Shekhar: A Life

Part 1 Man and Nature

Roaring, the train raced on. Shekhar had already left his mother, father and brothers behind in the land of the Nilgiri mountains, and now Madras was fading in the distance, too. Nilgiri, Madras, Malabar, Travancore—all would be left behind! He was moving on, the train pulling him along as it recklessly raced on northwards, and only stopping for a breath after 1000 miles. And from there another train would leave and drag him another 1000 miles away. Two thousand miles away from all the places he had known . . .

But what were these places that he had known? What did they matter to him? What were the Nilgiri mountains to him except a place where his relatives lived? And what was Mahabalipuram except a place where he had almost drowned? And what was Travancore even, other than the place where Sharda was and where he had managed to fight with her? If he wasn’t there, these places didn’t really exist . . . These places existed because he had been in them, and now he was running away from all of them, running away from the mark he had left on all of those places, running away from himself . . .

Was any of this real? Were those places real? Was all of that conflict, love and accusation real? Was he even real? The train pulled him along as it raced on, and it seemed to him that nothing was real, perhaps not even the racing of the train . . .

But it couldn’t be anything other than real. Shekhar was running away from his failures, running from his pain. He was a fool. He was making a foolhardy attempt at running away from life. And was there any place where he could really hide from life? Those who run from the battlefront, run from their own failures, ultimately finding new battles at each step, and they remain defeated until they realize that they can’t run any more, until they hold their ground and fight . . . Running from life? There was only more life ahead. You couldn’t stop life; its expanse never ended . . .

Let it be. Madras will be 1000 miles behind and Punjab 1000 miles ahead. There was a new life there; and Vidyavati was there, and Shashi, and . . . The din of the train is like the thunder of the ocean. Ocean . . . but this thunder was leading him away from the ocean, far away . . .

The Punjabis were tall and strong in stature, fair-complexioned, attractive and, from the sound of it, well-reputed. Shekhar looked them in the eye—they didn’t flinch, neither from fear nor from meaningless courtesy.

And he thought, ‘Here is a man. I can work with him; he will fight shoulder to shoulder with me.’

He had run away from the battle and come. He had arrived exhausted, and so he didn’t believe himself to be battle-ready, didn’t find himself to be alert. It was as if he had loosened his armour and was resting. He wasn’t asleep, his eyes were open, but he wasn’t holding a sword either. He was simply observing—his eyes held only the vague feeling of an attempt at recognition, with neither the compulsion for friendship nor the hesitation of enmity.

And after seeing the people of this new land two years later he thought, ‘Here there are men. I can work with them.’

Two years ago, when he had come here to take his matriculation exams, he hadn’t really seen the people. He had come with a head full of thoughts of Sharda, and he left with new markings put there by Shashi, and he hadn’t really seen anything special. But now that he had just come from battle, he was measuring them with a warrior’s yardstick—although it was one that belonged to a tired and resting warrior.

Shekhar wasn’t a partisan—and if he was partial at all, then it was because there was some justification for Punjab and its people—and as soon as he arrived, he began trying to become of one mind and one spirit with them. He tried to talk to the boys in the hostel to understand their ideas, their principles and their hopes. When he realized that he was the source of the problem—since he didn’t speak their language, he didn’t wear the same clothes, it was clear that he wasn’t one of them—he tried to look for a solution to this as well. He had a few outfits made—collars, ties, socks, shoes, comb, brush,¹ cologne, an iron to press his pants, a hanger to hang his coat and even a khaki sola topi—but not with any desire to impress. All of the things he bought were ordinary, he didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of money, but he liked things with a special simplicity so that while his purchases were not expensive they didn’t look cheap. It’s necessary for showy things to look expensive when someone gets up close, but if no one ever gets too close, an inexpensive, workable thing can pass just as well. When he put on his clothes and went to meet with his classmates, he felt that as far as trademarks went, he was worthy of standing in their ranks. The language problem persisted, though—he couldn’t speak their language well and he didn’t understand the idioms at all. But since he looked and behaved more like them, and because he was able to understand most of what they were saying, he didn’t appear to be an outsider. And he was gradually granted entrance into their midst.

The ease with which his clothes opened all kinds of doors for him should have made him suspicious, but he wasn’t in the right state of mind to be suspicious. Gaining acceptance, being welcomed, becoming recognized was so nice . . . Shekhar’s face wasn’t especially unattractive; nor did his European clothes weigh him down.

