‘No, not today. First, you need to get better. Then even if I get sick it won’t be a big thing.’
‘I don’t want to get better,’ Shekhar said for some unknown reason. Maybe to get some sympathy. ‘I’m going to die soon.’
‘Stupid boy! Don’t say things like that!’
Shekhar could tell that Saraswati was saying the same things that the others had been saying, but he didn’t have the same feeling, the same anxiety, that same paralysing fear. He liked it; he felt as if he could ask Saraswati things that he couldn’t ask anyone else. He asked, ‘You’re not afraid of dying, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Is dying scary?’
‘No.’
‘Why is everyone so afraid?’
‘The reason they’re afraid is not because death is so bad. They’re afraid because they like to live.’
Why hadn’t anyone else provided such a straightforward, honest answer to him?
After a little while, Shekhar extended his arm to Saraswati and said, ‘I won’t die.’
Saraswati took his hand and placed it on her chest, and then she gently slapped him by the ear and left.
By evening, there was another cot in the room for Saraswati.
*
Father said, ‘Now that everyone is better, let’s go on a trip. And we can make a pilgrimage, too—to the temple at Kheer Bhawani.’10
The next day, a houseboat passed Amira Kadal with the entire family on it.11
Life’s routine changed. Every evening, after dinner, there would be a family meeting, either in the sitting room of the houseboat or on the deck, during which the boys would sometimes be asked to tell stories. More often Father or Mother would tell stories. The stories were the kind that were told to children in India—stories from the Puranas about gods, something which always has a moral attached to the end. Small examples of God’s greatness, lengthy lectures explaining the importance of honesty, various proverbs on frugality, an unnecessarily protracted complaint about the wickedness of the boy (whoever he was) who had stolen jam one morning and didn’t confess . . . Sometimes these stories were entertaining, but whenever it was time for the moral of the story, Shekhar got bored. He had come up with a name for himself for these daily meetings—‘Mother’s rebukes’.
While listening to the stories, Shekhar would occasionally think, ‘If God exists, then why doesn’t he appear to me?’ Sometimes he would be so racked with doubt that he would think, ‘Maybe it’s because I am so weak and unworthy that I can’t experience God.’ And sometimes his tiny personality would gather together all of its force at once and ask, ‘It isn’t the case that there is no God, is it?’
This continuously suppressed doubt or the absence of doubt, this continuous vigilance lest someone discover an iota of his scepticism, was eating him up, and the weight was too much for his underdeveloped brain to bear.
He felt as though the moment was imminent when his suppressed doubts would burst forth, and who could tell in what shape . . . but he was calm on the outside and, yes, happy, too.
The bosom of the lake, night.
On the roof of the houseboat, in the moonlight, sits Shekhar, tired. What hasn’t he done all day today! He doesn’t understand beauty fully, but for some reason he is drawn to it whenever it is in front of him. Something quickens inside him and he sets about doing some work or another with a demonic energy. Looking at beauty doesn’t completely absorb him, but it makes the energy of life flow through his every activity a little more . . .
He’s broken off countless lotus blossoms today and turned them into necklaces for his sister, made her into a goddess and worshipped her, said goodbye to the rosy-fingered sun in the evening and, most of all, he remembered Saraswati forgetting herself singing . . . He doesn’t remember the words of the song, they don’t even matter, and the sentiment doesn’t matter; all that matters is the ineffable musicality of that featureless song . . .
The bosom of the lake, night. On the roof of the houseboat, in the moonlight, sits Shekhar, tired.
Below, his sister’s voice calls to him, ‘Shekhar, come down from there.’ But he doesn’t go down, can’t go down. He knows that he doesn’t need to worry about going down; his sister will get him herself.
She comes. Comes to him and looks around in every direction and then decides to sit down in silence, too.
We measure time with lifeless clocks—we’re such fools. Can clocks measure the eons that pass in a second and the moments that last for eons?
