I was still lying there when they came back . . . my husband and child. The child was whining and came running towards me. I thought he was tired and cradled him, soothing him with soft words, but when I touched him, I found his body hot.
‘He has fever,’ I said accusingly. ‘You shouldn’t have taken him out.’
‘I wish to God I hadn’t,’ he said moodily, throwing himself into a chair.
‘Let’s go back,’ I said suddenly. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ he agreed instantly to my astonishment. ‘I’m tired of this place.’
You too? I wondered, but I didn’t want to know anything more. Since the day he had turned his back on me I had closed my mind to him. And yet, now, as I looked at him, compassion flowed into me. And, momentarily, it was as if the shadows had lifted. So that, somehow, it suddenly seemed possible to talk to him. And perhaps in the evening I would meet the other man as well. ‘Hi,’ he would say, as friendly as always, ‘come and meet Mamata.’ And I would get up and walk towards them smiling, uncaring of how I looked.
And now, I had a feeling that if the valley was in shadow no longer, if the sunshine fell on it, perhaps even its bareness and aridity would look beautiful.
Appa-mam
PADMA HEJMADI
A mam is an uncle and the elders called him Appa, so to us he was always Appa-mam. He had other revealing epithets like ‘That Shameless Rascal’—and the ‘Old Burnt-Face’ which is one of the deadlier insults in our dialect. On Appa-mam, however, it was more of a title or decoration—he wore it with such an air.
I saw him for the first time when my mother took us down to Madras to stay with my grandparents. They lived in a large, rambling house with many dark old rooms and uneven floors, overflowing with uncles and aunts and cousins and a floating population of other relatives who wandered in and stayed for a while and wandered out again. There was a college next door of which Grandfather was the Principal, so an occasional nephew or a distant third cousin who was enrolled there also sometimes came to spend the weekend—generally on his best behaviour for Grandfather’s benefit.
There was one especially who, I remember thinking, was intensely romantic because he was tall and pale and had a Byronic limp from an injury which once made him faint dead away on the drawing room carpet and lie there looking more romantic than ever. Also, a part of the house was Great-grandmother, tiny and shrivelled, and senile whenever she felt like it; but always beautiful, with her snow-white hair and dark eyes, as she sat among her bedclothes and said the most amazing things. Or so it seemed to us children, though we were never allowed to hear her for very long.
Then there was Kuppu who washed clothes and cleaned vessels; she told us ghost stories and to our grandmother she recited a long string of her husband’s misdemeanours in the flat accents of the city Tamilian.
Grandmother, being gentle, sympathized with her as patiently as she listened to her mother-in-law’s querulous complaints. She spoilt us and mothered her towering, six-foot sons; argued with Grandfather, cooked divinely and expounded the Bhagavad Gita, serving us equal portions of rice and philosophy at every meal. I liked Grandfather best because he was shrewd and kind and could laugh with us or spank us at times with perfect justice. The uncles teased and the cousins could be fun. But none of them was quite as intriguing as Appa-mam.
We came in, dusty after the train journey, and found him ensconced in Grandfather’s chair, wearing Grandfather’s dhoti and smoking Grandfather’s bidi. His head was clean-shaven, his forehead liberally smeared with ashes, and he was reading a newspaper.
My mother stopped short in amazement at the doorway when she saw him. ‘Why Appa-mam, when did you arrive? Where have you been all these years?’
Appa-mam smiled benignly at her. ‘Ah, my child, it is always a pleasure to see you and your little ones . . . As for myself,’ he declared with dignity, ‘I have been in the mountains, meditating.’
At which one of the aunts coming in from the next room gave a very audible sniff. That was the first I knew about his having taken sannyasa, renouncing all worldly joys and embarking on the holy man’s search for spiritual knowledge. At the moment, though, sitting on the easy chair and smoking his bidi, he did not look very spiritual. Nor did his subsequent behaviour prove otherwise.