The tongue of a reserved man, an introverted man who is half-wild and half-ascetic, may very well falter in the constantly running, contrived, polite small talk of a foreign culture, but he has no problem or hesitation in putting on the clothes of a foreign culture or in making them his own. These clothes weren’t that strange to him. English wasn’t his mother tongue but it was his father tongue—an American priest had taught him to speak it using his own language . . . Soon, Shekhar discovered that the majority of the students knew who he was, and they didn’t know him the way that he was known in Madras . . . He gained some self-confidence, and with that confidence his studies improved. In the first quarterly exam, he learned that he was ranked first in three out of four subjects. So he became even more popular, received more invitations and was introduced to a wider circle . . . Slowly, the admiration he received from all corners spread through him like an intoxicant—he never noticed how or when his expenses more than doubled, how he now had more than three suitcases full of clothes when he only had a trunk before, since he could still never find the right colour tie for the right occasion—and even if you put all of his ties together, they still probably didn’t take up more than two inches of space! He knew that people came to ask his advice before they bought new clothes, and that the day after he wore a new tie, he could spot it in several places even though it was no longer around his neck. He even noticed that he had started getting invitations from male and female students who didn’t live in his hostel.

His armour was still on, loosely. There was so much happiness in abandoning it, in surrendering himself to each gust of wind. The wind would steal away his fatigue, dry his sweat, replace the blood tainted with exhaustion in his veins, cool it down and revitalize it, alleviate his pain . . . It was good to surrender yourself to the wind, to drift in the breeze . . .

But drifting in the breeze and flitting to and fro meant that the steel armour would pinch . . . As long as he had the armour on, he would have to remain a turtle—or he would have to take it off and throw it away so that it didn’t make things worse and injure him. Should Shekhar take it off and throw it away? But he had already cast off and thrown away all of his clothes, those vain pretences which are too heavy to carry on a journey . . . All that remained under the armour was his naked skin, naked and soft and vital . . . And hiding underneath the bone and meat and blood was a small, vulnerable, helpless, trembling life—Shekhar himself . . . So should he put the armour back on?

But it was so pleasant to lie down after taking off one’s armour in a boat lying on the edge of a river at some remove from the battle, to rise and fall with each gust of wind as if it were a swing . . .

But Shekhar came to find that the entire society that he had just been admitted into was divided into different factions. He didn’t detect such cliques amongst the students in the hostel, where people were divided into classes according to wealth or intelligence, but the people he met outside the hostel did things differently. Sometimes it seemed to him that these factions were based on ideologies because he noticed that Plato was revered as an idol in one of them and Schopenhauer in another; another would always be discussing Stoicism while another was debating Hedonism. Sometimes he felt as if all this factionalism was everyone’s attempt at differentiating their own particular addictions² . . .

Shekhar slowly found himself being drawn towards two factions. The two groups were different from each other temperamentally speaking, but the internal conflict raging inside him drew him towards both simultaneously.

Most of the members of the first group lived with Shekhar in the dormitory. Shekhar had moved into this dormitory from his previous one because he had hoped to meet the best and brightest members of the student body. Generally, this was where the sons of well-to-do families lived, and most of the names that one heard around the college were residents of that dormitory because they played prominent parts in the sports teams—hockey, soccer, tennis, and so on—and took part in the debates that happened in the various clubs, or you could say that special places were reserved in this dormitory for such students . . .

Every evening Shekhar would hear the sound of laughter coming from the room next door, so he went inside one day and that’s how he was introduced to this group. The room belonged to the chief member of this group, Chatursen, whom no one had heard speaking the vernacular language, and for this reason alone he was one of the three monitors³ of the dormitory. His friends—whom Shekhar had been introduced to as Narendra, Bhupendra and Moti on the first day, but starting on the second day began to be called ‘Kaalu’, ‘Bhopu’ and ‘Puppy’—came regularly. It was considered taboo to call any member of this group by his full name; given names were social conventions. Kaalu had said one day, ‘Members of our group are opposed to social conventions—it’s another barrier between men relating to others in an honest way. We want to know humans as humans, not as social veneers in the shape of “scarecrows”.’ Shekhar didn’t object to this idea, but it seemed strange coming from Kaalu’s lips as he was the dimmest member of the group. ‘Puppy’ had a keen intellect—he ranked high in the university—but he would laugh a distorted, sarcastic laugh after anything anyone said, so much so that he even laughed in constant displeasure at himself. He often talked about the girls at the college, and he had such intense disrespect and contempt towards them—towards the whole of womankind—dripping in everything he said about them . . . Shekhar thought, ‘Here’s a man who’s dispositionally an ascetic, but his self-restraint has turned around and become poisonous, and unable to detest the detestable, he’s constantly spitting out venom.’

This fact both attracted him and sometimes filled him with repulsion and pushed him far away, but his keen intellect magnetically drew him towards Shekhar slowly and, one day, strangely, Shekhar learned a lesson from him.

