Samskara

by U. R. Ananthamurthy

  He stood near the temple. A blind beggar was singing to the tune of a drone-box. A devotional song. “O how shall I please you, how shall I serve you, O Lord?” When Putta threw a coin into his platter, another beggar with only stumps for hands and legs came crawling towards him, flailing his stumps, crying “No hands, no legs for this sinner!” He whined and pleaded, lay flat on the floor, lifted his dwarfed arms and legs, and beat himself, displaying the places where the fingers had been eaten away and become stubs. Seeing this body decomposing in leprosy, Praneshacharya thought again of Naranappa’s body rotting, uncremated. Putta threw a coin for the beggar. More deformed bodies rushed towards him, crawling, beating their stomachs, beating their mouths. “Let’s go, let’s go,” said the Acharya.

  Putta said, “You go in and eat your temple dinner.”

  “Why don’t you come along?” invited Praneshacharya. All of a sudden, he’d felt panic at the thought of being seen, alone, unaccompanied, by the rows of brahmins sitting down for the feast in the temple hall. “I can’t stir without Putta,” he thought. He’d never before felt such a dread of being alone.

  “What are you talking about? Did you forget I’m no brahmin, but a Malera?” said Putta, to which the Acharya said,

  “Never mind, come along.”

  “What, are you joking? This place is full of people who know me. If not, I’d have tried it. You know, don’t you, of the time a goldsmith boy told lies and got a job in the monastery? But then, we Maleras too have our sacred threads, don’t we? I’m just talking for talking’s sake. I really don’t have the gall, the guts to sit and eat a meal with you. You’d better go, I’ll wait here.”

  Praneshacharya, not able to stand the pathetic cries of the invading beggars all around him, walked into the temple in a daze.

  On all the four raised verandahs of the temple, they had set rows of banana leaves. Before each leaf sat a food-seeking brahmin. As he saw their faces, Praneshacharya’s heart sank. What would happen if they spot me? Let me run. But he couldn’t lift his feet. He stood there rooted, and thought: “What am I doing? What lowborn misdeed am I committing? I’m in the unclean period of mourning and can I in full knowledge sit with the brahmins and eat a meal? And pollute them all with my impurity? These people believe that the temple chariot will not move an inch if there’s any pollution around. If I seat myself here and eat with them, it’s as heinous a sin as Naranappa catching temple-fish to destroy brahmin ways. If they discover, in the middle of the meal, that this is Praneshacharya . . . that he’s still in the pollution period after his wife’s death . . . it’ll be a scandal. The entire chariot-festival will get cancelled. Thousands of eyes will devour him.”

  “Here, here’s a free leaf, come here,” said somebody. He was startled. He looked. A brahmin sitting at one end of the row was inviting him. What should he do? O Lord, what should he do? He just stood there. “Didn’t you hear me?” said the inviting brahmin, laughing, reaching out for Praneshacharya’s hand, and pointing to the free place and the leaf. “Look there. I reserved that leaf for you, and left a cup on it for you. If I had not, you’d have had to wait for the next meal-line,” he said. The Acharya mechanically walked to it and sat down. He felt dizzy in the head.

  Trying to calm down his mind, he thought, “O God, what’s the root of this dread? Are these the first pains of a rebirth? Is it the kind of fear that will be quenched if I sleep with Padmavati tonight? Will it be quenched if I go live with Chandri? What’s my decision worth? Am I forever to be a ghost of a man, hovering in indecision? I wish Putta was here. Shall I get up, walk out? What will the brahmin next to me think?”

  A brahmin walked through the row of seated diners, touching each leaf-end with holy water. Another poured a spoonful of milk-porridge on the edge of each leaf. From behind him, two robust brahmins came serving rice, crying out, “Clear the way, the way, the way.” Then there was a salad of lentils and cucumbers. There were new fears at the appearance of each face, as they came close to serve the food: “Maybe this one knows me and will recognize me, what will I do?”

