Climbing Chamundi Hill (11 page)

Now Sundari came and put her arms around her princely former lover and intoned, “Have you come back to show me your love? I'm so sorry my mother was upset with you.”

Udhay stammered and appeared uncertain as he announced that he was sure of Sundari's love and that he had returned to reclaim it.

“Well then, to celebrate you must buy me a lovely meal in the finest restaurant!” She clapped her hands excitedly.

Before the young man could answer, Ala jumped in through the window, climbed up onto Udhay's shoulder, and spit out three large gold pieces.

The two women could not believe their eyes. Sundari, who was as quick as her mother, immediately spoke again, “And, of course, I shall need a new dress.” The monkey spit out two more gold pieces. “And some jewelry.” Four gold pieces came flying out.

Udhay was treated like royalty again, and the next morning he returned to his friends' camp. There he fed the monkey twenty gold pieces and returned to Sundari. They spent the day together, but when the young man saw his beloved flirt endlessly with the monkey, he finally realized that he had only imagined his perfect love. Eventually, Sundari offered to buy the monkey for thousands of dinars, and Udhay refused. Then she offered half her wealth, but he still refused. It was the first time in his young life that Udhay had conducted a business transaction, and he was rather pleased with himself.

The following morning, Arthadatta, who was
thrilled by the recent developments, suggested that they feed the monkey three days worth of gold, and the animal gorged itself on sixty pieces. When Sundari and her mother begged to buy the animal in exchange for their entire fortune, including the money they had hoodwinked out of Udhay, he finally consented and left the monkey in their possession, along with these instructions: “You must let Ala roam about freely. She will spit out the gold only when you make a request.” To demonstrate he asked for two gold pieces, and the monkey obliged.

The caravan departed, loaded with a huge amount of wealth, its young leader finally liberated of his false notions of love. Back in town the two women rejoiced over their gold-making creature and greedily demanded more and more bits of gold.

After two days, when Ala had spit out all there was, the women flew into a violent rage—they realized they'd been conned. They attacked poor Ala, but she scampered off and disappeared into the woods.

Weeks later she showed up at her old mistress's house hungry but happy.

The old guide stopped walking and turned to look at me. He seemed very happy with the way he told this story, a major achievement considering that one could see the story's end halfway through.

“So what have you learned from this cautionary little tale, my young friend? Would you rather trust a woman or a
monkey?” He tapped the bilva cane on the stone in soft rhythm till I spoke.

“If the story is any guidance, I'd go with the animal. Is that what the story's really about? I mean, you've been digging beneath the surface of all your stories.”

He nodded in agreement and said, “Why don't you tell me? You're probably getting the knack for this kind of thing.”

Well, why not? I thought the meaning of the story was obvious, even if you didn't take the gold and the mercenary sex literally.

I could not be sure how many steps we'd climbed—the view below was magnificent. The path reached a right-handed dogleg, and a large crimson rose butterfly floated gently in the direction of the sitting spot I was aiming for. The librarian reached out his cane easily, and sure enough, the dark butterfly came to rest on it. I took that as an invitation to sit too.

“I think you could say that men's wealth represents our better aspirations, maybe spiritual goals. Women have the effect of distracting a man, or draining his spiritual energy, through sensuality and comforts. In the previous story you said that a man must learn how to give up his place in the world. Well, I suppose women represent a huge obstacle to that. I mean, don't renouncers have to give up sexuality? I know Buddhist and Christian monks obey vows of celibacy above everything else.”

As I spoke the guide watched the butterfly, though he seemed pleased with what I was saying. At the end I thought he was ready to applaud. Instead, he just wiped some sweat off his face and said, “I can't speak for Buddhism or Christianity. As far as P. K. Shivaram is concerned, this is misogynistic nonsense.”

“Okay, okay,” I jumped in defensively. “I don't mean that the women themselves are obstacles—that they're intrinsically bad. I mean that a man's attachment to women is what holds him back, the same as his attachment to other things, like cars or fame.”

“That's a decent recovery, young man, but we could do better.”

“How then?”

“Let's take the story as a parable about the different layers of experience. For instance, the relation between fiction and reality, dreams and waking experience, imagination and memory. Do you follow this?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Did you notice the relationships between the boy and his mother, the ugly old whore, and the pretty Sundari? The boy was particularly attached to his loving and beautiful mother, which made him construct an imaginary perfection out of Sundari. The stark realism of the ugly woman—and her lesson—was completely invisible to him. The imaginary worlds we create around us are projections of what we already know, the mother, and what we already know comes from those things that satisfy our basic survival needs. Isn't that what mothering is all about? So the mother is the satisfying emotional reality, the whore is physical reality in its brute and unadorned form, and Sundari is the fantasy or fiction we create by projecting one type of reality onto the other, which we repress. In other words, the women in the story don't stand for things in the world; they stand for different types of worlds. Are you following this?”