The pair is silent. Still. Life stands still, and while standing still it races on so rapidly, not forward, not backward, but in some nameless, immeasurable direction . . .
The night is so exceedingly beautiful that Shekhar can think of nothing else. Its inexpressible beauty, its characterless nocturnality, proved that there was no God, because what kind of God could make hunger and war and also produce such beauty? And if God didn’t make it, why should the rest of the world be his creation?
Saraswati was perhaps also thinking something similar. Perhaps she was also asking the night a question without an answer—‘God, do you exist?’
Dawn breaks.
Breaking because Shekhar, upon waking, could tell that the light was scratching and clawing to root out that beauty from every crack and crevasse that had enveloped the night everywhere, that was alive, and the assault that was taking place against it was so great that he could look at nothing else . . . The lake is long behind them, the houseboat stands in some polluted stream near the temple of Kheer Bhavani, the dugouts are all in line and giving off smoke . . .
Shekhar and his brothers are dressed in white clothes, and everyone is going towards the temple. Father has a few wood apple leaves and fresh lotus blossoms in his hands and Mother is holding sandalwood and some other things. Shekhar is walking ahead of everyone.
Shekhar is standing at some distance from the temple and admiring it with curiosity. The others are circumambulating the temple together in ritual. On seeing him standing by himself, Father gestures for him to join them, but he doesn’t move from his spot. Father doesn’t call him again but Shekhar knows that the matter is not settled.
As soon as they get back to the houseboat, Father asks him in a stern voice, ‘Shekhar, why didn’t you do as I asked?’
Shekhar remains silent for a moment—draws a long breath. Then, he himself doesn’t know what is happening or what he is saying, but the force that has been building up for several days finds a path and breaks free:
‘I don’t believe in God! I don’t believe in prayer! Bhavani is a lie! God is a lie! There is no God!’
*
Non-existence.
Shekhar was beaten with a switch in front of everyone for saying this, but oh, the pride of being able to say this, the peace that comes with dead certainty, the wave of self-satisfaction! The radiant bliss of being beaten for his faith! And that total victory that came when his brothers whispered to him in secret that they didn’t believe in God either!
Does God exist or not? The God whose existence or non-existence we can comprehend, whom we call featureless, formless and infinite, and yet our brains try to grasp His existence in our fists, to be able to say with meaning that he exists—what difference does the existence or non-existence of such a God make?
If God exists, then He is one about whom it cannot be said that He exists, who is beyond the orbit of our faith . . .
But it can also be said that God is that about which we can say with complete certainty, ‘He does not exist.’
*
God had another gambit to play.
It would have been sheer impertinence to use such expressions about God had Shekhar not considered God an equal adversary but thought him to be something more. But as long as he was not impressed by God’s omnipotence or his omnipotence over humanity, how could he think God was doing anything other than employing stratagems?
So God played another gambit—in order to manifest Himself to Shekhar.
&n
bsp; One evening, Shekhar felt as if the entire mood in the house had changed—as if it were being pressed down by some weight. And even though everything was being done in the same way, that there was nothing new going on, it still seemed like there was quite a commotion . . .
Shekhar asked the ayah, Jinniya, ‘What’s going on today?’
‘Where?’
Shekhar said reflexively, ‘Inside.’
Jinniya laughed and said, ‘You’ll find out tomorrow. God works wonders.’
She didn’t say anything more. When Shekhar threatened her that he would tell his mother that she sneaks into the kitchen and dances in front of the cook, she said without concern, ‘Humph,’ and then left.
Somehow, Shekhar fell asleep thinking about it over and over. But as soon as he got up in the morning, he remembered it and ran to Mother’s room—the room where she had been confined to bed rest for several days. Seeing his father from the door made him stop in his tracks. He only went closer after Father left. That was when Jinniya was leaving the room with something bundled up and said, ‘Shekhar, look, it’s your new brother—’
And that was exactly when from inside that bundle that thing called ‘new brother’ began to scream with all the might in his tiny body . . .