Appa-mam obviously enjoyed his smoke as much as he enjoyed his sister’s cooking; he insisted on helping her in the kitchen and produced all kinds of atrocious concoctions which no one could eat; he had heated political discussions with my uncles, telling them stories taller than themselves; he sat in the sun and slept in the shade; he played cricket with my cousins and helped them with their algebra and they all thought it a huge joke when more than half the sums were wrong; he found the newspapers interesting and the chairs comfortable; he liked the borrowed clothes he wore and loved talking to the various assortment of relatives in the house, especially Great-grandmother. In fact I never did see anyone enjoy life as much as this man who was supposed to have renounced all its pleasures.
He was even highly delighted by his nephews’ unmerciful teasing and Grandfather’s caustic comments on his sannyasa-hood. When the younger uncle pretended to adjust his halo, he admitted with a chuckle that it was always a little awry. And Appa-mam wasn’t just being a good sport, either; he genuinely found it as funny as his nephews did and was not in the least ruffled by the aspersions cast on his holiness or the lack of it. Only once did I hear him rise to his defence and then it was with a mild, ‘Well, that’s my way of being a sannyasi, you know . . .’
Appa-mam’s way of being a sannyasi, I found later, was not only beyond definition, it was completely unpredictable. There were no rules to bind him and no ties to hold him up. Sometimes he would disappear for days together without any explanation and then reappear on the doorstep one fine morning with his saffron robe and begging bowl, looking thin and unshaven but as cheerful as ever. It was when you asked him where he had been that you discovered Appa-mam’s creative talents. He had a different story for each person, depending on what he thought of their individual taste and powers of appreciation—but each version, generally, was a little wilder and more colourful than the last. Sometimes when he vanished, he took Grandfather’s cufflinks with him, or maybe ten rupees from Grandmother’s housekeeping money, or an odd ornament or two from the table.
This time, I heard the uncles upstairs telling each other to lock up their belongings since Appa-mam was around, and catching the implication, I sought out my mother in horror.
‘Is it true Appa-mam is a thief?’
My mother sighed and said, ‘Who told you that?’ and when I explained, she shook her head.
‘Everyone talks of his taking things but apparently no one mentions how easily he gives them away as well. Appa-mam is a peculiar sort of person, you see. Since he has taken the ascetic vow, he obviously does not believe in possessions—neither his own nor anybody’s else’s. He wears your grandfather’s clothes as if they were his own, but he himself has nothing beyond that robe and begging bowl. It’s true he takes things (and you can call it stealing) though why he does, I wouldn’t know. Anyway, whatever he takes he never keeps, it’s all given away to the first needy person he comes across. Have you ever noticed anyone asking him for a smoke? He hands out not just one bidi but as many as he can find around. If Appa-mam had a shirt,’ she finished, smiling, ‘he’d probably give it proverbially off his back—’
‘Then, is he a real sannyasi?’
‘That I do not know. You’ll have to judge for yourself. Though there’s no point judging anyone, really, least of all Appa-mam whose standards are so entirely his own. All I can say is that if he has no compunctions about taking, he has no hesitation about giving either.’
As if to prove her point, the next day Appa-mam announced that he was going on foot to the temple at Tirukazhukunram, to make a day’s pilgrimage and return by nightfall. Grandmother got up at dawn to cook some rice for him and packed it carefully into a bell-metal lunch container t
hat had belonged to their father. Younger uncle, who was also up early that morning studying for an examination, watched Appa-mam depart and then turned to his mother.
‘I don’t mind if Old Burnt-Face doesn’t return,’ he remarked with a heartless grin, ‘but I certainly hope that the lunch container does.’
Late that evening, however, Old Burnt-Face did return—a weary, footsore, bedraggled object in the dusk—bearing the empty container with him. He was so exhausted that he could hardly talk but managed nonetheless to remark with his usual dignity that these few days of soft living had spoiled him for even a single day of starvation.
‘Starvation?’ Grandmother echoed incredulously. ‘But I packed the lunch for you myself!’
Appa-mam dismissed that with a wave of his hand. ‘Oh, I know, there was plenty of rice and there was another pilgrim on the way who hadn’t eaten for two days, so I gave it to him. But I remembered to ask for the container back,’ he added with justifiable pride. ‘I remembered that you liked it.’
