Shekhar went up to her and asked gently, ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m me.’
Shekhar couldn’t think of how to press this point further. He switched tracks, ‘I’m just wandering through.’
The girl didn’t answer and threw her net over a passing butterfly. It escaped. Shekhar started laughing and said, ‘Not like that, let me show you.’
The girl said, ‘No, I’ll catch it myself,’ but as she was talking Shekhar took the net from her and pounced and caught the butterfly.
Offended, the girl looked at him and took the butterfly. She said nothing.
Shekhar asked, ‘Shall I catch more for you?’
‘No, that’s enough. I’m tired.’
She went off in one direction. Shekhar asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Home.’
‘Where is it?’
She pointed with her chin, ‘There.’ It wasn’t clear exactly where she meant. Shekhar followed her.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Your home.’
‘Why?’ she asked and kept walking on. Shekhar followed, too.
‘How far is it?’
‘A little way from here. Didn’t you see?’
‘No.’
‘Then how did you get here?’
Shekhar responded a little hesitatingly, ‘I forgot the way.’
She laughed out loud. ‘So that’s it.’
They got to her home. Shekhar asked, ‘Where will you put the butterflies?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe I’ll put them in a basket and let them out . . .’
‘No, I’ll show you,’ he said and took her to the door of the house. Every door had two shutters, one made of wood and outside it a mesh, and there was a space between them. Shekhar said, ‘Trap them between these.’
The girl said with awe, ‘I never thought about that.’
Shekhar spoke as if he hadn’t noticed the awe in her voice, ‘And leave them a few leaves so that they won’t die.’
Shekhar asked, ‘Where’s the road?’
‘Over there. Walk straight ahead and there will be a lake. Turn right and you’ll get to the school. You know the way from there, right?’
‘Yes,’ he said and then started walking.
The girl may have hoped that he would say something else. She watched him walk for quite some time, and then she shouted, ‘You’ll come again, won’t you?’
Shekhar didn’t turn around as he asked, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Pratibha—Miss Pratibha Lal.’
‘All right.’
Shekhar deliberately gave no indication whether his ‘All right’ was in response to coming again or her name.
She was friendly, but she was odd. The two would walk through the grass in the forest. Shekhar would lie down somewhere and Pratibha would chase after butterflies. Sometimes she’d gather flowers, sometimes she’d collect bamboo blossoms and then one by one she’d drink their nectar, sometimes she’d just stand there and laugh different kinds of laughs . . . Occasionally she’d look over to see if he was still there, that he hadn’t left, and feeling reassured she’d go back to playing. She really only talked to him when she couldn’t catch a butterfly after trying very hard or when a flower was just beyond her reach . . . Then she’d ask him for help, and he would get up immediately, do what she asked and go back to the same spot and lie back down. Or sometimes she would set aside the big bamboo blossoms for him and go up to him and ask, ‘Don’t you want some nectar?’ He would take the flower that she stretched out to him and instead of drinking the nectar he would eat the whole flower. That made her laugh out loud. She would say, ‘Goodness, you don’t even know how to drink nectar!’ Despite repeating this several times, it never got old; she would burst out laughing with the same joy each time . . .
Shekhar would laugh and play with Pratibha, he’d listen to everything she asked of him and would faithfully carry it out, but still their friendship never seemed to deepen. Despite being Pratibha’s companion, he never emerged from his armour; he was, just as before, a separate, solitary individual. Children are so adept at noticing any kind of distance or aloofness and had it been any other girl, she would have immediately sensed this and been hurt. But Pratibha was so self-absorbed, a butterfly basking in the warmth of Shekhar’s company, that she didn’t notice anything. She was completely self-involved, and their friendship continued for the reason that he didn’t ask anything of her, he was happy with her exactly as she was. It wasn’t that he was especially generous; he had never felt close enough to Pratibha to ask anything of her.
One day Pratibha asked, ‘Is your father’s name Haridutt?’
Shekhar responded in surprise, ‘Yes, why?’