Puppy introduced Shekhar to three sisters named Miss Kaul who were known in their circle as Rani, Lily and Ruby. The eldest was getting her MA and the other two were getting their BAs. One could still see their natural beauty beneath their fashionably eyebrow-less and colourfully painted eyes and their lipstick-stained lips, a beauty that they had spared no effort in perfecting. A few times, after Shekhar had been listening to their war-wearied, haughty and indifferent banter, he would leave wondering how they ever managed to put on all that lipstick and make-up through their indifference, and once he unconsciously asked this question aloud. Puppy asked him, ‘Which one of them seems the most indifferent to you?’

Shekhar responded, ‘Can’t really say. Maybe Ruby.’

‘Come on, I can’t keep their names straight. I can only tell them apart by the smell of their perfumes.’

Shekhar couldn’t keep from smiling. He was now mature enough that he could appreciate such conversation, even if he couldn’t participate in it. He said, ‘I’m not much of an expert as of yet . . .’

Puppy said, ‘It’s for the best. You’ll never believe what happened the other day. I told Kaalu something similar, and that rascal snuck in and switched their perfumes. We all went to the movies later, and on the way back I couldn’t tell who was who.’

Puppy shut up when he saw that Kaalu was coming this way. But Kaalu had already heard what they were talking about and said, ‘Hey, tell him the whole story! Why did you stop? The thing is that we were walking back under a canopy of trees. Puppy was taking advantage of the darkness to take Ruby’s hand when she snatched it away and said, “How dare you, Puppy!”⁴ The poor guy started apologizing. And that’s when Lily burst out laughing.’

‘Liar! Why don’t you tell him about yourself—did you already forget? It’s only been two days. After your little joke, Lily was—’

‘When was this?’ Shekhar smiled as he asked.

‘Just the day before yesterday.’

But Kaalu interrupted Puppy in the middle of what he was saying, ‘In all honesty, though, it’s impossible to tell anyone apart these days. The other day Chatter [that’s what Chatursen called himself] thought that he was being really cheeky, said that you can only know who a person is by the taste of her lipstick, but—’

Shekhar was a little vexed. He didn’t mind listening to talk about women or jokes about their mannerisms, but it still upset him to listen to jokes about sex which was for him connected to love. ‘There’s no such thing as love. There’s the body and there’s the brain—one chooses the body and the other chooses money. That’s all that love really is.’ Shekhar could never accept that point of view. He left his friends and remembered that the night before last all of them were in the dormitory, and Chatursen had taken attendance himself at 9 p.m., so how did they go to the movies?

He couldn’t get this question out of his mind. Without realizing it, he started paying attention to what these fellows were up to after the nightly attendance. On the third night, he saw all four of them descend the back staircase after attendance, and they were followed by a young servant who worked in the dormitory. The servant was about to close the gate after the four had gone out when Shekhar rushed to say, ‘I’ve got to talk to Chatursen,’ and he went out as well.

Neither did it escape Shekhar’s notice that the servant hid the bottle he had been carrying.

Shekhar returned at 11.30 p.m. The four boys had walked about two miles and then sneaked into a house. Shekhar turned around and went back after he saw that. The gate was open. He quietly climbed up the back staircase, went to his room and went to sleep.

The next day, he set out in the evening to find out whose house that was. He was standing at some distance from it, thinking to himself about whom he could ask, when the mathematics professor from the college emerged, recognized Shekhar and said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Shekhar? This is no place for decent men.’

‘Why?’ asked Shekhar in surprise.

‘Can’t you see? That’s the neighbourhood where the brothels are.’

Shocked and embarrassed, Shekhar left with the professor.

In the second circle, Shekhar never heard any talk of women. All of the focus of this group was basically centred on reforming society. When talk of women happened, it was only in the singular—woman was the fulcrum of civilization, woman held the reins of civilization, woman was the centre of this male-dominated society, woman was this and that . . . It’s possible that the reason for this was that there was only one woman amongst the members of that group and she was its leader.

Manika was educated in Oxford and Paris. She came back to India after getting her degrees there, but because she was independently wealthy she didn’t find it necessary to seek employment.

It was only to pass the time that she had accepted an unpaid job as a lecturer on literature for four or five hours a week at a college, and that was how she maintained her reputation amongst the students. It was well known in all the colleges that any young man of quality from any college would certainly be in Devi Manika’s salon. So the boys who fancied they were—and those who didn’t—were always trying to gain entrance into her salon.

Shekhar was taken there by a young classmate. That Bengali boy had a flat, Mongol face and thick lenses on his glasses that covered fixed and slightly swollen eyes, all of which dripped with stupidity. But supposedly he had some ability and was considered knowledgeable about certain genres of English literature. Because of an essay he had written on Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite poets for his exams, Shekhar was deemed worthy of attending Devi Manika’s salon, and that’s where the Bengali boy was taking him.

