A Fine Family: A Novel

by Das, Gurcharan

  One day, during his evening walk, Arjun was attracted by a stone in a quiet corner of the jail compound. Each day the stone was freshly decorated with red powder and flowers. He recognized it as the same auspicious powder which women commonly wore on their foreheads. A few days later he discovered that it was the work of a Bihari weaver, who occupied the cell next to his. He asked him about the stone. At first the weaver was upset and afraid. But gradually Arjun won his confidence.

  ‘It is god,’ said the weaver.

  ‘And you worship it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A week later the stone was not there. Thinking his neighbour would be grieved, Arjun asked him, ‘What happened to your god?’

  ‘The jail authorities removed it,’ the weaver said nonchalantly.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I have already found another stone and anointed it.’

  Arjun was shocked. Slowly he realized that any piece of stone which his neighbour anointed became god for him. What mattered was the faith, not the stone. Gradually he began to understand how the weaver’s mythical imagination directed his inner life. In his simplicity the weaver had kept alive the ancient way of perceiving the world, which was similar to the sages of the Vedas at the dawn of civilization.

  Arjun was fascinated and disturbed. One part of him dismissed the weaver’s world as superstitious; it was precisely this kind of obscurantism, he felt, which kept the country backward and perpetuated an unjust caste order. Another part of him was attracted to the weaver’s daring subjective world, which enabled him to see organic connections between the animal and the human worlds and all of nature surrounding him.

  11

  Priti was sitting quietly by the riverbank one evening at the ancient ashram. It was the end of autumn, when the dark night is scratched by the lines of falling stars. With Arjun in jail, she had finally accepted Seva Ram’s invitation to visit them. At first she had hesitated, but slowly the idea grew on her. She was lonely and unhappy in Bombay. She had to overcome her feelings for Tara, but Seva Ram’s invitation was so warm and affectionate that she was eventually persuaded.

  When Arjun first went to jail, she used to be busy all the time, working with his company’s lawyers, meeting politicians and bureaucrats, trying to find some way to get him out of jail. She even contacted the Nawab and Dumpy. Billimoria and the others genuinely tried but their efforts were to no avail. The Nawab confessed one day his inability to help because he had found out from a high source that Arjun had insulted Sanjay at the time of his arrest. She cried when she heard this, and from then on she reconciled herself to a long, hard wait.

  As she watched the sky expectantly, she remembered that as a young girl in Simla she had whispered a single word, ‘love’, deep from her heart at the very moment that she had seen a falling star. As the years passed, she had forgotten about her wish. Now she had become a mature woman, having gone through a full range of worldly experience; she had seen good and bad times; she had loved, she had been loved; she had rejected and she had been rejected. Thinking it would bring her happiness, she had eventually married and experienced the routine of married life. Now she had a baby as well. But each experience had left something to be desired. There had always remained a gap. She longed for an experience that would be permanent and bring her fullness. Much as she admired Arjun, much as she was fond of him and missed him, she also knew that he was not what she had wished for as a girl in Simla. A quiet voice inside her always whispered to her, ‘It’s not this; it’s not this.’ At the same time she was certain that it was there somewhere.

  The turbulence in Priti’s heart contrasted with the calm prevailing at the ashram. Earlier in the day she had experienced an utterly different feeling of peace while sitting at the feet of the venerable master. The shadows of her old attachments and experiences had passed before her eyes and had vanished. Her former efforts at excitement and love seemed ridiculous to her. For a brief moment she understood the meaning of her adolescent wish before the falling star, and she actually felt that it might be fulfilled.

  The ancient guru had a strange power to awaken strong feelings towards himself, and she found herself gradually coming under his spell. In a simple yet powerful way, he taught her that the first duty of human beings is to seek the truth.

  ‘Truth is known,’ the guru told her, ‘by the practice of contemplation in degrees of increasing intensity, rising to mystical ecstasy. In so doing one leaves behind the isolated, fearful, self-centred individual that one is, and becomes one with the universal and absolute reality. What the world thinks of as life is really death; our task is to escape from it to that which is truly life—the kind of life that man is intrinsically capable of and for which he is divinely intended.’

  Priti was powerfully impressed with the idea that she could free herself from her own ego and from the control of her selfish longings which seemed to bind her to the needs of her body and to other transitory concerns.

  Priti had not been particularly receptive in the beginning. Seva Ram had asked her if she would like to meet the sage and she had declined. But after a few days she felt inquisitive and she went to the morning assembly on her own. She was shy and therefore she sat at the back of the large hall. There were a number of people sitting on the floor in rows, the women on one side, the men on the other. The guru lifted up his head and looked directly into her eyes. She felt as if he were inviting her to come nearer. She was struck by the soft beauty of his eyes, so simple and direct. His attitude was natural and she no longer felt shy and began to attend meetings and to visit him.

  ‘The essence of the truth,’ said the guru, ‘is basically the same in all the religions. It is that there is only one God and it is within each of us. We can find God through the practice of meditation under the direction of a living guru.’

