The Assassin's Song (44 page)

“One day, my dear Karsan, your mother left,” wrote my father.

“I write this as we reel from the news that a railway bogey in a train full of pilgrims returning from Ayodhya was set on fire outside Godhra. Those inside were trapped and all perished, including children. What a ghastly and thoughtless crime. Now blood will pay for blood, and all madness will be set loose upon this land. Here in Haripir we must struggle to maintain the peace as we have done during past troubles. Your brother Mansoor is nowhere to be found. This worries me. You know he is a hotheaded fellow.

“He has wandered about much since coming of age. But finally he returned and for the last two years it seemed that he had settled down with me. He has been helpful in managing our home and even the shrine. And for a moment I began to harbour the desire that he become the next Saheb, my successor, since you had rejected this calling. But I know he is not the one, he does not possess that kindness and composure you had. The people know this too. They remember you well, Karsan, even after these many years. They say that the gaadi-varas Karsan will return one day. This has made your brother resentful.

“One morning I saw him bowed in the posture of namaz in his room; this was the first I learned that he had become a Muslim. I realized there was a seriousness and a need in him that he had never revealed to me before. It pleases me, this spiritual commitment, and yet it worries me too, if it comes purely out of resentment of Hindus. I wish you were here so that you two brothers could talk with each other.

“I began to tell you about your mother, but this new madness in our
country and my worry about your brother have waylaid me into quite another path …”

“You wondered why she did not write to you. The truth is that she could neither read nor write. Your mother was illiterate. She did not want you to know this, and so when you begged her to write to you, she was ashamed of herself and resolved to learn. Meanwhile I was not to tell you her secret.

“I was fond of your mother, just as I was fond of my sons. They meant much to me. But the Saheb is aware more than others about the transience of ordinary life, and its real purpose. Moreover he has a responsibility to all those who come seeking comfort at the shrine. He cannot be a normal father or husband. Even the conjugal life of a Saheb is not normal; this is not easy to accept for a young couple. Sufis of old tried many means to curb their desires. Some of them resorted to tying stones round their waists. Recall the story of how Pir Bawa, when he stayed amidst the opulence of Patan, fell to the wiles of a seductress. We have followed the ways of the sufis and married, because life's wants are not to be despised, youthful energies must be spent, and the Saheb-ship must be passed on. And yet we know that pleasure is an illusion that leads to attachment and distraction, and finally, unhappiness. It is another miracle at Pirbaag that a successor has always become a Saheb only after he has enjoyed the married life and moreover fathered one or two sons. After that, celibacy is the desired state. It is after all the spirit that counts, our worldly possessions and desires we must shed. Your mother found this hard to accept.

“It did not bother me that I had married a girl who could neither read nor write. Illiteracy is not unusual in our country; it is more the norm. But she came from a city and an established family, and all her brothers and sisters had gone to school. She missed out only because of her illness. And so she would pretend to read …”

“She loved to see films. Before your Dada died, we lived our blissful life of a young married couple; we went to the cinema and sometimes ate in the restaurants. But after I had become the Saheb, the pursuit of worldly enjoyment did not become us; more than that, it ceased to interest me, just
as a child one day sets aside its toys to engage with the real world. But for your Ma, besides her two sons, the illusion of the cinema screen was everything. And so she started going to the cinema in secret, and I could only look the other way, for I knew she could not help herself.

“All that is beside the point now. After you left she never recovered. She became depressed and seemed to have reverted to the condition she was in when I first saw her in Wardha, when my father cured her. (He— and she—believed that it was I who had cured her.) In her condition she became intensely suspicious and imaginative, making accusations unbecoming to her status and her dignity. I will not repeat them to you. She hurt herself more than others. Under these circumstances, Shilpa, our volunteer and benefactor of long, had to go away …”

[The lithe and luscious Shilpa of jasmines and roses, the temptress devotee who would subtly tease me, then return to haunt my tumescent dreams. How Ma hated her. Surely, Bapu-ji, there was more in her sweet devotions to you? You would have known. That bliss on your face. Did the stone around your waist save you, then, Bapu-ji?]

“Finally, I asked her brothers to come and take her away for some time; perhaps a change of air and perspective would do her good. I advised her to use her time there to learn to read and write enough so she could write to you and be happy. But she never returned. News came that she had died and they had cremated her there. I was not told the cause. I missed her, just as I missed you …”

What Indian woman in those times returned home from her husband's to be welcomed and loved? Sisters-in-law lurked like sharks in those risky waters, the poor victim set foot inside at her own peril.

It was Bapu-ji who lived in toyland.

Did he believe in all he taught? He must have. Yet the sadness is palpable there in his words, at having to deprive his young wife of love, keep her only to keep his home, be mother to his successor.

Ma never mentioned the circumstance of their first meeting, when she was healed by the Saheb of Pirbaag, or perhaps by his young successor who became her husband. How easily she was given away by her family, like a reject, to a shrine and into a life she would never have dreamed of or desired; no wonder she rarely went back to her parents. And when she did go that last time, sick again, it was only to die of some unknown cause.

You, up in a fortress high
I, a fish in the moat
pining for the look
of your eyes, beloved …

Thus the sufi's allegory of spiritual desire, which Bapu-ji would teach. But how appropriate a description of my mother's real want, though she would have preferred some playback singer to express it. All the romance in her life came from the films.

I almost said “her empty life”; but she had Mansoor and me. We too failed her. I had loved her, but how little I knew about her. My freedom from Pirbaag meant more to me than my duty to her; and here I am, back, not sure ultimately what I gained from my escape. Bapu-ji can at least claim that victory—if the dead have victories—in the return of his renegade son. But Ma?