Shekhar was on his way, but he thought the timing was wrong. He was filled with contempt and loathing for all of these cultural organizations. Earlier that day he had been in a fight with Kaalu when he had gone to take a bath—Kaalu had sworn at him when he noticed that Shekhar was taking too long in the bathroom. Shekhar had come out naked and beaten him up—ever since, something had been eating away at him. He didn’t want to go to her in his present condition, but when he learned that time had been set aside especially for him, he went.

Devi Manika’s drawing room was beautiful, but he never had the chance to admire its beauty.

He certainly did notice for just a moment the three other people sitting in the room. Devi Manika had been reclining on the sofa when she noticed Shekhar and his companion enter the room. She fixed on the other boy and said, ‘Hello, Cream Puff, is this your friend?’

Shekhar was a little stunned when he looked at his friend. It fit him well—Cream Puff. He couldn’t suppress a smile at the sharp tongue on the slight woman reclining on the sofa and the appropriateness of the name it had chosen. Cream Puff—once you heard the name, it was impossible to imagine that the man had ever had another!

Shekhar also noticed that in the time that it took for his companion to introduce him—‘My friend, Chandrashekhar Pandit, Miss Manika Devi’—Manika had looked him over from head to toe and decided that he was not an interesting person.

Manika stretched out her arm to gesture him to a chair, ‘Sit. Do you smoke?’ With two fingers, she slid an elaborately carved walnut box in Shekhar’s direction.

‘No, thanks, I don’t smoke.’

Seated to Manika’s left was a fat, pink-nosed Anglo-Indian man who said, ‘Miss Manika, not that. Give him the other stuff. Initiate him.’ He placed a glass next to Shekhar and yelled, ‘Waiter!’

Shekhar followed his finger to a side table next to Manika and the tray with two bottles and a few glasses of different sizes on it.

‘No, thanks.’

‘What—don’t you drink? That just doesn’t fly here. I can’t stop until I’ve had a drink. And the rules of civility—’

Manika interrupted drily, ‘Well, good sir, at least leave the rules of civility alone.’

Cream Puff said, ‘Matthews always says that the Greek empire fell because the Greeks stopped drinking—they were fine as long as they were drinking.’

The waiter brought tea. One of the men who had been quiet until now spoke, ‘Surely, you drink tea, don’t you, Mr Pandit?’

‘No, thanks, I don’t.’ There was a hint of condescension in the question, which angered Shekhar enough to get up. He said, ‘Moreover, I find it insulting that you’d even ask the question. “Surely you drink tea?”, “Surely you’ll have a cigarette?”, “Surely you’ll have a drink?” As if the only test of civility were the answer to the question, “Surely, you’ll have some?”’

It was the first time that Manika looked interested. She said, ‘Well said, Pandit. It’s the first intelligent thing I’ve heard all day.’

Matthews was hostile, ‘Mister Pandit speaks! I thought that he didn’t say anything other than “no” and “thanks”.’

‘Mahatmas don’t speak much, but when they do it’s always meaningful.’

Shekhar turned to Cream Puff in order to make clear his contempt for these questions lobbed at him and asked, ‘Do you also drink?’

Manika smiled, ‘Are you trying to test his civility?’

A cackle of laughter erupted. Matthews spoke first, ‘Hey, Cream Puff! You’re a spongy cream puff soaking up liquor like a sponge,’ and he laughed at his own pun.

Shekhar responded, ‘I had no idea that the life of a student in Punjab was so disgusting. I had hoped that these able bodies might have something of substance in them, but they are just putrid, rotting masses of flesh.’

What happened to that meeting was not unlike what happens to pet goldfish when a crab is released into the bright waters of their fish tank. Everyone got up and walked out immediately, and finding himself alone with Manika, Shekhar, too, got up in order to take his leave.

As she was getting up, Manika proclaimed, ‘It was really nice to meet you’ and just as Shekhar was about to respond to her ordinary formalities in kind, she added, ‘The people who come to me have intelligence, certainly, but no character, and that saddens me as well. We have big teeth, but we don’t have strong intestines—we can take big bites, but we can’t digest what we have eaten. You don’t seem to take an interest in eating, but your digestive system seems to be in order.’ She stopped for a moment and then continued, ‘It really was a pleasure to meet you.’ This time, her voice didn’t carry a note of formality, just honesty.

With the slightest of gratitude, Shekhar replied, ‘Goodbye.’

‘No, not like—’ Manika said as she extended her hand. Shekhar shook her hand and she added, ‘You definitely have to come again, John the Baptist.’