He made sense, I had to admit, at least as far as the theoretical consistency of what he was saying. It didn't seem to match the story closely at all, but I was starting to get used
to the fact that he picked and chose his way through anything that suited him in these stories. “What does the monkey stand for?” I asked.

“Good question, my friend. The monkey is that principle one uses to reverse the illusion he has created out of his experiences. It has to be an animal—the opposite of the humans who engage in world building. It gives back only what you put into it, and although it can deceive, it never does so with prejudice—it only deceives those who are predisposed to deception because they fail to see that it is a mere animal. If you're good to it, it will be good. If you're nasty, it can bite or in some cases sting you with poison.

“In short, the monkey stands for storytelling. What we are doing right now on this mountain is what the monkey represents in the story in relation to Udhay. Restoring a sense of balance—insight—to a world in which fiction and reality have become hopelessly mixed, where we fail to realize that what we see is conditioned by what we know.”

“But why a monkey? Why not a dog or a cow?”

“Well, did you see the monkeys at the bottom of the hill?”

Come to think of it, I did see a few bonnet macaques dozing on the roof of a booth. They were well fed and contented—unlike the aggressive, flea-bitten variety I was used to fighting in Varanasi. I smiled and nodded.

“They have to be monkeys because monkeys are in-between creatures. They are part animal, part human; they walk on the ground or jump in the trees. And monkeys are also mischievous—they jump this way and that; they hurl things at you to get your attention. That's what storytelling does.”

“So this story is just about literary interpretation and not about religious or mystical ideas at all?”

The old man feigned anger by sticking out his chin and furrowing his brow, then said in a deep voice, “I shall not dignify this kind of question with an answer. Come, look at this graffiti.”

FATE OR CURSE?

My grandfather's servant Gotama carried himself like a nobleman. He was not a lowly servant, mind you, like those who cleaned the house or fixed things; he was more of a personal assistant. Still, he acted like the equal of any aristocrat, and my grandfather did not seem to mind. On business travels or hunting expeditions Gotama would oversee the preparations and check on the stable boys and the packing. Once the journey was under way, he often rode alongside grandfather, and the two of them would talk for hours.

Grandfather was a nobleman, a minister in the king's court and a proud man. He respected Gotama's self-esteem and often relied on the older man's wisdom. One day as they were riding together, grandfather asked his assistant how he came to be so self-assured.

Gotama casually answered that his confidence should hardly surprise anyone, considering his royal ancestry. What was surprising, he told his listener, was that he ever came to be a servant in the first place.

Grandfather, who normally observed the privacy of his servants, could not control his curiosity and immediately asked, “What act of fate or karma led you to your present station? Was it a terrible sin one of your ancestors committed?”

Gotama responded defensively that it was neither fate nor karma, but the result of a curse. He then told my father the following story.

The last man in Gotama's ancestral line to actually serve as a king was Maundibha Udanyu, king of a prosperous and peaceful state. In his kingdom lived a Brahmin called Yavakri, who was the worst scoundrel who had ever lived in the country. Yavakri was a privileged and overindulgent young man with a lethal power that very few Brahmins possessed and fewer yet would ever consider using. This power allowed him to seduce women with one magical sound: “Hay!” Any woman who heard him produce that sound felt immediately compelled to sleep with the monster, only to die as soon as he was satisfied. If by some miraculous strength of will she was able to resist the urge to sleep with Yavakri, she died sooner.

One day, when King Maundibha was performing the prestigious and rare horse sacrifice, this despicable Brahmin came to watch—waiting for a chance to cause some mischief. Moments after the priests uttered the first ritual chant, Yavakri interrupted. “Ha! You made a mistake! I knew you would, you imbeciles…You chose the wrong verses and now,” he turned to the pale king and poked his finger in the air, “you'll be dead in one month, Your Royal Majesty.”

The king was no fool. Although he feared the curse of the excited Brahmin, he did not feel powerless. Immediately he instructed the priests to destroy all the implements used in that unlucky ritual and to smear the royal houses with mud. “This expiation,” he explained, “will protect me. And let it also be a pledge.” He turned to Yavakri. “It is you, Brahmin, who will die. And as soon as you die, I will return to my sacrifice and complete it according to the law.”

Yavakri was amused by the king's little drama. What were the king's chances against the curse of a Brahmin? He turned away contemptuously and headed back into town looking to inflict pain on someone else. His chance came sooner than expected, and in the person of the king's own cousin, Mamsi. Poor Mamsi happened to be heading toward the king's ritual grounds just as Yavakri was leaving, and one look at her full figure and pure chocolate complexion made that dreaded sound echo in the alley: “Hay!”