A fraternal walk up to the Hanuman temple.

We take a moderately brisk pace; andantino, as Julian's music teacher would say, a flash of memory intrudes like lightning into my thoughts. If I have given the impression that I have forgotten my son, it is not true; I have simply muffled the pain, as I cope with a more immediate one. And so Mansoor and I walk at a moderate pace, our mood light on this hilly path, as it always is on the road to a shrine, a temple. Our destination is Jhakhu, temple to Hanuman. Dozens of people around us. Some make this arduous trek daily, others occasionally; there is a scholar at the Institute who jogs up every morning for his devotions to this god of physical prowess, among other things.

Inspired by Bapu's wish, expressed in his letter, that my brother and I could have spent time together and talked, I had with some trepidation suggested this challenging hike up to a Hindu shrine that is a must for all visitors to Shimla. To my surprise Mansoor readily agreed; he had gone with Ma to the Kali shrine in Pavagadh once, he said. It was a few months after I had left. That too had been a long trek uphill. At the end of it, he exults in telling me, atop the Kali temple was a sufi shrine. Explain that!— he exclaims. The answer is simple. But I keep my wisdom and we walk on.

Halfway up, the famous monkeys appear. They are supposed to understand Pahadi, the local mountain dialect, but we speak to them in our Gujarati Hindi. “We have nothing on us, go away. Jao! Bhaago!” But the one who has picked us as victims or benefactors, a moderate-sized female with expressive eyes and holding a baby, follows us, taking leaps at my
shoulder bag until finally I open the jhola for her to peer inside—“See, there's nothing”—and confirm for herself that truly there is nothing to eat there. She disappears into the shadows.

A little later the food stalls appear, lighted in the evening by wick lamps, and the first stalls selling sweets and flowers for the pilgrims to take to the temple. Our monkey has followed us; the first order of fresh pakodas from the wok therefore must go to this Hanuman's ambassador, and she goes away to sit at the roadside with her prize; we consume the second batch before climbing up the rest of the way.

There is a dharamshala and dining hall at the top of the mountain, and more flower and sweets stalls; facing these, the Hanuman temple with the ancient icon of the monkey god at the back. All is light and festive here. Loudspeakers blare out devotional songs. People stride out from the temple with beaming faces.

“You believe in this kind of God?” my brother asks in surprise as we stand outside the temple. “You consider this form of worship mysticism— bowing to the gaudy image of a monkey?”

“You had more respect for the gods before, Mansoor. And there can be a mystery to an icon—we bring to it what is inside us.”

“Stop acting the Saheb,” he grumbles, but he lets me push him gently forward. We join a queue of worshippers inside. When our turn arrives at the sanctum, I watch him put some bills in the money chest, join hands, bow to Hanuman; it is instinct. I do likewise, have the bag of sweets in my hands blessed by the priest, and together we come out.

Our faces must be beaming. I have not prayed this way for a long time, bowed formally to a mystery, an image of a mystery with humility and fellow feeling for other humans who also come in all humility. I glance with covert satisfaction at the priest's saffron daub on my brother's forehead: the mark of a worshipper. Surely a miracle, this? But I must give him his due, his new form of worship, the ballet on the ground (not without its image, though: the compass direction West serves as that) is surely also an equivalent, humble form of worship to a mystery called Allah.

And what must he think, I who would not admit to any belief, also branded as a worshipper by a priest? Perhaps it is he who has brought me here.

Going back downhill, the path is dark, lighted only by the lamps of the closing food stalls and the worshippers' restless flashlights; but the mood is festive. Pilgrims are still heading up, throwing soft greetings to those going down. The monkeys are in abeyance, mostly, though our cellophane bag of blessed sweets has long been snatched away.

“What happened to Ma, Mansoor?” I ask when we reach a quiet, flat patch of track at the bottom of the climb.

Bapu has spared me the more painful details in his letter; Mansoor will be merciless.

One Saturday morning, our mother came out to the shrine in the burqa, showing her face so she would be recognized; the crowd was the thickest at this time. Calmly, it appeared, she went about tending to the small chores of the shrine, oblivious to the uneasy stares and the silence around her. Bapu-ji, seated on the pavilion, remained totally composed, as though all were normal. Beside him was the teacher and printer Master-ji, and close by were some volunteer attendants. Later, as the crowd changed, it seemed that some normality had returned, the people now used to the woman in burqa and discreet about her identity if they knew it. Then Shilpa hurried in, beautiful, cheerful, having just arrived on the bus; she put away her handbag to one side and went and greeted Bapu-ji with “Namasté, Saheb.” Having touched his feet, she stood up and then gently attempted to arrange the shawl on his shoulders. It was a quietly possessive gesture, well practised, and it chewed up Ma's insides as she stood observing, surrounded by a dense group of visitors. Unable to contain herself, Ma let out a sudden, piercing shriek and approached the pavilion, crying, “You, let go of my husband!” Turning around, she addressed, pleaded with her petrified audience: “That rundi is all over my husband! Do something, you people!” One arm stretched out, a finger pointing to Shilpa, whom she had just called a whore. And then, in the silence that greeted her, my poor mother, the Saheb's wife who had turned herself into a hysterical freak in a dishevelled burqa, broke down into sobs and allowed herself to be taken to the back of the compound and inside the house. It could be explained to the people that she was suffering from hallucinations; that she was possessed and the Saheb was treating her.

It all began with my departure. Ma would accuse Bapu-ji of having
driven me off. “He did not want to be a Saheb-shaheb at all, why did you pressure him? The poor boy would come and cry to me. You wrenched him away from my breast! You haunted him!”