Shekhar liked the nickname—‘John the Baptist’. It had something of the plain-spoken goodwill of the half-crazed and the prophetic. And the gentle pressure of Manika’s hand also felt nice—it felt affectionate, as if it were a man’s hand.

There was an idiosyncratic compassion in Manika’s disposition which made one angry, made one feel sorry and even made one feel a little respect—and that was the reason that Shekhar went back to her house a few more times. Each time he left, he was a little more impressed and substantially more distressed. Manika had a piercing intellect, but she didn’t have the resolve to keep it in check; at the same time, she had the pathetic and painful knowledge of her own lack of resolve, and that made it difficult to get angry with her.

After their first meeting, Shekhar received an invitation for tea one afternoon from Manika, in which she had added after the customary words of invitation, ‘At that time, there won’t be any undesirable people here, don’t worry.’ And on that day, Shekhar learned how deep Manika’s intellect was and how feeble her strength—although intellect is often confused with strength.

A few other times, Shekhar went whenever he had been invited, but he had never seen anyone else present. After that, he was familiar enough with her that he wouldn’t hesitate to go over without an invitation.

One day, Shekhar went out for a walk after dinner when he decided that he wanted to see Manika. At her place, European customs were in sway, which meant that there was nothing inappropriate in dropping by for conversation after dinner—this is what Shekhar thought when he arrived at her house.

He ran into Matthews outside. He didn’t care—nor was Matthews pleased with their sudden encounter.

Shekhar knocked on the door to the drawing room, knocked again and then went inside. The drawing room was empty, and the other door to the drawing room was open; there were some dirty dishes on the table but there was no one in the room. Shekhar stood there confused for a moment. Then he sat down on a chair in the drawing room and immediately stood back up again. In the opposite corner of the drawing room, in a dim light, on a blue sofa, in a dishevelled sari, was Manika, lying down, a bare arm dangling down to the floor.

Shekhar called out to her, ‘What happened? Are you all right?’ Then he went to her and asked again, ‘What’s the matter, Miss Manika?’

Manika’s eyes fluttered indecisively and then opened. They stared at Shekhar’s face for a moment and then closed again. They opened again—the effort it took to open them was written clearly on her face—and she said, ‘Shekhar, oh!’ She tried to get up once, admitted defeat and then, as if in desperation, said, ‘Shekhar, I am dead drunk!⁵ That Matthews brought something . . . I’ve never had a wine so strong . . . I had no idea . . . the scoundrel!’

‘Matthews brought something? Why did you drink it?’ Shekhar didn’t know what else to say.

‘Drank! I drank!’ Manika laughed. ‘I have a wicked laugh, don’t I? I know I do. I am feeling stupid, stupid⁶ [I am not myself].’ She stopped momentarily and said, ‘Will you bring me that book, the one with the blue cover? And bring the lamp over here, too.’

Shekhar did exactly that. Manika opened the book, her hands trembling, and pointed to one passage and said, ‘Have you read this poem?’

Confused and overwhelmed, Shekhar took the book from her hands and began reading to himself distractedly.

‘Read it aloud. I want to hear it.’

Shekhar read it aloud:

My candle burns at both ends

It will not last the night

But ah my foes, and on my friends—

It gives a lovely light!⁷

Shekhar was silent.

‘Read on.’

Shekhar said in a hurt voice, ‘Forgive me, but I don’t want to read any more right now.’

‘Don’t want to? Why? But you’re right. You’re feeling sorry for me, aren’t you?’

Shekhar didn’t answer.

‘But I think—’ Manika sat up in a fit of emotion ‘—you’re wrong. And why did you come here when you weren’t invited? Go away. Who do you think you are to feel sorry for me and disturb my solitude?’

Shekhar had turned around to leave when Manika laughed—‘I’m drunk, aren’t I? I know I am. I have such a stupid laugh. Yes, you should go. And don’t come back unless you’re invited, understand?’

Shekhar left.

‘I was right before. Burn at both ends,⁸ that’s what a body is good for. What it’s good for. You’re an idiot, an idiot, my John the Baptist.’

Outside, Shekhar recalled that when they had been talking the day before, Manika had asked, ‘Do you have any passions?’ And he casually replied, ‘I like collecting pictures.’

‘How uninteresting!⁹ No divine being?’

Shekhar explained that a long time ago he had a great interest in keeping animals and birds as pets and in catching butterflies, but he didn’t any longer.

‘That’s all? I collect men.¹⁰ They’re all such strange specimens—but—’ when suddenly her voice fell from boredom and exhaustion—‘they’re all the same under their skins. Uncivilized, uncultured—avaricious beasts!’