The young woman turned her head in the direction of the voice and knew her fate in a flash. It felt like a burning itch that had to be scratched, right between her shoulder blades. She felt a surge of disgust followed by a chill that moved down her back to her legs. “But if I resist this—I know I can—either way I'm dead.” She felt torn by two competing urges, and she froze in her spot. “He's standing there waiting. What should I do? I'm dead, I know it. I am dead.”

So Mamsi hesitantly approached the evil man and spoke. “I have heard of you so I know I shall die
today. I decided it would be better to die by giving you pleasure because you are a Brahmin. Please let me go home first, and I promise to return to your house tonight.”

Yavakri laughed at her pleading voice. Her misery gave him more satisfaction than he knew the sex would. “No, not tonight, woman. You may go home, but I will expect you in one or two hours. Don't keep me waiting longer.” He turned and walked away merrily.

Back at her home Mamsi set about her preparations while sobbing softly. She chose a somber sari in which she expected her body to be found and slathered herself with a whole bottle of perfume. Her husband heard the noises and came into her room. When he found out why she was crying, he flew into a rage. “That's the last straw. I don't care if he is a Brahmin—he has bewitched his last victim. Now listen, dear wife. Get me some sacrificial butter.” He purified the butter and performed oblations for the god of fire, Agni. Taking fine sand, butter, ground sesame seeds, barley, and sacred grass, he began to mold a figure while chanting, “O Agni, animate this form with your beloved nymph Preni. As I adorn her for Yavakri, give her life so that she may save me. Amen.”

Shortly after the words were spoken, the nymph opened her eyes, then moved. She was the very image of beautiful Mamsi, except for one detail. She had hair on the soles of her feet. “Go to Yavakri,
Preni, and do what he tells you!” commanded the husband. The nymph turned and left. Mamsi's husband then took some more butter and repeated the ritual to Agni, but this time he brought to life a ferocious, jealous gandharva who was carrying an iron club. As soon as the gandharva roared to life, Mamsi's husband pointed in the direction of the departing nymph and told the creature, “Your wife just went to Yavakri. He lives over there.”

Yavakri was delighted to see Mamsi arrive in her most lovely jewelry and smelling like a grove of fruit trees. He spread out the bedding, but then noticed that the woman was smiling. He scoffed, “Why are you smiling, little woman?”

“Why should I not smile?” asked the nymph.

“Because you are going to die. That's why!”

The nymph showed her teeth again. “Ah, but you have never lusted after a woman like this!” She held up a hairy foot. The Brahmin merely shrugged and took the nymph. She willingly lay beneath him, unlike any of his previous victims, he thought. But suddenly, on a hidden impulse, Yavakri turned over and saw the gandharva towering above him, blindingly bright and scorching with rage.

“Please don't kill me, sir!” cowered the Brahmin. “I know this looks awful. Please tell me how I can make this up to you!”

The fiery gandharva stared at the whimpering naked man and hissed, “You have until dawn to behead every living creature that your father owns.
That might save you.” He paused, then added with a low rumble, “Then again, it might not.”

Yavakri's father owned a whole village with farms full of livestock. The villagers were bewildered at the sight of the master's son rampaging through the yards, killing everything in sight. “Let's tie him up—he's gone mad,” they said. But Yavakri's father stopped them. He told the excited villagers that Yavakri must have his reasons—who knows, maybe this apparent madness was divine inspiration! He was, after all, a gifted Brahmin. “Leave the boy alone!” he finally ordered.

One of the villagers, the woodcutter, was deaf, and he did not hear that order. When he saw the young man chasing and slaughtering the animals around his house, he feared for his master's property. He grabbed his ax and killed Yavakri with one accurate blow.

“So that was the end of Yavakri?” Asked my grandfather. He was still riding alongside Gotama, his servant.

“Well, some people say it ended in such a way. But others say Yavakri kept on killing animals even as the sun was rising, and then the gandharva found him and killed him. Either way, he died that day.”

“Then what happened?” My grandfather asked, and Gotama finished the story.

When King Maundibha heard that his tormentor had died, he gave instructions to repair the place of sacrifice and told his priests to perform the horse sacrifice again. As the ritual began, however, Yavakri's
father arrived and took the same seat his son had previously occupied. Crouching there, he loudly challenged the king. “Maundibha, I see you have not learned. You're still making mistakes in your ritual. Do you call yourself a nobleman? I know you cursed my son—but don't kid yourself. You had nothing to do with his death. Your curse is impotent—the boy simply reached the end of his allotted time.”

“Your son was an evil man, sir,” answered the king boldly. He was worried about offending another Brahmin, but fatigue loosened his inhibitions.