‘My father knows him. You’ll have to come over today.’
Shekhar had been going there every day and today, on hearing that he had to go there specially, said, ‘But I come over every day.’
‘Silly, not like that. You’ll have to meet Father, eat dinner.’
After a while, Shekhar asked, ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean by why? My father knows your father, so now we don’t have to meet like this. Now we can ask permission and meet.’
Shekhar thought about this for a while. It struck him that he didn’t live in a world of fathers. He also felt that it was not a problem if his father never entered his world. Pratibha plays . . . he stays in the shade of her play . . . that was enough. But if things were to change, then perhaps . . .
Shekhar said again, ‘Why?’
The context of this ‘why’ wasn’t immediately clear to Pratibha. She responded like an arrogant queen, ‘What do you mean by why? Because I said so.’ Then, insistently, ‘Won’t you do what I ask?’
Shekhar said, ‘Humph.’
Mister Lal pointed to the chair next to him and said, ‘Sit down, Shekhar.’
Shekhar sat down. Pratibha was sitting in front of him and her older sister was beside her. On the dining table knives, forks, plates and the like had all been laid out in the English fashion.
Mister Lal was an ‘England-returned’ doctor. When he came back, he brought a part of England with him which he planted in the fertile soil of India, and he now lived in its shade. At this moment, preparations for dinner are under way and everyone is waiting in anticipation.
Shekhar doesn’t know how to eat with a knife and fork. This is what he’s thinking about as he’s sitting there. But he doesn’t want to say anything about it either. It was in the midst of this dilemma that dinner was served. Soup arrives and everyone partakes. The second course is served.
Shekhar picks up the knife and fork copying everyone else. But he finds that he can’t use the fork with his left hand. So he switches the knife and fork. Even though he can’t cut anything with his left hand either, still, somehow, he gets a piece on to the fork and lifts it to his mouth, but an empty fork reaches his mouth and the bite of food falls off.
Pratibha laughs out loud. ‘Hey, don’t you even know how to eat?’
The older sister says, ‘Hush!’
Shekhar puts down the knife and fork. Mister Lal sees this and tries to make sure that he isn’t more upset.
The vegetables are served. Meat is served for Mister Lal. The salad is served. Then ice cream.
Shekhar doesn’t eat; just sits there watching. When everything is finished he notices that the ice cream sitting in front of him has melted.
The others are eating it with spoons but despite knowing how to use a spoon, he picks up the bowl and drinks it down.
Pratibha says, ‘Look, Father, look at how he’s eating.’
When he was drinking the nectar Shekhar had eaten the flower, too, and Pratibha had laughed then as well. Shekhar hadn’t smiled but he’d been content. But now . . .
Shekhar stood up. He threw his napkin on the table and, without looking up, quickly walked out.
The next day, he was wandering along the edge of the river. There was no forest and Pratibha—was dead.
In the middle of the river was an island which housed a temple of the goddess. Shekhar began to while away his time there.
He would sit outside the temple and watch the devotees as they came and went. As he saw the expressions of faith on their faces those same old questions welled and ebbed within him, and even though he didn’t believe it, he found the atmosphere near the temple charming and came back regularly . . .
There were snakes in the river. Shekhar always used the bridge to get to the island, but the devotees waded through the river.
One day, as Shekhar watched, one of them was bitten by a snake. He leaped from the waters and exclaimed, ‘Hail to the goddess!’ and then went inside the temple. It was only after he had finished praying and come back outside that he began treating the snakebite.
After an hour, again right in front of Shekhar, he repeated, ‘Hail to the goddess,’ and then went silent. After a few minutes . . . People carried him away.
Shekhar’s lack of faith, his faith in doubt, was shaken. When he got home he asked himself over and over, ‘God, do you really exist?’
*
Beyond the Chashma Shahi gardens in Srinagar lay the ruins of an old palace. They say that it was built by Princess Zeb-un-Nissa,12 and that she used to go into seclusion there and write poetry. The palace may have been made by anyone, but whoever picked that spot was definitely a poet . . .