As he recalled that day’s conversation, Shekhar began drawing a connection in his mind, ‘They’re all the same under their skins—all men, all women—men and women, women and men . . .’ ‘We have big teeth, but we don’t have strong intestines—we can take big bites, but we can’t digest what we have eaten . . .’

‘They’re all the same under their skins—avaricious beasts—’

‘John the Baptist—’

‘You’re an idiot, an idiot—’

Shekhar had made up his mind that with or without an invitation he wouldn’t return to Manika’s place; he had been banned from Chatursen’s group after fighting with Kaalu; aloof from those who were less intelligent than he was out of arrogance; unhappy with his family after getting letters of rejection to his repeated requests for more spending money; when Shekhar was sitting in melancholy isolation in his room like an untamed, proud horse trampling on the dust of the past, he began wanting to write formal prose or poetry to give himself solace like he used to, he realized that a few of the things that Manika had said echoed in his mind and scattered his thoughts and compelled him to think about them rather than brush them off easily . . . He didn’t want to do that, but his memory contained a certain compulsion and it made him helpless. It was all too easy to remove thoughts of the members of Chatursen’s group or the Kaul sisters from his mind—they were merely the fashionable forms of irrelevant vices; but Manika—she was the mutilated and corrupt form of power, depressing, but not contemptible that she couldn’t be ignored. Manika’s—her type’s—their souls were completely infected, but it was still a soul, and the infection was not hers alone; it was the desire of the modern soul . . .

Shekhar gave up the futile quest for solace, and having dropped the pretence of formal prose or poetry, he began writing whatever came pouring forth from his brain—students and teachers . . . fashion¹¹ and culture, reason and passion, hedonism and asceticism and obsession . . . Gradually he began to write faster, as if his mind were being cast in a mould, and in his growing astonishment he realized that he was automatically composing prose and poetry, narrative and exposition and so much more; and although he wasn’t experiencing the pleasure of creation, merely the satisfaction of exertion; and although he wasn’t colouring the pages with the sweet colours of his imagination, merely pouring forth the bitter juices of familiar experiences; and once he had written something down he had no desire to go back and read what he had written; he’d pick up the piece of paper and toss it in the large drawer in his cupboard—nevertheless his mind was becoming disciplined and skilled. Slowly he was overtaken with the knowledge or the belief that the people he was writing about, the men and women who had surrounded him and made up his world, were ultimately not all bad; they were pathetic ensembles of good intentions—they possessed noble desires, but their desires weren’t strong enough. They were satisfied with setting out to find the virtuous but were ultimately ensnared, trapped and destroyed by the wicked . . . Could a man possibly condemn such people? But wasn’t compassion for such as these equally impossible? A lone individual trying to view the whole world with compassion—he had set for himself an immense challenge!—Slowly, without coming to any resolution to this question, the stack of coloured pages began to grow, so much so that he began to stack his filled notebooks in a box and then, when it was no longer possible to divide them into categories, he filled up an entire cupboard . . .

His friends mocked his new-found asceticism. The circle around Chatursen took it as a sign of its complete supremacy, and no matter when Shekhar would leave his room they would greet him with barks and meows, a new sort of tradition to announce their victorious glee; others thought it was just preparations for the exams, a few said that he had been wearing borrowed clothes and shoes, and now that he was no longer getting them, he wasn’t out and about as much . . . Everyone scoffed at him, but really they were all burning with curiosity about what he was up to.

It was now the height of summer—examination days were fast approaching. Shekhar read a few books as if intoxicated to prepare, took the exams in a daze and knew that he would still easily score well and then immersed himself in writing. His classmates went back home after the exams, but the remaining students spread all manner of rumours about him when they saw that he was still studying—everything from preparations for the ICS exams to opium dens—but he remained immersed. Finally, the remaining students had gone back to their homes and Shekhar was left all by himself.

Shekhar wasn’t prepared for the isolation. Something of the terror of isolation had fallen over him. It was necessary for him to run away from it—from himself—constantly; constantly establishing himself and staying put. Finding himself alone in the hostel, he began to be drawn towards the servants—and suddenly he was interested in their lives. But after two or three days, he had decided that there was nothing more there that could keep him interested—these hill folk smoked their hookahs all day and spoke vulgarly, sang a few songs in the evening and played kabaddi at night, and that was it. And then when he found nothing of interest nearby, he unconsciously started wandering the streets and the alleys. It was terribly hot during the daytime, so he slept through the day, and from evening until midnight he’d be wandering, and after a couple of hours of sleep, he’d be walking again in the early morning.