  The guru was over ninety years old now, but he was still extremely alert and confident. He stood tall but he had grown thinner; his skin was the colour of old ivory; his hair was white but it did not flow quite as it used to; his movements were easy and calm. He always sat cross-legged, his head slightly bent. His physical frame was weak and he used to get tired after some time and go inside to rest.

  Watching the autumn sky one day and thinking of her life, Pria’ felt ashamed and foolish for having pursued the wrong people and the wrong things. It pricked her pride and made her feel foolish and sordid to realize that the people she had most respected as a youngster were the ones she most despised today. She grew angry at her own inertia. Slowly she became more agitated. Her distress was related to her doubts, her lack of will and her feeling of helplessness. She decided to go home. As she was rushing back she heard the guru’s voice. She stopped and looked around. There was no one. She started to walk, and again she heard the same voice. She stopped again. She wondered if she was losing her mind. She could not make out what the voice said, but she clearly felt that the guru had spoken to her. She was attracted to the voice and wanted to pursue it. But it stopped. She waited and waited, but it was gone. When she reached home she wanted to tell Seva Ram about it, but she felt embarrassed. Secretly, she regarded the voice as a positive sign, and she was happy. Thinking of the guru, she felt her doubts dissolve and she felt free.

  But Priti’s tempestuous spirit could not bear to wait for long. The next day, sitting in the garden with Seva Ram, she told him everything: about her strangely powerful feelings for the guru, about the voice, about her doubts, even about her childhood wish before the falling star. Seva Ram listened intently. Eventually he spoke, ‘When the student is ready the master appears.’ Gently he described the life of the spirit, of the guru’s love and of the soul’s journey towards God. She felt lifted by what he said. As they talked, she felt extremely happy. She forgot her former unhappy moments, and no longer felt ashamed of her sensual past. She felt she could one day reach the highest state of mysticism, which was bare of everything except’ the infinite love of God. She told Seva Ram, ‘The best thing about
Bombay is the sea. And then you come here, and you feel that the sky is grander. And then you meet the guru, and you know that the inside of the human soul is the grandest of all.’

  It was reassuring to learn from Seva Ram about the mystery of the love between the guru and the disciple. The living teacher was at the very heart of the matter, he explained, and she must not feel ashamed of her strong feelings for him. The guru would guide her soul through its difficult spiritual journey. He would teach her to meditate properly so that she could shake off the bonds of her mind and her body. Love was the only real basis of the relationship; she must never stop loving him.

  Priti’s behaviour underwent a change. She would wait patiently at the guru’s door, for long hours of the day and night, just for a glimpse of his face. She did not mind the crowds, the jostling, and the heat. During the morning discourse, she would listen to him in rapt attention, her eyes scarcely moving from his face. While her hands remained closed in adoration, occasionally tears would flow down her cheeks. Anywhere else this behaviour would have been considered odd, but at the ashram it was regarded normal for initiates. Only Tara seemed to mind, and she reminded her daughter-in-law to conduct herself with more dignity.

  ‘Priti,’ said Tara one morning. ‘Where is your diamond ring? I haven’t seen it for days.’

  Priti blushed and turned very red. ‘It’s ah. . . it’s ah lost,’ she said in a fluster.

  ‘Lost! What do you mean, child? Nothing gets lost at the ashram.’

  ‘I must have misplaced it then.’

  ‘The servants couldn’t have stolen it, but I don’t know about the woman who comes to wash the clothes. She’s new.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t steal it.’

  ‘Well, what could have happened to it?’

  ‘I. . . I don’t know.’

  ‘Priti, what is it? Why don’t you come clean.’

  ‘Well, I can’t tell you.’

  ‘It’s up to you, my dear. It’s a valuable ring. I got the diamond as part of my dowry. And Bhabo got it in marriage from her father.’

  Priti remained upset the whole day. She did not come out at lunch, nor did she go to sit by the river in the evening. When Seva Ram returned home at night, she went up to him and burst into tears. He put his arms around her and tried to quiet her. Through her tears she explained that she had left her ring in the guru’s pocket.

  ‘He has given me so much and I have given him nothing in return. He’s given me his love. I feel so ungrateful. Well, the other day I offered him my ring. He wouldn’t accept it. I insisted that he take it as a token of my love. He still didn’t take it. He merely smiled in his usual way. I tried to argue with him, but it was no use. So when he went out of the room I quickly hid the ring in the pocket of his coat—the one he never wears.’

  ‘But why did you do it, Priti? What would he do with a ring?’

  ‘Well, he could wear it I have noticed his fingers are not very different from mine.’

  ‘You know he won’t.’

  ‘He lives so simply. I mean he seems poor. I just couldn’t bear it that I live so well. When it gets cold, he doesn’t even have enough warm clothes. I thought that if he felt cold he could sell the ring and buy himself warm clothes.’

  Priti spoke so naively and innocently, that Seva Ram had tears in his eyes. He hugged her. He was moved by her childlike affection for the guru. He went to his room and brought her ring and he said, ‘Priti, a true guru doesn’t take anything from a disciple. In accepting anything he would take on the burden of the disciple’s karma, which he doesn’t want to. The other day when you left the ring, he sent for me. He gave the ring back, and he said, “This jewel belonged to Bhabo and to Tara, I can’t take it—too much there. But tell Priti that I love her very much. I also know that she loves me.”’