  The brahmin who sat next to him, who gave him the place, was a huge dark figure like Bhimasena. A Smarta, with sandalpaste marks drawn lengthwise on his forehead. The Acharya feared him as soon as he set eyes on him. Furthermore, he had questions that made the Acharya nervous.

  “Can I ask from where you come?”

  “I’m right from this place.”

  “From where exactly? From down the mountain?”

  “Kundapura.”

  “What community, if I may ask?”

  “Vaishnava.”

  “What sub-group?”

  “Shivalli.”

  “I’m of the Kota group. What’s your descent-line?”

  “Bharadvaja.”

  “I’m of the Angirasa line. O sir, I’m really glad I met you. We’ve a young girl, getting ready for marriage. In a year or two, she’ll reach puberty. We can’t let our girls reach puberty, before we find them husbands; we’re not yet that spoiled. So we’re really looking now for a suitable bridegroom. Sir, do let me know if there’s any suitable groom in your group. Relieving a father’s burden is a great help. After we finish this meal, let’s go to our house. I’ll give you a copy of the girl’s horoscope. You can stay with us tonight.”

  Praneshacharya, getting his saru served into a leaf-cup, lifted his head and looked up. The man serving it was intently looking at him. He stood still for a second, then moved on.

  “All right,” said Praneshacharya, trying to cut the conversation short. Is it possible that this man serving saru knows his face? He has a charcoal caste-mark on his forehead, obviously a Madhva, like himself—it’s quite likely the man would know the Acharya. He can’t even get up now, after taking the holy water in his palm, after imbibing it in the name of the Lord, chanting with all the others: “Shrimad Ramaramana Govinda . . . aa . . . Govinda.” He mixed the saru with the hot steaming rice and ate it. It was some days since he’d had a regular meal. “O Lord, tide me over this calamity. See to it that I am not detected today. I cannot decide and say, ‘This is my own decision.’ I seem to involve everyone else in what I do. After what happened, I should have performed the rites for Naranappa myself. But how could I do it alone? The ritual needs three more, even to carry the body out. I have to ask three others. Which means, I involve three others in my decision. This is the root of my agony, my anxiety. Even when I slept with Chandri, unknown to everyone, I involved the life of the entire agrahara in my act. As a result, my life is open to the world.” The man serving saru came again, shouting, “Saru, saru, who wants saru?” He stood before the Acharya’s leaf and said, “Saru.” The Acharya looked up, timidly.

  The man said, “I think I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  “Quite possible,” said the Acharya. But by God’s grace the man went to the next row, to attend to their leaves. “But his eyes are thinking of me. They’re sending my image to his brain and trying to check out my identity. Even if I went with Chandri, someone will waylay me and ask, ‘Who are you? Which sub-caste? Which descent? Which group?’ Unless I shed brahminhood altogether I cannot stand aside, liberated from all this. If I shed it, I’ll fall into the tigerish world of cock-fights, I’ll burn like a worm. How shall I escape this state of neither-here-nor-there, this ghostliness?”

  The brahmin next to him grumbled, “They’ve watered down the saru this time. . . . What, you are filling your belly with mere saru. Do wait, sweets and things are yet to come.”

  The fellow who had brought the saru, came back this time with a vessel full of vegetable curry. He stopped in front of the Acharya and said, “I can’t remember where. Could it be in the monastery? On worship days I often go there for cooking jobs. Our agrahara is beyond the river. I did go to the monastery the day before yesterday to do some cooking, then I came here.”

  Then, in a hurry, he walked off to serve the next row, announcing, “Curry, curry, curry.”

  The Acharya thought he should get u
p now and walk out, but his legs had gone numb. The brahmin next to him said, “You know, our girl is a very good cook. Very obedient to elders. We want very much to give her to a respectable family where the father- and mother-in-law are still alive to guide family affairs.”