Those who have not spent any time in such aimless wanderings—in perfect vagabondage—cannot imagine how deep the intoxication is. It took Shekhar a long time to realize that the curiosity which was drawing him to wander each chance he got was slowly destroying him—he was gradually becoming a full-fledged ‘loafer’,¹² the kind with no curiosity, with no desire, ambition, hope or will, who had no more to his existence than the fact that ‘he was’. Unconsciously he was approaching that condition where he might steal in order to eat if he got hungry, without noticing that he had stolen or that he had done it because he was hungry; or that he could steal someone’s blanket because he was cold but wouldn’t realize it . . .

That was why when he suddenly set out on the same path on which he had followed Chatursen and the others that one time, he wasn’t completely at fault, even though he was at the time completely aware and very mindful.

As he walked through that hazy neighbourhood, lit by multicoloured lights, his mind grew dim and tired instead of alert and awake. This irritated and frustrated him. It was as if he were shaking his mind trying to wake it up, saying, ‘Wake up, Shekhar, do you know where you are? This is the red-light district. They sell flesh here, they sell satisfaction here, they sell happiness here. Get it?’ . . . But his mind refused to grasp this. In his growing rage, he began repeating, ‘Whores, whores, whores, prostitutes,¹³ harlots, get it? Where there are no relations—no shame—no light, no darkness—only colours—faces colourfully painted . . .’ But this only made his mind even more tired. It didn’t wake it; it refused to come under Shekhar’s command and it wasn’t prepared to go forward either. It was as if it had no concern for either the one that was going forward or the one that was advising caution . . .

All of a sudden, a woman bumped into him. He realized with some shock that the bump hadn’t been accidental; the woman had intentionally, purposefully and indecently shoved him. Shekhar stared at her for a second—without anger, without feeling, and stood off to the side. Astonishingly, the woman cursed at him. Shekhar wanted to ask himself, ‘Why did I come here? What did I want to do here? What did I want to get here?’ . . . He had perhaps hoped that he would have an exciting time or feel a sharp disgust or get angry; some overwhelming reaction which would stir things up inside him, which would make him tremble—this softly—very softly!—he wasn’t prepared for this fatigue—nor for the slightness of the tumult . . .

Two half-naked boys were sitting on a porch. They were sitting together in an obscene pose, their arms around each other’s necks, each kissing the other on the mouth, and after each kiss they’d look across to the facing window and laugh a meaningful laugh. Shekhar followed their eyes—in the light from a blue light bulb¹⁴ was a woman sitting wearing a purple sari, and in the coloured light her made-up face looked like—the face of a corpse lying in water . . .

Shekhar moved on.

Four Muslims wearing chequered, jute sarongs were standing under a window and watching a tall mendicant. The mendicant was old, wearing an ascetic’s red and yellow, with a string of large rosaries around his neck, looking up at a deformed, middle-aged woman sitting on the balcony above saying, ‘What? Aren’t you a woman? I may not have any money, I might be a beggar, but—’ now beating his chest, ‘—I’m a man, a man . . .’ The woman is staring at him with contempt, and the gathered onlookers are laughing . . .

No. Not this either. Here, too, there was only the same note of alienation, a faint repulsion and the echo of Manika’s phrase, ‘—They’re all the same under their skins—avaricious beasts’ . . . Man and man, woman and woman . . . man and woman . . . Shekhar moved farther on.

A young girl, half-naked and in rags, pulled at his arm and said, ‘Sir, give me some money.’

‘I don’t have any money; away with you.’ Shekhar jerked his arm free; his tone was cruel, too.

The girl clutched on to his legs. She said, ‘Give me some money or come with me—you can give me money afterwards.’ She stopped speaking and gestured to a small building in the distance where a lantern was glowing . . .

Shekhar didn’t even free himself; he walked on with her on his leg. The girl let go.

A voice from the sides, ‘Kinno, look—it’s one of your countrymen—call to him, won’t you?’

Shekhar felt a faint twinge of curiosity. From the name of the person addressed and the revelation that she was a countrywoman, Shekhar couldn’t immediately tell what region she was from. But he didn’t pause, nor did he turn around to look, even though he heard the loud sound of the kiss that had been aimed in his direction . . .

He turned at the corner when the person coming towards him said—‘Flowers for sale!’

No, they weren’t garlands of jasmine. Shekhar took one look, staggered backwards as if he had been shot and then, steadying himself, bent his head and covered his eyes with one hand and ran—ran . . . In this place—bouquets of lotuses! Lotuses, which had been for him symbols of purity, which . . .

He ran, and for no apparent reason a meaningless phrase repeatedly overwhelmed him like a blow from a hammer—God and Man—God and Man . . .

The conclusion to which those lotus flowers forced the various streams of thought in his head, and the shackles that were on him as a result of the decision not to go home for the vacation, became the reason that Shekhar was filled with a burning desire to go to Kashmir as soon as possible. The beautiful playground of his childhood . . . How long had it been since he had seen anything beautiful, and how deep was the longing in his heart to see such things—that were beautiful, completely beautiful . . .

