Maya (16 page)

Singh told us that the hermit Kalidas had originally been Ramesh Jaganath Mishra, an anonymous midlevel bureaucrat under the British Raj, employed as an accountant at the viceroy's regional administrative offices in Dehradun. Educated at English-medium schools, Ramesh launched into his career after graduation and was soon married to a girl from Mussoorie. He brought the new bride back to his mother's home and settled in, anticipating the security of career and family life. At the end of their first year together a son was born, and Ramesh must have felt that he had everything life could offer. But within months all this collapsed.

Shortly after the birth of their son, the accountant experienced the first in a series of dreams that eventually upset his happiness. The legend has it that he was visited in his sleep by the goddess Kali, usually pictured wearing a garland of severed heads, her long tongue uncurled obscenely over black, shriveled lips. Kali is the only member of the Hindu pantheon who still demands to be worshiped through blood sacrifice. That first night she merely offered him darshan—the blessing of her presence. Other dreams followed, though, and before long she began to lift the corner of her veil, favoring Ramesh with increasingly abhorrent visions. His young wife grew accustomed to being awakened at night by her husband's quick, panicked breathing and by the terrible sound of his cries.

The border between dream and reality eroded, and within months the images began to infringe on Ramesh's waking life. At first it was only the memory of these dreams lingering through the day, but later he saw things—the same, dreadful images—while wide awake.

His waking life became a nightmare. He made the mistake of sharing these experiences with his neighbors. But one can easily understand how impossible it would have been to keep such a thing hidden in a small Indian village. It wasn't long before he was publicly recognized as a seer, favored by the goddess. It was said that he could read the circumstances of each person's death literally inscribed on their features. To look upon the faces of his neighbors was actually to watch each one of them die. For Ramesh this ability to witness the eventual death of his family and friends was a gift of prophecy he had not asked for. Once the visions swept over him, he was incapable of resisting. Accident, disease, and death were with him constantly.

People came from as far as Delhi to sit at the feet of the great prophet. The desire for darshan—to see and be seen by a holy person—is an ancient feature of Hinduism, but in this case it took on a unique flavor. Most of those who came to him were simply pious pilgrims, but as his fame spread, his visitors were increasingly driven by a compulsive need to know every detail of their fate. He complied with their requests, persuaded that the goddess had granted him this power and that it was not up to him to understand why.

The accountant Ramesh was not a sophisticated or ambitious man, and living with these alarming visions must have been an unbearably heavy burden, reading in every face the clear imprint of its destiny, the very moment of death. He resigned from his job and became dejected and
withdrawn, passing his days in meditation and worship. Neighbors heard him praying to Kali late at night, quietly sobbing and pleading, gently, unceasingly, for mercy. Hers was a hard blessing.

One of the last to visit him, or so the story goes, was the Mahatma himself. Gandhi is said to have made a trip to Ramesh's home in 1924, shortly after the famous “salt march” to the sea at Dandhi. He had just been released from his first stay in a British prison. If there is any truth to this story, and to the entire legend surrounding Kalidas, then the accountant may have revealed to Gandhi exactly when and where the fatal bullet would be delivered some twenty-four years later. Colonel Singh did not doubt in the least this account of Gandhi-ji's visit. He had heard it all directly from his predecessor, who had in turn heard it from the previous director, a man who claimed to have seen the youthful ex-advocate with his own eyes the very day he arrived in Dehradun to receive the prophecy. The story will probably never be confirmed, but among the local population there was no question as to what followed.

Not long after the Mahatma's pilgrimage to Dehradun, a disaster occurred that once again altered the course of Ramesh's life. Most people insisted that he had seen it coming and had done his best to prevent it but that his puja and meditation had been to no avail, that it had all amounted to nothing more than a desperate and futile attempt to alter his own destiny. Among educated brahmans it was generally acknowledged that things might have been different had Ramesh been stronger, better suited to serve as a vessel for the goddess. The consensus among these learned pundits was that his case was a tragedy; they may well have been correct. Certainly Ramesh was not the obvious choice for the job. He was far too timid, not equipped emotionally to cope with the formidable strain. But then, how many of us are born with the courage to take on the burden of an oracle?