  “There’s only one way out of the present fear. I must take on the responsibility of Naranappa’s last rites. I must stand upright in the eyes of the brahmins, in the very agrahara where I grew up to be respected, an elder. Must call in Garuda and Lakshmana and tell them: ‘This is how it went. My decision is such and such. I’ll shed the respectability I acquired here before your eyes. I’ve come back to tear it and throw it down, right here before your eyes.’ If I don’t, my fear will dog me everywhere, I won’t be free. What then?

  “Just like Naranappa who turned the agrahara upside down by fishing in the temple-tank, I too would have turned the brahmin lives upside down. I’d be giving their faith a shattering blow. What shall I tell them? ‘I slept with Chandri. I felt disgust for my wife. I drank coffee in a common shop in a fair. I went to see a cock-fight. I lusted after Padmavati. Even at a time of mourning and pollution, I sat in a temple-line with brahmins and ate a holy feast. I even invited a Malera boy to come into the temple and join me. This is my truth. Not a confession of wrongs done. Not a repentance for sins committed. Just plain truth. My truth. The truth of my inner life. Therefore this is my decision. Through my decision, here! I cut myself off.’ ”

  “If necessary, we won’t object to giving her a dowry, sir. You know, the times are wicked; dark-skinned girls have a hard time getting husbands. You come and see the girl yourself. The only defect is her dark complexion, but her eyes and nose are very shapely. According to her horoscope, she has a rare Lion-Elephant combination for a good future. She’ll be the very Goddess of Good Luck to any house she sets foot in,” said the brahmin next to him, eating his curry and rice.

  “But if I don’t tell the agrahara brahmins, if Naranappa’s body is not properly cremated, I cannot escape fear. If I decide to live with Chandri without telling anyone, the decision is not complete, not fearless. I must come now to a final decision. All things indirect must become direct. Must pierce straight in the eye. But it’s agony either way. If I hide things, all through life I’ll be agonized by the fear of discovery, by some onlooking eye. If I don’t, I’ll muddy the lives of others by opening up and exposing the truth to the very eyes my brahminhood has lived and grown by. Have I the authority to include another’s life in my decision? The pain of it, the cowardice of it. O God, take from me the burden of decision. Just as it happened in the dark of the jungle, without my will, may this decision too happen. May it happen all at once. May a new life come into being before I blink my eye. Naranappa, did you go through this agony? Mahabala, did you go through it?”

  The man who had brought saru came this time with a basket of sweets. The brahmin next to the Acharya didn’t want the sweets served on his leaf, but received them in his left hand and put them aside. The man was again standing in front of his leaf. The Acharya’s heart heaved.

  “O yes, my memory be damned. You are Praneshacharya from Durvasapura, aren’t you? O how can someone like you come for a humble meal here? There was a big feast in the Sahukar’s house. For all the big people like you, they arranged the feast there. Because you didn’t have any mark on your forehead, I didn’t recognize you right away. Neither did you tell me. If I don’t tell the Sahukar, I’ll really get it in the neck—that I seated and fed a great Pundit at the end of a meal-line. I’ll be back in a minute. Wait. Please.” Saying which he ran, leaving the basket of sweets behind. Praneshacharya quickly took a palmful of ritual water, drank it up, ending his meal thereby. He leapt to his feet and walked away. “Swami, Swami, the milk-porridge is yet to come,” screamed the brahmin of the next leaf. But he didn’t turn back till he came out of the temple. He had come out, his hands yet unwashed—away from people, far away. Before he had gone far, he heard a voice: “Acharya-re . . . Acharya-re!” Putta’s voice. He came running and stood close to Praneshacharya, who quickened his pace.

  “What’s this, Swami? Not a word, and you’re running like someone in a hurry to go to the bathroom for a big job,” laughed Putta. When he was far from the crowd, the Acharya stopped. He looked at his unwashed hands and was disgusted.

