brought them back with him, took his wife’s body to the burning ground, and she was ritually cremated before dawn. As if to himself, he murmured to the brahmins, “There’s another dead body in the agrahara waiting to be cremated. Anyway its fate will be decided at the guru’s monastery. You’d better be on your way.” They left him looking on at the burning body of his wife—at the best of times no more than a small fistful, the field of his life’s penance—now burning down to ash. He did not try to hold back his tears; he wept till all his weariness flowed away from him.
VI
At the monastery, the brahmins didn’t want to say anything inauspicious till the holy feast was over. Silently they took the sacred water, and finished the big meal of special dishes and sweet porridge. The guru gave them all a gift, a fee, of a mere anna each. Lakshmanacharya was disappointed; grumbling at this niggardly ascetic, he tucked away the nickel in his waistcloth. “He has no kids, no family—yet the man hangs on to money for dear life.” After the feast was over, in the main yard of the monastery the brahmins sat on the cool cement floor, and the guru sat in their midst on a chair. He was wearing an ochre robe, a rosary of basil beads, a sandal-mark on his brow. Sitting like a round doll, ruddy-cheeked, and massaging his tiny feet, he asked courtesy questions: “Why didn’t Praneshacharya come? How is he? Is he well? Why, didn’t our announcement reach him?”
Garudacharya cleared his throat and submitted the entire situation.
The guru listened to everything carefully and said decisively:
“Even if he gave up brahminism, brahminism cannot leave Naranappa. Which means, the right and proper duty is to perform the death-rites. But the impurity must also be cleared—therefore all his property, silver and gold must be offered to the monastery, to Lord Krishna.”
Garuda plucked up courage and wiped his face with his dhoti.
“Your Holiness, you already know about the fight between him and my father. Three hundred betelnut trees of his grove must come to me.”
Lakshmanacharya said, “Ah,” and interrupted him.
“Your Holiness, is there no justice in this matter? As you know, Naranappa’s wife and my wife are sisters. . . .”
Anger appeared on the face of the round red-faced Swami.
“What kind of scoundrels are you? It’s an age-old rule that all orphan property should be given over to the Lord’s service. Don’t you forget that! You’ll have to leave the agrahara yourselves if we don’t give you permission for his death-rites,” he thundered.
The two brahmins confessed they had done wrong and asked forgiveness; prostrated themselves before the Swami with all the others. When they stood up, they missed Gundacharya who had come with them. They found him lying down with a high fever, in an attic of the monastery; he had eaten nothing. But they were in a hurry to finish the funeral rites. They took to the road, leaving Gundacharya behind.
•
The Acharya did not return to the agrahara after his wife’s cremation. He thought
of nothing, neither the fifteen gold-lace shawls in his box, the two hundred rupees, nor the basil-bead rosary done in gold given by the monastery.
Meaning to walk wherever his legs took him, he walked towards the east.
PART THREE
I
THE MORNING sunshine had descended into the forest in dotted patterns. Praneshacharya, dragging his feet wearily as he walked, didn’t think of place and direction for a long time. For a fleeting minute he felt remorse that he didn’t have the patience to wait and pick out the leftover unburned bones, the remains of his wife’s body, and throw them in the stream; he had the shocking thought they might be picked and worried by dogs and foxes. But he consoled himself that he had walked away free, leaving everything behind; he had no more duties, no debts. “I said I would walk where my legs took me, now I must walk according to that decision.” So he walked, trying to bring some balance into his mind. Whenever in the past his mind had become overactive, he would chant the names of Lord Vishnu to give it a single point and to still its streaming distractions. “Achyuta, Ananta, Govinda.” He wanted now to do likewise. He remembered the first maxim of yoga, “Yoga is the stilling of the waves of the mind.” “But No!” he said to himself. “Put aside even the consolations of recitations and God’s holy names, stand alone,” he said to himself. May the mind be like the patterns of light and shade, the forms the branching trees give naturally to sunshine. Light in the sky, shadow under the trees, patterns on the ground. If, luckily, there’s a spray of water—rainbows. May one’s life be like that sunshine. A mere awareness, a sheer astonishment, still, floating still and self-content, like the sacred Brahmani-kite in the sky. Legs walk, eyes see, ears hear. O to be without any desire. Then one’s life becomes receptive. Or else, in desire it dries to a shell, it withers, becomes a set of multiplication tables learned by rote. That Kanaka, illiterate saint—his mind was just one awareness, one wonder. That’s why he came to his Master and asked: “You want me to eat the plantain where there’s no one. Where can I go, where can I do that? God is everywhere, what shall I do?” God has become to me a set of tables, learned by rote. Not an awareness, a wonder as He was to Kanaka—so no more God for me.
Once you leave God, you must leave all concern for all the debts, to ancestors, to gurus, to the gods; must stand apart from the community of men. That’s why it’s right, this decision to walk where the legs lead. Walk in this pathless forest like this. What about fatigue, hunger, thirst—Praneshacharya’s stream of thought stopped abruptly. He was entering another cave of self-deception. Even though he had decided he would walk where the legs lead him, why had he walked all this way within earshot of those bamboo cowbells, that cowherd boy’s fluting sounds? Whatever his decision, his feet still walked him close to the habitations of men. This is the limit of his world, his freedom. Can’t seem to live outside the contacts of men. Like the folktale hermit’s g-string: lest mice should gnaw at the g-string, he reared a cat; for the cat’s milk, he kept a cow; to look after the cow, he found a woman; and married her and ceased to be a hermit.