  During the Diwali holidays, the guru left for his annual tour to deliver discourses in the major cities of India. In his absence Priti felt forlorn. She would sit alone on the banks of the river. The weather was dreary. Winter clouds hung over the sky and chilly winds had started to blow from the Himalayas. In the absence of the guru there was no cheer in Diwali: no gaiety, no sweets nor even delight in her own daughter. But Tara and Seva Ram loved the baby with a passion and so there was always someone to look after her. Sometimes they spoke sadly of Arjun. Priti discovered that she had grown so detached from her former life that she seemed to listen to talk about Arjun as if she were an observer. Tara would get tears in her eyes when she spoke about her son, and Priti would console her. Priti realized that she still cared about Arjun, but it was a different feeling from Tara’s. She began to think of Arjun’s life in jail as a necessary outcome of his karma, something that he was destined to go through. Since she now believed that the real world was the inner one deep inside her, the outer world of Arjun and Bombay seemed faded and bland in comparison. Even the baby did not feel quite real or something that was her own.

  12

  The evening chanting of the sandhya was over. For a quarter-of-an-hour Arjun had watched from his flat the magnificent pink light turn into dusk over the sea; for a quarter-of-an-hour voices of Seva Ram, Tara, Priti and his two daughters and their girl friends had interwoven a rhythmic chant in Sanskrit. During the melodic strain the whole atmosphere in the white stucco drawing room seemed to change. Even Rajah, their princely Indian hound, given to the girls by their grandmother, looked penitent and abashed.

  Now, as the voices fell silent and the lights were switched on in the apartment, everything dropped back into its usual disorder. Golden-haired Rajah jumped up and ran about barking. The women rose quickly to their feet, their silk saris rustling as they left the room. The girls fussed with their dresses and their hair, exchanged quick glances and snatches of boarding school slang. For over three weeks his daughters had been home from their school in the Himalayas. It was their summer break, and they were happy to be back with the family. The grandparents were also visiting Bombay, glad to escape the northern heat. Restlessly, Priti glanced around at her noisy children and her quiet husband, and walked out towards the kitchen to oversee the dinner arrangements. A large number of people would be dining with them tonight. Apart from the family, numerous friends were expected (including friends of friends of the girls) to celebrate Arjun’s fortieth birthday.

  Meanwhile, Arjun too rose to his feet. He had filled out and looked prosperous and substantial, a man ready to enter middle age. With a quick eye and a glint of pride, he took in his family assembled around him. But the lofty feeling was tinged with sadness. For despite his worldly success, all was not well in his world. He has been out of Gaya Central Jail for six years now, but its memory continued to impinge on his present life. Priti had been initiated by the guru for the same amount of time and she had changed even more.

  Arjun’s release had come with as little warning as his arrest. After fifteen months in prison he was suddenly discharged on a sunny morning in January. As he was going through the formalities of departure at the jail office he happened to glance at a newspaper on the clerk’s desk. The headline announced that Mrs Gandhi had called an election. She had relaxed the Emergency and political opponents were being released so that they could contest the elections. ‘In a democratic system the government must face the people periodically and reaffirm the power of the people,’ the paper quoted Mrs Gandhi. Even a tyrant, Arjun had thought with amusement, needs the people’s consent.

  After an emotional meeting with Priti, the baby, and his parents at the ashram, Arjun went to Bombay where he was accorded a hero’s welcome at his office. He learned that his strategy on the margins issue had been vindicated and the trade boycott had rapidly fizzled out. Not having succeeded in raising quick money, Guha had lost interest and moved on to more lucrative ventures. With the Emergency over, Arjun’s company now retained a high-powered criminal lawyer to press charges against Guha, the Calcutta police officer who had signed his FIR and the deputy commissioner of Calcutta, under whose signature the MISA wa
rrant for his arrest had been effected.

  Arjun was not bitter about his fifteen months in jail largely because of his positive outlook on life. Much like Bauji after the partition, he had pulled himself together and gone back to doing what he did best. He felt it could have happened to anyone. But he was no longer innocent of suffering and cruelty; he had certainly become acutely sensitive to the value of liberty. He did not gloat over Mrs Gandhi’s defeat at the polls; nor did he believe that the Emergency was more than a temporary insanity.

  ‘I sometimes wonder,’ Tara told Arjun, ‘if our democracy isn’t just a matter of the blind leading the blind.’

  ‘The taste of democracy becomes bitter, mother, when the fullness of democracy is denied; when the weak do not have the same opportunity as the strong.’

  Although Arjun had now reached the dangerous age, he had not grown fat; he looked strong and significant, as successful men have a way of appearing. He had never been big; in fact he was shorter than most men, but his broad shoulders made him seem large. He had also been elevated to the board of his company, which continued to be a blue chip on the Bombay Stock Exchange. He was one of the youngest in the corporate world to have won that privilege, and he continued to successfully steer the company to growth and profitability through difficult times. Everyone expected him one day to become chairman of the company. Outside, he was admired for excelling at his work and his views were solicited by both industry and government. Thus Arjun had more than fulfilled Bauji’s prophecy.