‘It was Father’s,’ Grandmother said in a small voice. But Appa-mam had already forgotten the whole episode and was halfway up the stairs, mumbling between yawns that he wanted to have his bath and dinner and get to sleep as soon as possible.
‘Don’t have any nightmares,’ Grandfather called after him, and everybody roared.
Appa-mam’s nightmare was part of the family legend that was later to accrue around him. His previous visit had been rather a long one. No one had seen him for three years and then one night when the boys were away at college and my grandparents had gone early to bed, a dark figure appeared at the gate calling hoarsely: ‘Premavati! Premavati!’ . . . My grandmother woke up with a start at hearing her name and was terrified for a moment until Grandfather woke up too and saw who it was and said, ‘Oh, you Old Burnt-Face, have you come back again?’
Appa-mam had not only come back, he had even brought with him the twenty-five rupees he had taken from Grandfather’s desk during his last visit. The uncles decided later that it was probably this extreme act of virtue which brought on the nightmare. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that Grandfather woke up at midnight to find Appa-mam yelling some gibberish and dancing like a dervish around his bed.
‘Appa,’ he said sharply, ‘stop it. What do you think you’re doing, waking up everybody at this time of night?’ But Appa-mam continued to yell and wave his arms and dance around the bed.
‘Appa,’ Grandfather said louder. ‘Appa, stop it!’
Even that had no effect, so he finally got up and gave Appa-mam a resounding thrash on his back. At that, Appa-mam stopped abruptly, sat down on the bed and opened his eyes; and Grandfather discovered the man had been asleep all the time.
‘Good God, I might have killed you! . . . What on earth were you doing?’
Appa-mam sat and looked at Grandfather in silence, thinking of an explanation. Eventually he found it. ‘Cats,’ he said. ‘That’s what it was. You don’t keep cats.’ And he went back to bed.
He never heard the end of that and neither did we.
There was a new game in the family after this, evolved by the youngest generation and called Appa-mam’s Nightmare—with one playing Grandfather, the other taking Appa-mam’s role, and the smallest being the cats that weren’t.
Listening to that story, I had felt vaguely sorry for Appa-mam for having nightmares; but (apart from the fact that he did not seem to be afflicted by them any more) seeing him now, it was as difficult to pity him as it was to condemn him. And though I still could not decide about his identity as a real sannyasi, it was equally difficult to make an enigma out of him. He continued to be Appa-mam: cheerful and happy-go-lucky, unconcerned about any of the things that worried other grown-ups, and deriving immense satisfaction out of just being alive.
And then one day the disciples came. Kuppu saw them first: a motley collection of people peering in, dubiously, at the gate, wanting to know if the sannyasi was at home, and if they might obtain his darshan, his personal blessing. She brought the news to us at breakfast, all agog with excitement.
Appa-mam swallowed his coffee and said with composure, ‘Ah yes, my disciples.’
‘Your disciples!’ Grandmother exclaimed. ‘We didn’t know you had any!’
It was only then we learned that Appa-mam really had been practising silent meditation for years, near a little north Indian village where he had acquired a band of devotees and been revered as a saint.
The older uncle, who was an economist and the most irreverent of us all, was the first to recover from this dumbfounding bit of information.
‘I had always suspected,’ he said, ‘that half these holy men were a bunch of charlatans. Now I know for certain. Imagine anyone coming to seek Appa-mam’s darshan—’
And the younger uncle ruminated aloud that he might as well leave Law College and become a sannyasi, since it seemed to be a much more profitable occupation. A cousin choked over the idli he was eating, and soon the aunts had begun to giggle and everyone thought it was the funniest thing that had happened in years.
Meanwhile Appa-mam finished his breakfast quite undisturbed by the general amusement and all the derogatory comments flying back and forth. Then finally he spoke and his voice—Appa-mam’s familiar, cheerfully raucous voice—was more quiet than we had ever heard it.