  “What, the call was so urgent you couldn’t even wait to wash your hands! It’s happened to me too. Come let’s go to the tank, you can do it there.”

  They walked to the tank. Putta said, on the way:

  “I decided one thing, Acharya-re. I’ll come with you to Kundapura. I didn’t tell you earlier, my wife and children went to their mother’s place over a month ago. Haven’t had a letter from them. I’ve to talk to her and bring her back. You’re an elder. You must do me a favour. Come and give my wife some good advice. She’ll listen to you. You became my life’s companion in a single day. One more thing, Acharya-re. I don’t carry tales. I won’t breathe a word about your sleeping in Padmavati’s house—I’ll take an oath on my mother’s body, I won’t tattle. There I was standing, watching the monkey’s dance. Then I saw you running, it made me laugh. These things do happen. Calls of nature become most urgent right in the middle of dinner. I thought that’s what happened to you, so I felt like laughing.”

  Praneshacharya climbed down into the tank, and washed his hands. Above him, Putta stood, his back against the tank bricks. When Praneshacharya came back and stood next to him, he said,

  “What? Back so soon?”

  “One thing, Putta.”

  Praneshacharya looked up. The long evening of a summer day. Streaks of red on the west. Line after line of white birds returning to their nests. Down below, at the edge of the tank, a stork is gurgling. It’s almost time for lighting the lamps. How many days ago was it that the lamps were lit in the agrahara, that the returning evening cows and calves were tied up and milked, and the milk offered to the Lord? The clear faraway forms of the western hills grow dim, like a world melting in a dream. The colours of this moment fading the next, the sky grows bare. As the new-moon day is left behind, in a little while a sliver of the moon will appear over the hills, like the edge of a silver chalice bent over an idol for an inaugural libation. Silence will fill the valleys between the hills. The torches lit for the night service will die down as the service gets over, and the noises of the fair will fade. Again, the drama troupe’s drums will raise and spread their din. “If I begin walking now, I’ll reach the agrahara by midnight, far away from this world. In full view of the frightened brahmins, I’ll stand exposed like the naked quick of life; and I, elder in their midst, will turn into a new man at midnight. Maybe when the fire leaps and dances around Naranappa’s dead body, there’ll be a certain consolation. When I tell them about myself, there should be no taint of repentance in me, no trace of any sorrow that I am a sinner. If not, I cannot go beyond conflict and dualities. I must see Mahabala. Must tell him: only the form we forge for ourselves in our inmost will is ours without question. If that’s true, don’t you really have any craving for good any more?—I must ask him.” That melodious Sanskrit line came into his mind again: “Southern breezes from sandalwood mountains caress delicate vines of clove.” Praneshacharya was quite moved. Affection moved him. He put a hand over Putta’s shoulders, and drew him closer. And patting his back for the first time, he said, “What was I about to say?”

  “O sir, when I met you on the road, your talk was so stiff that I thought this gentleman will never be friends with me,” said Putta, delighted that the Acharya put a friendly hand on his shoulder.

  “Look here, Putta. Do you know why I left that dinner in a hurry? I’ve to get back to Durvasapura at once.”

  “Oho, how can you do that, Acharya-re? Your Padmavati will be waiting there for you, with a soft bed all ready; joss-sticks all lit up, and flowers in her hair. If you aren’t there with me, how can I face her? Whatever your urgent business, you must stay here tonight and go only by morning. A curse on m
y head if you leave now,” said Putta, and tugged at Praneshacharya. Praneshacharya got a little frightened. He doubted the firmness of his own will. He might slide back. He must now escape Putta.

  “No, Putta. Impossible. Shall I tell you the truth? I didn’t want to involve your feelings, so I didn’t tell you so far.” He thought for a moment, and decided it was best to tell a lie. “My brother is deathly sick in Durvasapura. I heard the news while I was sitting there in the temple. It may be any minute now, how can I . . .?”