Shekhar stood stunned for a few moments, reeling from the terror of that stupefying cry. Then he timidly touched the bundle and said, ‘Show me.’
Jinniya showed him. Shekhar looked a little disappointed. He said, ‘Enough.’
Because he couldn’t even open his fists and didn’t know how to see . . .
The stupefaction passed, then came the deluge of questions.
‘How did he get here?’
‘Where did he come from?’
‘When did he get here?’
‘Who brought him?’
‘Did Ravi come the same way? Does everyone come the same way?’
Jinniya had been answering all of his questions and Shekhar had believed all her answers. But when he asked, ‘Why are babies born?’ and he got the answer, ‘Whatever God wills, happens,’ that’s when he realized that everything he had been told from beginning to end was a lie, and he gave Jinniya an angry look and went outside.
Mother, Father, sister, the servants still to arrive, none would explain anything to him. He wouldn’t understand the animals or the birds either. Had he been a bird he might have believed this secret since birds don’t lie and birds don’t have a God . . .
But whose God is He? Pridefully, Shekhar said, ‘There is no God—there isn’t! There isn’t!’
*
His own questions, his own single utterance, changed the course of his life.
He observed—understood—that no one was anything to anyone, which is to say there was no one worthy enough to be his master, instructor or ordainer of faith. There was no one that one could depend on, count on, to be completely reliable in every matter. If he could count on anything, then it was his own intellect. Man had to rely on it to get along, to survive in the world, and there are definitely moments when the intellect can provide clear answers, but it also has enough honesty that when it doesn’t know something, it remains quiet and doesn’t give a false answer.
It didn’t have a good effect on him, at least in the opinion of others. He became a wilful, arrogant, obstinate and aloof ass. And the remedies that were implemented to straighten him out had the opposite effect.
He was already going to school, but he began to change in school, too. He had been made the class monitor because of his calm disposition, but now he was constantly on the lookout for some mischief. He was quite smart, so even when he didn’t pay attention, he never came second to anyone in class, and there was no special difficulty in coming up with ideas for causing trouble all the time.
The bell rang. The boys all gathered in the classroom. Shekhar had set out the attendance book, the chalk, the duster and other things on the table, but the teacher had not yet arrived.
In the absence of the teacher, it was Shekhar’s responsibility as monitor to keep the class under control. His method of choice was to have the boys get together and sing a vulgar Kashmiri song. He was the one in charge, so what did the boys have to fear? The song began. They hadn’t finished two verses when the teacher showed up. In the suddenly descended silence his shrill voice rang, ‘Where is the monitor?’
The monitor went to the front.
‘What is this?’
‘Nothing. We thought you might be late, so we—’
‘Who started this commotion?’
Everyone was silent. At such moments there was a natural, wordless understanding amongst the boys.
The teacher asked in an even harsher voice, ‘Who started it?’
The silence continued for another moment. Then an ungainly Muslim boy—whom the entire class hated—came forward and said, ‘The monitor told everyone to sing. I didn’t sing.’
Shekhar and two of his close friends were made to stand in a corner like ‘roosters’—which meant they had to put their arms under their legs and grab their ears and try to stand up. The teacher is standing right in front of Shekhar and saying, ‘Stand higher—higher!’
Shekhar was stripped of his role as monitor which was then handed over to that Muslim boy. This wasn’t a big thing, but being humiliated like this before the whole class was not something he could bear. Would he be their laughing stock? Never! And the blazing anger that flared up within him showed him how he could get his revenge. As ordered by the teacher, he ‘stood higher’, and as he did this he intentionally did a flip. His acrobatic manoeuvre landed him on the floor, and his heavy boots flew and hit the teacher on his back. The teacher let out an ‘Ouch!’ and fell on the chalkboard as the entire class erupted in laughter.
