by Anita Desai
Diverted by his laugh, she drew up her chair; she had not heard anyone laugh in a long time. ‘First you will have to tell me when you came to the ashram.’
He blushed a deep purple. ‘Oh, why do you wish to hear about me? I was a boy when I came. My family wanted me to marry. They got hold of some poor girl and told me I had to marry her. How could I? My heart was filled with love of God only. I ran away from there and the poor girl was saved from marrying me.’
‘And you came here?’
‘No, no, this ashram did not exist then. It was to the ashram in Hardwar that I fled, up in the mountains, where the Master lived. I went to the Master to ask for diksha, initiation. I was studying there, learning from the Master, when the Mother came. Yes, yes, I was there when the Mother first came! The Master said to us, “The Mother has come amongst us. She is a manifestation of the Divine for which I have been preparing you. She has come to bring you enlightenment and through enlightenment you will receive the bliss you desire. You must all worship her as the Divine Mother. She has come to serve you, and you must serve and obey her. Then only can she reveal her full glory to you.” And when he spoke those words, we prostrated ourselves before her. What joy we felt that she had come! We had a feast that day and sweets were given to everyone. I was so happy, I danced and sang and wept like a madman. You see, I had left my own mother, but now the Divine Mother had come to take her place.
‘When the Mother first came – oh, she was so shy, so quiet, she would hide from us all. But the Master gave her courage, he gave her confidence by placing his confidence in her. Little by little he passed on his duties to her. He himself retired into meditation and study, and little by little the Mother took his place in the ashram.
‘The Mother set about cleaning the ashram and bringing order to it. Before she came, the ashram was in such bad condition, I felt ashamed. The Master was absorbed in meditation and did not notice such things. But she could not bear that. If a tap was leaking, she had it fixed. If a lamp was broken she had it replaced. She served us in every way. She said the food is bad and she went to the kitchen and she showed the cooks how to bake bread, none of us had ever eaten anything so delicious. Yet it was plain bread! Some of the old disciples grumbled. They did not like her to change things, they criticised her for bringing luxury into the ashram. But they were wrong, completely wrong. She was making the ashram beautiful, a fit place for the Master to live in, and they did not appreciate that. They went to the Master and complained about her. They said she is a Muslim and a foreigner, she is polluting our ashram. The Master told them God is One and He is everywhere, in the temple and the mosque. He recited to us the verses written by Kabir – you know our great poet, Kabir? He was a simple weaver, of the Julaha caste, and of a Muslim family. But he lived in the holy city of Benares and he wrote songs to Rama. The Master made us learn these songs and sing them to purify our hearts of hatred and bad thoughts.
‘But there were some people in the ashram who still said the Mother’s influence is bad, she should go. What stories they made up – toba! You will not believe such things can be said in an ashram. Even if the Mother took me into her room to give me medicine or give me a glass of milk to drink, they would talk. They were like that, bad. I was not happy and I wept. I thought I had run away from all evil when I left my home where my family was always quarrelling, but toba, it was worse in the ashram!
‘The Mother became very, very sad. She said, “I will go away. I do not want to cause all this trouble in the ashram.” But the Master would not let her – he knew she was not evil! One day he told the terrible story of the ashram to an old lady who used to come on a pilgrimage every year from Calcutta. She was a widow and very rich and she had land and a house in the valley. She had given everything to the ashram – she herself wore a white sari, no jewellery, she was a saint. The Master told her about the sad things happening in the ashram, he told her it was not a good place any longer. She herself knew nothing, she was too saintly, she did not listen to gossip. But she listened to the Master and she said, “Master, if you are unhappy here, you must leave. I have a house in the valley, please take it. It is all I have left but you must take it and start another ashram. It is on the bank of a river. It was used as a hunting lodge by my late husband and I have used it as a retreat. No one lives there, it is in the jungle. Your presence and the Mother’s presence will make it a sacred place.” That is what she said, that saintly lady, and that is how we came here, to this ashram.’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh, many, many years ago, my dear lady, before you were even walking upon this earth, I am sure. Only the Master, the Mother and I came – the three of us. But slowly, slowly other disciples began to follow the Master – some from the ashram up in Hardwar who had felt sad when we left, and new ones who heard about this ashram. And we began again – everything began here. The river was much closer then; now it has receded. The Master and the Mother lived in the old bungalow where she lives now; she had a garden laid out around it, we all helped. That is the garden where the Master’s samadhi is now. Yes, she herself made it. She had only to say, “I want this, do this,” and we ran to do it. She brought in cows to give us milk, birds to sing – she was fond of singing birds. She herself cooked and served us food in those days. Even wild animals would come out of the jungle to be fed by her –’
‘What animals – tigers? Bears?’