There were snakes there, too. The first time Shekhar went there, he had already heard lots of stories—that ghosts lived there; that the rooms in the palace had no roofs and so the spirits of the dead could descend there; that fairies danced there . . .
The palace was called ‘Fairy-Palace’ . . .
When he was leaving, Shekhar decided that he would come back again sometime when he was by himself and in a few days an opportunity presented itself.
He got there in the afternoon. The rooms of the palace indeed had no roofs; he climbed the walls and went to the front and looked at the vista created by the Dal Lake below.
He was looking at the Dal, looking at much more than the Dal. Gradually, something of a hypnotic state came upon him, as if he were about to faint. He felt that near him, not near him, inside him, all around him, something had arrived, something which he couldn’t describe. But something which was so beautiful, so magnificent, so expansive, so pure . . . so pure that Shekhar felt that he wasn’t worthy of touching it, that he was dirty, covered in filth, obscured by it . . . In that hypnotic state, Shekhar took off all of his clothes, one by one, and threw them down, and he stood there with his eyes closed, completely naked, before the sky and that purity, completely enveloped by that purity, shuddering from its touch . . .
After a long while, he opened his eyes with a start, put his clothes quickly back on and, without looking back, ran straight home . . .
What was that? God? Nature? Beauty? The devil? Suppressed desire? God?
He didn’t know. But he never experienced that unity, that oneness with the divine, again . . .
He never returned to that spot. The Buddha, too, perhaps never returned to the Bodhi tree.
*
A lot of snow has fallen and continues to fall. Shekhar’s father and the rest of the family are going in their car down a snow-covered street. Occasionally, some of the snow gets inside, at which point someone gets upset and everyone else laughs . . .
Everyone was carsick. Shekhar’s brothers had even stuck their heads out the window and thrown up, and the stench was seeping inside. Shekhar is sitting upfront so he isn’t bothered by it. He keeps watching the falling snow . . .
Shekhar’s father was transferred again. That’s why they had stayed in Kashmir for as long as they did, otherwise they would have long since left for Jammu. And now they are heading for Bihar . . .
Once, when the road curved, Father said, ‘Look there, that’s where we came from.’
Shekhar looked up. He could see the road that they had come down on and a broad, white curtain which hid so much behind it . . .
Shekhar remembered that a few days earlier he had made a snowman and kept it a secret from everyone. He had lifted it and taken it up to his room. He put it there and fell asleep. When he woke up the next day, he saw that his sculpture was not there and the floor was wet. In a frenzy, he asked, ‘Mother, where’s my snowman? Sister, who took my snowman? Brothers, who took my snowman?’ And no one could tell him; everyone said they hadn’t seen it. He never understood where it really went . . .
While looking at that curtain of snow, the same question dawned in his mind—‘God?’
Part 2
Seeds and Sprouts
Shekhar’s life became so vacant, which was why he wanted to wring out the last drop of pleasure from everything that came into his life. If it was laughter, he would laugh more than was necessary; when he went out for a walk, he’d run around like a mad dog; when he fought, he would remain hostile even when he forgot why he was fighting . . . As a result his life acquired a false freshness, the delusion of progress, when in reality he was standing absolutely still.
Shekhar is standing on top of a hill, surrounded by ruins, and his dog is at his feet. Fields of pulses spread out in all four directions. Sometimes a gust of wind blows and the stalks of pulse bend and then straighten themselves out, like scores of soldiers on watch dozing off simultaneously and then standing back up at attention when they wake up.
The dog was called Taimur. Shekhar didn’t care for him especially, but the dog still followed him everywhere; he had made Shekhar his master for some unknown reason.
Shekhar was just standing there, but Taimur must have seen something in the distance because he ran straight down into the fields of pulse. Shekhar ran off after him, too. He had no inner impulse to do anything, but the push that he got externally was enough to make him flow forward . . .