According to Singh's story, Ramesh was up much later than usual one night, praying and meditating long after his wife and child went to bed. The baby had been wrapped and laid as usual on a mat next to its mother, but apparently the boy awoke sometime after and crawled away, falling asleep again off in the darkness where he was not easily visible. When Ramesh entered the room he stepped down on his son and literally crushed the child's tiny body under one bare foot, killing him instantly. A macabre howl reverberated through the household, a primal wail of bottomless despair that woke his wife.

Whether the infant's death could be viewed as an accident was hotly debated. A number of people blamed Ramesh directly for the tragedy. They insisted that he should have run away the moment he saw what was going to happen. Most agreed, though, that even assuming he knew exactly what was coming, Ramesh could no more have escaped his fate than any of us can escape ours. Whatever the truth, the accountant abandoned his wife shortly after his son's death and set out to wander alone in the mountains, eventually ending up in the region of Almora. Here he had dwelled as a hermit ever since. In 1935—almost ten years after his arrival—the area was designated a federal wildlife sanctuary, but he was permitted by the first director to stay on, apparently at the request of Jim Corbett himself.

“The precedent was set almost forty years ago,” Singh told us, “and I have had no reason to overturn it. He is an old man now. Every year he becomes weaker. But he will never leave the jungle. Of that I am certain.”

I had been listening to all of this with great interest. “You say that he came here for total solitude. To escape society. Why do you bother him, then?”

Colonel Singh drummed nervously on the seat with his fingers. “We bring him a few supplies, some simple things to keep him going. Nothing much. One cannot very well just let the man starve.”

“And that's why we're going there now?” Penny asked.

“Yes.” He waved a hand toward several burlap bags stowed behind the seat where the two of us were sitting. “Just some simple provisions. And this.” He picked up a brightly colored box of incense and held it between us, then tossed it back down beside him. “For puja.”

I reached over, lifted the package off the seat and sat turning it over in my hands as though it might contain something more precious than incense, a secret teaching, perhaps, or a prophecy of its own. “So he still worships the goddess?”

Colonel Singh seemed surprised by my question. “But of course. He is extremely devout. He will die here in the jungle, doing puja to Kali.”

“Colonel, do you mind if I ask you something?” I said this in English so the driver would not understand. I couldn't resist. “Did he ever tell you anything? I mean, well, you know . . . anything about your own death.”

“I have not talked with him about it, Mr. Harrington.”

“I see.”

“The fact is I have not talked with him about anything.”

“About anything?”

“I mean, simply,” Mr. Harrington, “that he has not spoken to me, and I have not spoken to him.”

“Not once in . . . how long has it been?”

“Almost ten years since I started here.”

“Are you saying that you've known this man for nearly ten years and during that time you've never exchanged a single word with him?”

“That is correct. He stopped speaking long before I arrived. He accepts the provisions we bring, but he is not interested in anything else. You'll see for yourself.”

“But if the legend is true, then he knows . . .”

“About my death?” The colonel interrupted me, smiling ironically. “Yes, of course he knows. The whole thing must seem very peculiar to you, Mr. Harrington—an American with a university education.” He hesitated. “But I have no doubt that he sees clearly what fate has in store for Suresh and myself.”

“And there are no other visitors?”

“No one enters this part of the park. Nor do we ever talk about Kalidas outside. His presence here is . . .” He considered for a moment. “It's become our secret, I suppose. I doubt that anyone else knows the man is still alive, or even remembers him for that matter. Which is precisely how he wants it.”

Penny had remained curiously silent throughout our conversation. I wondered what she thought about all of this, but it would have to wait until later when we could talk in private. Meanwhile our path led farther into the jungle.