Yavakri's father seemed more gloomy than angry. He nodded—it was an undeniable fact. He conceded the fact and repeated, “I know Yavakri had his faults, but let me reassure you that you did not kill him. He was killed by his own actions.”

Maundibha stared silently at the Brahmin. The old man raised his voice again. “Of course, the curse of Yavakri will come to pass, Maundibha. Because your ritual is flawed, you will soon die and your descendants will become servants. That's what I came to tell you.” Then he got up wearily and left.

“So you see, my friend,” Gotama turned to my grandfather, “I am the victim of that Brahmin's curse.”

“But did the king die?”

“I don't know. I suppose he did, at one time or another everyone dies. Who can ever say whether life is meant to end or has been ended by a curse? A life span is far more mysterious than one's position in society, don't you agree?” The two men continued
riding and discussing serious matters of fate and chance.

As soon as the old man stopped speaking, I sat down on a step. It was a flat slab, so my legs stretched out awkwardly, but I didn't mind. I was sure I had stepped on glass or that a stone had cut me to the bone. But when I checked there was no cut—just a psychedelic red-and-blue bruise the size of a silver dollar. I felt disgusted with myself, with my weakness.

The guide sat next to me, grunting as he eased himself down onto the step. “I see you're having a crisis, my friend. Don't feel bad—most pilgrims do at one point or another.” He reached into his cloth bag and fumbled around until he found a flat aluminum can—it looked like an old shoe-polish can with the label removed—and opened it. “Here, I have a lotion you can rub on your feet as long as you're not bleeding.” The lotion looked like tar, but had an oddly familiar smell that I couldn't identify.

“What is it?” I ran a finger through the buttery substance, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.

“Oh, it's an old remedy, made mostly of date palm sap and some gum resin. Don't worry my friend, just rub some on your feet.”

I felt silly and rude at the same time. Something about the texture of the cream made it feel defiling, even on my burning feet. Then I rubbed it on. “Is this one of those old magical remedies I'm always hearing about in Varanasi? You know, dead lizards and fish oil?”

The old man laughed at my undisguised contempt, which he must have thought a bit bombastic under the circumstances. “Do you smoke?” he asked, surprising me.

I said I did not, and he reached back into his bag. Again, he poked around for a while, then pulled out a piece of folded-up old newspaper, which he carefully unfolded. There were three hand-rolled cigarettes in there, the kind you can buy individually in kiosks everywhere in India. He put one of these in his mouth and methodically folded the others back inside the newspaper, which he returned to the bag. Suddenly he struck a match—it had been concealed in his surprisingly large hand—and lit the cigarette. He inhaled deeply, rolling his head backward and closing his eyes in pleasure. I was mesmerized by all of this; it seemed so out of character for him.

Before exhaling he looked at me and winked. Then he blew out a perfect ring, which drifted in my direction and began to expand. As it approached me, it became wavy, like a flower petal. Then, without taking another puff, he blew another ring, which moved quickly into the first ring and settled inside it. Then he blew another and another. There were now four concentric rings of smoke, and he quickly poked his finger into the rings and rotated his hand. For an instant—I couldn't even be sure I saw it—the smoke formed a perfect
yantra,
or ritual geometrical design, this one a star with flower petals around it. The next instant it disappeared.

“Did you see her?” The old man smiled proudly.

“What?”

“Did you see
her?
That was Kali. She was right there, before your very eyes. Did you miss it?” Then suddenly, “How are your feet?”

The pain was gone completely, and my feet felt almost cool. I watched the old man finish his cigarette; there were no more tricks. I wanted to ask him about the smoke pattern
and what he had called it, but felt that I'd be falling into another trap. So I kept quiet and relished the painless moment. Then I started to suspect that he was waiting for me to speak, so I turned back to the story.

“I liked your story, but I have to say that the woman with hair on the bottom of her feet was a bit spooky. What does the hair mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything, my dear friend. She's a chimera with a small manufacturing flaw, that's all.” The old man laughed at his own wit. “Her stuffing was showing…” Then he looked at me sharply and asked, “Can you tell me where your stuffing shows?”

That sounded like a
koan,
a nonsensical loaded question. I thought he was asking me about my weaknesses, maybe bad habits. Then I recalled that the nymph was made in a ritual, and I tried to calculate what the equivalent ritual that fashioned me might have been, and what the substance was. Of course, the stuff that went into making me was not grass; it was something biological and social, regulated by education and rules. Which would leave the stuffing as the vulnerable point, the key—like the solar-love flower—to unmaking my identity. If I could find that, I would then have knowledge of the mystical technique by which to create a new identity, a Kali in cigarette smoke in the world of maya. All of this came to me in a blur—it was too much to understand clearly.