Praneshacharya sat under a jackfruit tree. “I must look at this matter squarely. I must conduct my future differently, not deceive myself even one little bit. Why did I walk away after cremating my wife? The agrahara was stinking, one couldn’t bear to return to it. Certainly a good reason: the intolerable stench in my nostril, the sense of pollution, certainly. Then what? Why didn’t I want to meet again the brahmins who were waiting for my guidance? Why?” Praneshacharya stretched his legs, trying to shed his fatigue, waiting for his mind to clear itself. Unseen by him, a calf came and stood beside him; lifted its face and smelled his neck and breathed on it. Praneshacharya shuddered and turned around. The friendly piteous eyes of the maturing calf moved him, feelings welled up from within. He ran his fingers on its dewlap. The calf lifted its neck, came closer and closer, offered its body to the caressing hand, its hair rising in pleasure, and began to lick his ears and cheeks with its warm rough- textured tongue. Tickled, Praneshacharya rose to his feet, and felt like playing with the calf; he put his hands under its neck and said, uppuppuppu. . . . The calf lifted both its legs, leaped at him, then leaped away into the sunshine and disappeared. Praneshacharya tried to remember what he was thinking. “Yes, the question was why didn’t I go back and see the brahmins?” But the mind didn’t settle on it. He was hungry, he should go get some food in some nearby village. So he got up and walked, following the cowdung and the footprints of cattle. After an hour of wandering, he came to a Mari temple. Which meant it wasn’t a brahmin agrahara. He went on and sat under a tree on the edge of the village.
The sun had begun to climb, it was getting hot even in the shade and he was thirsty. If some farmer saw him, he would bring some fruit and milk. A farmer, herding buffaloes to the tank, did look at him from under his hand shading his eyes; came close and stood near him. His mouth was full of chewed betel leaf and betelnut, his moustache was magnificent, his head was wrapped in a check- patterned turban cloth. Praneshacharya guessed that this was really a village chief. There was comfort in finding someone unknown. Because his mouth was full of betel leaf, the farmer lifted his chin to keep the juice from dribbling, and asked with his hands where the stranger came from. If he had known he was Praneshacharya, that farmer wouldn’t have stood there, his mouth full of betel, and asked discourteously the way he did. When you shed your past, your history, the world sees you as just one more brahmin. He was a little disturbed by the thought. As he didn’t get a reply, the farmer went aside and spat out the quid of betel in his mouth, came back humbly, wiping the red juice from his moustache with his cloth, looked at him questioningly and asked,
“Which way is the gentleman going?”
Praneshacharya was a bit relieved that the villager had shown respect. He knew it would be inauspicious to ask a brahmin directly, “Where are you going?” But Praneshacharya was not able to answer directly. “O, just this way . . .” he said, waving his hand vaguely in some direction, and wiping his sweat. He felt peaceful that by god’s grace the farmer didn’t recognize him.
“Does the gentleman come from down the valley or what?” the villager asked curiously. Praneshacharya’s mouth, unaccustomed to lying, simply said “Ha.”
“Must be someone going for his collection.”
Praneshacharya felt like bowing his head. Look, this villager took him for a mendicant brahmin going on his rounds. All his lustre and influence lost, he really must look like a brahmin going around for his collection. The lesson of humility had begun. Better bow down, bend, he said to himself; and assented with another “Ha.” That he could take on the shape he desired in the eyes of a stranger, seemed to extend the limits of his freedom.
The villager stood leaning against his buffalo and said, “There’s no brahmin house anywhere near here.”
“Oh?” said Praneshacharya rather indifferently.
“About ten-twelve miles from here, there’s a brahmin agrahara.”
“Oh really?”
“If you go by the cart road, it’s even farther. By the inner path, it’s much closer.” “Good.”
“There’s a well here. I’ll give you a pitcher. You can draw some water and take a bath. I’ll give you rice and lentils, you can cook it on three bricks, and eat. You must be tired, poor man. If you really want to get to the agrahara, tell me; the cartman Sheshappa is here to see a relative, his cart will go home empty. He lives near the agrahara. . . . But from what he said, I don’t know if you’d want to go to that agrahara. A body is lying there dead, rotting for three nights, it seems. A brahmin corpse. Ush . . . Sheshappa said. By dead of night that good man’s mistress came all the way to Sheshappa’s house asking him to help her burn the dead body. It seems there was no rightful heir to that body. How can a dead brahmin rot like that? When Sheshappa came that way in the morning in his cart, he said there were vultures sitting on the roofs of the agrahara houses. . . .”
The villager rubbed his tobacco on his palm and
sat there talking.
When Praneshacharya heard that Sheshappa was nearby, his heart missed a beat. He didn’t want Sheshappa to see him in the state he was in. It would be disastrous to stay there any longer.
“If you can give me some milk and a few plantains, I’ll move on,” he said looking at the villager.
“That’s no trouble, sir. I’ll get it for you this minute. I can’t eat when a brahmin is hungry in the village; so I offered you rice, that’s all. . . .”
And he left. Praneshacharya felt he was sitting on thorns. What will happen if Sheshappa should see him? He looked around, growing small in his fear. “Why this fear in me when I’ve shed all things?” he asked himself, disturbed, unable to contain the rising dread within. The villager brought a cup of cold milk and a bunch of plantains, put them before the Acharya and said:
“A brahmin seems to have come to the village at a good time. Could you read me a bit of the future? I brought a bride for my son, paying a hundred rupees as bride-price. But ever since she came, she’s been sitting dully in a corner, possessed by some she-demon. If only you can give me something with a spell on it. . . .”
Praneshacharya reined his mind and stopped it dead, while it was about to get into action, ready to perform brahmin functions by sheer habit. “Even if I leave everything behind, the community clings to me, asking me to fulfil duties the brahmin is born to. It isn’t easy to free oneself of this. What shall I say to this villager who has brought milk and fruit to an utter stranger with such concern? Shall I tell him I’ve sinned and lost the merits of penance? that I am no brahmin? or just the simple truth?”
Samskara Page 9