But Montu-da was in full flood and went on without any interruption. ‘Each one of us was given duties, and she made us all work. She said we may have renounced the world but that did not mean we could renounce our duties. Work is good because it brings health and productivity. We had prayer and meditation periods, we lived a spiritual life still, but the Mother taught us the spiritual life must be full, that it should have variety and be rich, although there should be no luxury or excess comfort. And she worked harder than any of us, much harder! At four o’clock in the morning she was up to prepare our meals, to feed the animals –’
‘She herself cooked?’
‘She held her hands over the pots of food to bless them before the food was given to us. Her blessing gave it its goodness, its sweetness. The Mother brought the Divine Force into the ashram, you see. The Master told us she brought the Divine Force down to bless us.’
‘But was he not the Divine One?’
‘They were as one,’ Montu-da said, and his face grew darker as it became pensive. ‘They were not separate but two aspects of one divinity. He brought the Mother to us, and through our love for the Mother we could realise him. The Mother told us she could only exist because of him, but without her he would not have become manifest to us in the form of love.’
‘Did they marry?’
Montu-da was shocked. ‘What are you saying?’ he cried in agitation. ‘Please do not say such things in the ashram.’ He got up from his seat, leaving pills and powders scattered across the counter. ‘We are not speaking of – of ordinary beings, please. We are talking of supramental beings and the union of the divine.’
‘There was a union?’ Sophie persisted. ‘Did they live as man and wife?’
Montu-da had been walking towards the door as if he wished to flee from her. Now he stopped to look at her in dismay.
‘Didn’t they?’ Sophie asked more gently.
He repeated, ‘They were one.’
‘As man and wife – physically?’
Now he flushed purple again, and took out a large handkerchief to mop his face. Then he said, ‘As body and soul are one, yes. Now please allow me – I must lock up the dispensary.’
Sophie got to her feet and followed him out, feeling somewhat repentant for causing him such discomfort but still driven by her urge to know. Had the Mother known love – ordinary, physical, mortal love? It was important to know. Montu-da’s large hands were fumbling with the lock in his agitation. As they walked down the veranda steps, he said, ‘When the Master died, the Mother gave us all courage. She told us, “He has not left – he is
here, inside me, still living. He thinks through me, speaks through me and reaches you through me.” That is what I mean,’ he concluded, ‘when I say they are one.’
Just when Sophie’s search looked as if it might move in interesting directions, it came to an abrupt end with the birth of her child, several weeks earlier than expected.
It was to be a long time before she considered resuming it.
For the time being, she gave herself up wholly to the experience of motherhood, although when Dr Bishop delivered her and held up the child, saying ‘A beautiful boy, just like a rose,’ Sophie could only say, through dry lips, ‘A rose?’ She had never seen a person more like a rat, or monkey. She covered her eyes with her arm: Matteo was right, she saw too much, too well.
At the ashram she was told the Mother would choose a name for her son. Diya came running, with her pink sarong tucked up so she could hurry, to tell Sophie and Matteo that the Mother wished him to be named after the Master – Prem Krishna.
Matteo’s face went white with incredulity and joy at hearing the message but Sophie said tersely, ‘Tell the Mother I’ve already chosen the name. It is Giacomo,’ and turning to Matteo, she challenged him. ‘A family name, isn’t it?’