We pulled into a clearing surrounded by dense forest. A ramshackle hut stood at the center, not much more than a bamboo cage covered with a patchwork of palm leaves, the whole thing laced together with a blue plastic cord that must have been included in one of the packages left there by the colonel. As the jeep drew near I saw someone stir inside. A silhouette in the dark interior drifted toward the entrance, then stopped short of the porch and hung back among the shadows, watching cautiously. It would have been difficult for him to see Penny and me in the back seat, and from what Singh had told us, we certainly would not have been expected. I gathered that this was his usual reaction to the colonel's arrival.

Suresh pulled the Land Rover up to the front of the house and cut
the engine. Kalidas remained in the dimly lit entrance, a frail old man bent over his cane, barefoot but otherwise fully clothed in the same government issue shirt and pants that the others were wearing. In this case, though, the outfit was several sizes too large for the tiny man, who seemed to have retreated into the baggy folds of worn khaki. His wispy hair and beard fell around his face and down over his hunched shoulders and narrow chest to well below his waist.

Suresh got out of the car, went around and opened the rear gate of the Land Rover, and began unloading a few kilos of rice and lentils, some potatoes and onions. Aside from the food, I saw a can of kerosene for the cooking stove. It didn't take long to finish setting all of it on the porch. Within minutes he was back in the jeep, the motor cranked over, and we were on our way. I turned back for a final look, but Kalidas was no longer standing in the door. I felt suddenly that I had missed out on something terribly important—an opportunity of some kind that would never come again.

We had driven as far as the edge of the jungle when I noticed the incense still lying on the seat next to me where I had let it fall.

“
Ruk jaao!
” I yelled at Suresh to stop and he hit the breaks.

“What is it?” Singh cried out.

I snatched up the package and waved it over the seat. “The incense. You forgot to leave it.” Singh was about to take the box from me when I opened the door and hopped out. “Sit still. I'll run it back.”

I dashed across the yard and rushed up to the porch just as Kalidas shuffled through the doorway directly into the sunlight. He had come out to retrieve the bags, and my sudden appearance caught him entirely unprepared. We were no more than a few feet away from each other when he looked up and saw me there, standing across from him, close enough that I distinctly heard him draw a deep breath as he stopped dead in his tracks.

I will never forget the expression that swept over his face during those first few seconds, how he recoiled at the sight of me. Perhaps it was nothing more than the shock of being surprised like this by a stranger—a foreigner, no less. And yet, the meaning of the horror that passed over his face is a text that resists any authoritative interpretation, regardless of how many times I resurrect the image of his wrinkled face and scrutinize each ancient, weathered line.

Whatever its significance, the wave of that first reaction washed over the old man's features and left behind eyes unlike any I have ever seen.
They were open wounds. All falseness and artificiality had been scoured away; what remained was just pain, and boundless trust. I felt myself in the presence of a man who needed nothing, a man whose only purpose was to see. We stood motionless across from each other for a few seconds. And then I remembered the incense. I reached out my hand and offered the package to him. He looked at the shiny green wrapper for a moment but didn't seem to realize what it was until I spoke.

“
Aap kaa agarbatti
,” I said tentatively, “Your incense.” He stared at the box I held between us. “We forgot to leave it with you.”

At last one frail arm moved forward, weak and trembling with age, his knuckles knotted and swollen. The arthritic fingers creaked open, hovered over my hand, then descended and closed around the incense, lifting it gently. He withdrew his arm and looked up at me. And then, just as I was about to turn away, he smiled—a shy, toothless grin that spread delicately out beneath the feathery whiskers and floated there for one timeless moment before he retreated into the hut and disappeared among the shadows.

I walked back to the Land Rover. Penny looked at me oddly as I climbed in and slammed the door shut, but no one said a word. The engine roared and we were gone. It wasn't until reaching the spot where we had watched the crocodiles that the colonel said something about dinner, and we all agreed we were starving.