‘Understand this,’ he said. ‘I have no objection to your laughing about it all. But if you have a grain of sense in your heads, don’t do that in front of the disciples. Once they have gone you can laugh at me as much as you like, it will make no difference. But while they are here, remember they have come a long way and respect their faith.’
The laughter died down and there was quiet after that. Having performed the necessary rites of purification and worship Appa-mam sat cross-legged under the neem tree at the back of the house and saw his disciples one by one.
They came walking across the courtyard—a mother with her baby, an old farmer, a cripple, a young couple, a handful of children—all of them bringing offerings of milk and coconuts and wild honey and rice. Appa-mam blessed each of them, especially the little ones, made the cripple sit next to him and rest awhile, spoke to the farmer and smiled at the young couple with a gentle benediction that none of us—watching fascinated from the kitchen window—had ever seen before.
That night, after the devotees had left and Appa-mam had come in, when everybody had gone to bed and the house was silent, I mentioned to my mother that I had decided Appa-mam was a real sannyasi after all.
Two days later, my aunt’s earrings were missing and so was Appa-mam. We have not heard of him since.
The Tree
MANOJ DAS
Right from the time the season was on the brink of monsoon the village elders had begun to look grave. The sinister cloud formation on the mountains several miles away, and a wide ring of uncanny aura around the moon had informed them that there were terrible days ahead.
The flood came at a little past midnight. Although the villagers were sound sleepers, the jackals, with their long moaning howls, managed to wake up several people. They called out to each other and, reassured of each other’s presence, soon gathered on the river-bank with lanterns and torches of dry twigs. The flames danced in the gusts making their faces appear and disappear.
The moon was draped in clouds and the stars looked pallid as the eyes of dead fish. Nothing much could be seen of the river, but one could sense it swell and hear it hissing like a thousand-hooded cobra. The wind carried the smell of crushed raw earth.
Flood waters never entered this village, although hardly a season passed without the river playing havoc with the villages a couple of miles downstream. The people down there knew when to go over to their roofs or perch on the trees. After three or four days they descended and took root again.
But even though the flood did not enter the village, it nibbled at the high ridge and once in a while gobbled up a chunk of the grassland stretching along the bank.
The vi
llagers felt scandalized every time their familiar tame river expanded and looked alien and began hissing. It gave the sort of shock which one experiences when a domestic animal suddenly goes crazy, behavingly wildly and not responding to any amount of endearment. One just looked on helplessly.
And that is what the villagers were doing, when they suddenly realized that the situation was much more serious than they had imagined. They heard a chugging and the faint sound of voices already tired and cracking. They raised their lanterns. At that the voices grew more plaintive. The villagers strained their eyes to see through the darkness and the mist. A few of them could make out the black lump passing on the ashen waters and shouted the only sensible advice that could be given to a boat caught up in the first rush of a flood: ‘Have patience. As soon as it is dawn the villagers downstream will throw ropes and save you. Keep on shouting, God be with you.’
Such boats generally came from the forest at the foot of the mountains where they went to collect timber. Sometimes they were given another stock advice: ‘Throw away the load and make the vessel lighter, but do not go too light.’ A vessel too light became a plaything for the rollicking waves.
The voices from the dark became fainter and remote, random syllables blown in by the erratic wind.
The wind grew stronger and colder and was soon accompanied by a thin shower. All ran to take shelter under the banyan tree. The wicks of the lanterns had to be turned low so that the glass would cool down and not crack when hit by the splinters of raindrops.
The leaves chattered incessantly their familiar language of hope and courage. The innumerable boughs that spread overhead had been the very symbol of protection for generations, offering shelter not only to those who bore love and regard for the tree, but even to such people who had been impudent towards it, of course, so far as the latter were concerned, only after humbling them to their knees. The elders would point at a mound covered with grass and shrubs, not far from the tree, citing the most ancient proof of this fact. The mound had decayed through centuries, but it was still ‘as high as two men’. They did not expect anyone to ignore a fact so solid and as high as two men.
Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century, Volume 1 Page 13