Shekhar made a path for himself through the pulse with his hands and then discovered what had made the dog run. Several quails were running about in all directions, and Taimur chased after one and then after another, but couldn’t catch any of them.
Wherever Taimur ran, Shekhar followed. Gradually, the stalks of pulse became denser. Shekhar pushed his shoulders forward and bent down and sliced through the pulse with his hands, advancing like a crazed bull, and still he couldn’t catch Taimur. His shirt was torn, his arms and legs were scraped up and his face was scratched all over, but he couldn’t catch a single quail. Shekhar went on even more fearlessly than his dog; his naked feet left bloodied prints as he went forward, but still he couldn’t catch a single quail . . .
Taimur grew bored and abandoned the game—accepted defeat. Shekhar had to do the same.
The sun rained down gold over the tops of the ruins as it set. Shekhar was headed back on the road home, covered in blood, exhausted, head hanging; Taimur, who was always in front, was coming behind him, head drooping . . .
They caught no quails, but the game was over and the day had ended.
*
Again, the fields of pulse. Again, Shekhar in front and behind him his dog, Taimur. Now Taimur is Shekhar’s brother, his teacher, his companion and servant. Shekhar’s mother has gone to her father’s village with Saraswati, and he is under no one’s jurisdiction.
Shekhar is wandering aimlessly, but his aimlessness is not without suspense. He’s waiting for Ganesi.
Ganesi is a Dalit weaver by caste. He works as a coolie in Shekhar’s father’s employ. Whenever he gets free time, he makes fireworks. That’s why he’s Shekhar’s friend, because he usually takes Shekhar along and puts things together while he watches. He makes gunpowder, fills it into firecrackers, wraps them, all the while explaining to Shekhar how the saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal all have to be ground separately; how you need to use wooden tools when mixing them together so that they don’t ignite; and how the paper you use to wrap ‘the musk rat’ has to be doused with a solution of saltpetre and vinegar and then dried . . . Sometimes when Shekhar insists he lets him grind the
gunpowder, and sometimes he gives him a few firecrackers. Their friendship has grown so much that sometimes Shekhar asks his father to give Ganesi the day off and then goes out with him.
Today Shekhar is waiting for Ganesi because he has sent him to get an iguana. It was Ganesi who had told him that iguanas can climb any kind of wall and stick to it. Even if someone grabs it by its tail it wouldn’t let go, and in the olden days, people used to scale walls by tying ropes to their tails and using them for support. After he heard this, it was only natural that Shekhar wanted to see one. When Ganesi told him that he couldn’t bring back one alive because its bite was poisonous, Shekhar demanded that he kill one and bring it.
Shekhar crossed through the fields of pulse and saw Ganesi coming towards him—a skinny, black ghost with a staff in one hand and a chameleon-like thing in the other. As soon as he came to him he said, ‘Young master, here, take this iguana.’
Shekhar looked at him for a while. He was a little disappointed. This is an iguana! Then he said, ‘Skin it. I’ll keep that.’
Ganesi laughed and told him that an iguana’s skin is so thin it couldn’t be skinned. But Shekhar wasn’t going to take his word for it. If you could skin a cheetah, and he regularly sat on a cheetah skin, then why not an iguana! He said, ‘I am telling you, skin it!’
Ganesi realized that he’d have to do it. He took out a knife and sliced open the iguana’s belly. Shekhar caught hold of his dog and stood there.
It took half an hour for the skin to be peeled off completely. Shekhar said, ‘Set it in the sun to dry. After it’s dry, we’ll wash it.’
Ganesi didn’t say anything and smiled as he spread it out to dry.
What Shekhar saw there three days later doesn’t have to be said. That was when Ganesi laughed and asked, ‘Young master, now you can see for yourself whether or not the iguana’s skin has dried.’ Then he said in dismay, ‘What skin? What iguana?’ The wise Ganesi smiled and stayed quiet.
Shekhar noted that everyone had a skin, but a cheetah was a cheetah, and an iguana was an iguana.
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