Matteo went out into the dark. The monsoon had been active while Sophie was at the hospital giving birth, and the grounds were deep in water, the trees drooping with it and the foliage glistening. He walked till he saw the lights of the Abode of Bliss reflected on the wet leaves in the garden. He stood and looked into the lighted house, and it seemed to him that it was to that his heart reached, not to the house where he had left a woman and child.
The conviction was so powerful that he went up the steps to the room where the light shone and there he found the Mother still sitting up with her papers and work, large spectacles slipping down her nose. She looked up at his step and called to him in surprise.
He went in and knelt by her, his hands folded together. ‘Tell me what to do, Mother. Living as I do, as a householder, with a family, can I continue to live here amongst sadhus? How can I be of your company now that I am a husband and father?’ He stumbled over the words, bringing them out in a muddle through his great emotional confusion, but she seemed to understand.
Taking off her spectacles, she tapped him with them lightly. Her smile was amused and tolerant. ‘You are not absorbed in family life, Matteo. I have only to look at your pure and shining face to know it is not so. No, Matteo. You are like the lotus that blooms in the ponds and lakes of India. Your roots may be in the mud but your petals are pure, the water does not touch them and the mud does not stain them. Be always like that lotus flower,’ she murmured, ‘clean and pure.’
Matteo, his heart thudding and bounding with joy at her words, knew enough not to repeat them to Sophie.
Not that Sophie any longer mocked him or questioned his beliefs; if she had any interest left in him it was to see him as a father. Her attention was given up to the child. ‘Get a mosquito net for his cradle,’ she ordered Matteo. ‘This house is infested with mosquitoes. He may be bitten.’
‘But we don’t use mosquito nets ourselves, Sophie,’ Matteo protested. ‘They’ll disappear after the rains anyway.’
‘I won’t wait till after the rains. Get one now,’ she said.
She wrote to her mother for things for the child. Parcels arrived with what Matteo considered totally incongruous objects. Blue airmail letters lay about everywhere, bearing advice on child rearing. Matteo looked at them with the same loathing as Sophie regarded mosquitoes – as a source of disease.
If he had been spending more time at home, there would have been nothing but strife between them. As it was, Matteo found himself so deeply absorbed in the work of the press and the publication of the Master’s work, there was little or no time left for family life.
Meals were eaten communally, and Matteo was strict about attending the evening darshan and setting aside time for meditation. Sophie did not try to break into his private time. She was like a lioness wholly involved with her cub, guarding it even against its father. If he came to her late at night, she hissed, ‘Be quiet – you’ll wake the baby.’
The monsoon meant that the baby’s garments hung all over the house, dripping. Mildew grew visibly on the walls and woodwork, and damp insinuated itself into sheets and mattresses. Matteo was drenched on his way to work and spent the day in damp clothes. Many in the ashram fell ill: practically everyone suffered from ‘flu and dysentery, and the mosquitoes that bred in the waterlogged pools brought malaria. Sophie found herself going to Montu-da’s dispensary for pills and powders along with everyone else. ‘Haven’t you anything to keep the mosquitoes away?’ she demanded.
He twinkled at her – his nose was swollen with a horrendous cold and his eyes were red – and he seemed to shine. ‘This is the mosquitoes’ season! You want to deprive them of it? My dear lady, this earth houses many creatures, not only us.’
She could see no reason for cheer. ‘When will this monsoon of yours be over?’
‘But madam, why do you want the monsoon to be over? It is the season that made poets and painters and musicians rejoice. We have special ragas composed for the rainy season. Our painters have depicted the thunder clouds and the egrets that fly across them. Our great poet Kalidasa has written an epic about the monsoon clouds which you must read, dear madam. It tells the story of a lover who sends a cloud with a message to his beloved. It is so beautiful! Just like your great poet Goethe –’
If anyone in the ashram could make Sophie laugh, it was Montu-da. ‘Oh, just give me the pills for the baby’s colic for now,’ she begged.