The whole episode seemed so improbable that for a moment the teacher was stunned. When he saw Shekhar get up and stare at him, he regained his lost voice. Grinding his teeth together, he said, ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson.’
But his threats turned out to be empty. Shekhar spoke in a voice that he might have used in speaking to a bug, ‘You’re an ass!’ And he darted out of the class like an arrow. He could hear the sound of the class laughing behind him, and he felt as if he had won.
After that day, Shekhar didn’t go to school. There were several flaws in his character, but he did acquire a strength seldom found in school; he acquired the ability to remain alone. Schools produce ‘types’; he became an individual.
*
But no one is so isolated, so alone that the world outside disappears. In Shekhar’s life, animals, birds, insects, snakes, flowers, trees, grass, rocks and stones took the place formerly occupied by humans. The throne that had been vacated by the God of human society was now filled by the goddess of the life-world, nature.
Saraswati was still teaching Shekhar. A moulvi had been hired to teach him as well. But Shekhar’s day began when the moulvi left and ended when he arrived . . . The moulvi was like a bad dream. The rest of the day Shekhar wandered wherever his feet took him. That’s where he went and saw whatever he saw. Sometimes he harassed the snakes, sometimes he sat perfectly still next to them and waited for them to crawl across him so that he could see how they move forward (he had heard that snakes used the membrane in their bellies to push themselves forward and this is what he wanted to observe). Sometimes he caught butterflies, looked at their colours and then let them go. Sometimes when he heard a ringdove’s voice, he tried to imitate it, and for hours he would watch how it got irritated and modulated its voice differently each time and then fell silent after hearing its own echo. Sometimes he would climb trees, notice the architecture of a nest and make note of the various types of eggs in it. He would wait for days in the hope that the eggs would crack so that he could see the babies and learn what the eggs of various birds look like . . . Sometimes he would notice the male kite soar quite high in spring, while the female kept calling out to him, and after hours of anticipation, finally descend. Once he listened to an owl for ho
urs and wondered, ‘Does he speak through his mouth or his nose!’ The first time he heard a cuckoo’s ‘coo-coo’, he inexplicably felt that the cuckoo was probably blue and his breast was most likely red. A few days later when he saw a bird that looked like that, he sat in anxious anticipation waiting for it to speak, and wherever the bird went, he chased after it. Eventually his patience paid off. At sunset the bird settled on a fig tree and opened its mouth and let out a shrill call, ‘che-oo’. Shekhar’s heart skipped a beat . . . A few days later he learned that it wasn’t a cuckoo but a magpie . . .
Once, while wandering in the forest, he got lost. He did not get nervous as a result of his splendid isolation—because of his contempt for dependency; he didn’t run here and there wildly (those who have been lost in the woods are the only ones who will understand what it means not to be afraid in such moments!). He pushed down the grass that came up to his chest, made a place for himself to sit and began to watch the clouds. Whenever a wild fly buzzed nearby, he would watch it; he’d make notes in his mind about the blue and green metallic sheen of its belly, its mud-red head, its black antennae, all of it.
The jungle was state-protected land; hunting was prohibited. While Shekhar was sitting a deer came near him and stood completely still in nervousness for a while. Then it raced, bounding with all four legs, and vanished in an instant. The beauty of its form, the melody of its movement! Shekhar had seen it in pictures and read many descriptions—but the real thing!
Shekhar got up in enthusiasm. A misshapen beast passed next to him through the grass and ran off panting; Shekhar couldn’t tell if it was a horse or a buffalo. It was like both yet different from the two . . .
Shekhar went off in one direction, lost in thought. He wasn’t worried about getting back home yet—it was only afternoon.
Walking through the grass, he came to a clearing. A girl was running around here and there with a butterfly net, her hair tousled over her face—with no sense of the rest of the world. Shekhar stopped to watch her, watched her for quite a long time. Suddenly, the girl gasped and turned around to look at him—in exactly the same way as the deer had looked at him—and kept looking at him, the butterfly net dangling to her side.
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