She was to find that her vigilance would not be at an end when the rains stopped and the baby grew old enough to be taken outdoors. Grimly, she set about guarding him from the greater world, so grimly that at times he cried.
‘But, Sophie, what is the matter? He did nothing wrong.’
‘Nothing wrong? But he nearly caught that ant, didn’t you see?’ or ‘He would have put that chilli in his mouth if I hadn’t pulled it away!’ or ‘Don’t you know there are snakes about? That he could get sunstroke if he didn’t wear his hat?’
‘If we were meant to wear hats, we would be born with them,’ Matteo grumbled.
The day that a parcel arrived from her parents and a sailor suit was unpacked from it, he protested, ‘What is this? Can’t he dress in a loincloth and sandals like the other children at the kindergarten?’
‘He won’t go to the kindergarten here. He will go to school in Europe,’ Sophie said calmly. She had become much larger, more square-shouldered, and now adopted this ominous calm. She could defy him now, backed by her motherhood. ‘We must leave now, Matteo. The time has come to go back.’
It was the time of their most bitter quarrels. There was no longer mockery, or sarcasm. Now they were locked into what both felt was a fight to the end, both desperate to save what they believed.
Matteo: ‘You reject her because she is unlike anyone you know.’
Sophie: ‘That is true. She is outside the society I know.’
Matteo: ‘But can’t you see that only extraordinary people, people who have lived extraordinary lives, are capable of taking us, the ordinary people, into their extraordinary worlds?’
Sophie: ‘Why is the ordinary not enough for you? Home, family, a child? Why must you run after the extraordinary when you do not even understand what it is?’
Matteo: ‘That is why, Sophie: in order to understand it. I see in her the one who can reveal the unknown to me.’
Sophie: ‘Matteo, I can see she is a strange woman who has had an interesting life. But who knows who she really is? I see the glamour of that, how it intrigues. I am intrigued too, a little. But your love, and your devotion – why? And the love and devotion of all the others here – for what? Only a legend. Why do you give this legend your life?’
Matteo: ‘Sophie, my love for her isn’t the love one feels for a beautiful or glamorous or intriguing woman, a legen
d, as you say. You must see that! There is a difference between sacred and profane love. Listen, in her presence I feel I am more alive than I am in the presence of any other living creature. Her presence heightens and illuminates the experience of living as no one else’s does. Why? Because she contains – she is the container of a power that gives the world this heightened and illuminated quality. When I leave her, I feel I am falling, down, down into darkness. No, not darkness but greyness, flatness, emptiness. When she appears, everything comes to life, it flowers, it brightens . . .’
Sophie: ‘But isn’t that what physical love does too, what you call profane love?’
Matteo: ‘No, no, that obscures, Sophie, that obscures. It comes in the way – of enlightenment, clarity, peace – all that I need and want. The love that you and I share, that is mortal love. It exists but it won’t exist for ever. The love I have for the Mother, that others have here for her, that is immortal. It does not depend on me, on them, or even on her. It will last when we are all gone.’
Sophie: ‘What, like some ghost? A holy ghost flapping about in the air, this love?’
Matteo: ‘Maybe that is the wrong word, a bad word. But whatever it is she gives us, it is immortal.’
Sophie: ‘Yet you say it exists only when you are with her, in her presence, and fades when you leave her.’
Matteo: ‘That is because I am mortal, I am limited! My endeavour is to make it lasting, so it exists even when I am away from her, when she is not there.’
Sophie: ‘You mean, when she dies?’
Matteo: ‘Sophie! How coldly you speak!’
Sophie: ‘You see, Matteo – you fear death. You fear that she is mortal. Tell me, why do you fear the mortal? We are mortal.’
Matteo: ‘But not love, not her love. That is the difference. If you and I know ecstasy for a second, the ecstasy of the Mother’s love lasts and lasts, it has no end.’