But was that real? Was it really the quest for beauty that had made his life here so tumultuous? Was it the ugliness of his condition that was wreaking havoc inside him? He wasn’t certain, but war was another name for chasing after possibilities, and life was merely a protracted struggle to catch the possible . . .

There’s an ancient Chinese poem which roughly says, ‘Should a man be lulled into a stupor by the desire that his bones be buried in the same tomb as his father’s? Wherever one goes, one can find rolling hills “dark with the crops of the harvests”.’¹⁵

He turned that poem into a proverb and set out for Kashmir. On the way, he kept on filling his mind with the reborn memories of his past, but he couldn’t taste their sweetness, the past isn’t made more attractive by having a grave next to it; it only produces a desire to find a better hill dark with the crops of the harvests than the first, no matter where one would have to go to find it . . .

He would also laugh at his own quest—a quest for truth, a quest for knowledge, a quest for freedom, he had heard of all of these, but he was undoubtedly the first detective on a quest for beauty.

The past was a lie. There was no hill dark with the crops of the harvests—only graves.

When he got to Srinagar, Shekhar searched in each lane and alley—it had no effect on him. There was nothing special in Srinagar—except for the varieties of smells. He even went to visit the renowned forests outside the city—but all that was there were lines and angles and circles—and the austere serenity and exacting arrangement of the trees only reminded him of the tranquillity of death. The person who had famously written about those forests—‘If there was ever a heaven on earth, it was this, it was this, it was this’¹⁶—was probably a mathematician who caught the craze of forestry . . . Shekhar travelled over rivers and streams and lakes, but the beautiful vistas were wrecked by tourists and the reckless throngs of their smoky boats. That was when he set out on a journey to a certain lake hidden in the perfect whiteness of the Himalayas. He looked at the yellow, red, blue and white flowers blooming in the mountainous foothills on either side of the road with eyes soaring upwards, and he had gone so high that here and there he could see last year’s ice hidden under the cover of rocky crags. He broke off a lone blossom of blue poppy flower, which was considered a lucky find, from inside one such crag—how strange was the fortune of that flower which bestowed luck on the one who had it but meant the death of the flower!—but beauty, he wasn’t able to find beauty! He climbed higher, while the coolies who accompanied him prepared to rebel because others had been where he was headed, but none had been able to camp—no one had been able to strike a tent there . . . But, ‘That’s where beauty would be found!’ These words convinced them to go as far as the lake; at the edge of the lake, they struck camp and he lay down to think, ‘Where to now?’

The lake was wide, and in places in the middle, sheets of ice floated on the surface; above, a flock of cranes flew back and forth, and a gust of wind blew across the surface of the lake as if preparing the glorious path for the arrival of some mountain goddess. Shekhar watched for a while, and then because he was tired and shivering from the cold, he went inside and closed the tent to think—because the trails stopped here, and they’d have to go back, but he never paid attention to the trails leading back down, so how would he go back . . .

Standing in a crevice on one side of the lake, Shekhar thought he saw, in the cave created by two boulders in front of him, some goddess clad in white, standing, dipping her feet in the water. Then he thought, no, she wasn’t a goddess, she was human, and she was someone that Shekhar knew. But who? It wasn’t that either, the face merely resembled someone’s—Sharda? Shashi?

Shekhar woke with a start. He had fallen asleep, and moonlight streamed in from the crack in the opening of the tent and spread across his face. His dream had unsettled him, and he felt something like guilt. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and emerged from his tent.

Outside, clear moonlight was scattered everywhere, so bright that only a few stars could be seen even in the cloudless sky. The lake shimmered. Watching the play of colours—the play of only one colour, white—or rather the play of mere light and its absence left Shekhar speechless. The sparkling waters of the lake reflecting the smoky, dark mountains and the distant haze of the sweet, beloved, brilliant snow-covered range . . . Seeing this scene on that vast, perfectly still night sent a quickening wave through his body, as if he were waking from the dream of this world and entering into some higher plane of reality . . . It thrilled him. He closed his eyes, as if the only way to preserve this scene was by closing his eyes, as if open eyes would have mutilated it . . .

Oh, beauty . . .

Shekhar found himself shivering fiercely. He felt as if there were some heavy weight on his head and it was necessary to get rid of it; he slowly returned to his tent.

He went inside and lit a candle, got a pen and some paper and for a moment fidgeted with his pen indecisively. Then he wrote, ‘The union of beauty and reason can never be binding.’ He stopped for a while and then suddenly decided to put that piece of paper on his knee, and he bent over and started writing—the very first and most beautiful story of his life . . .

He had spent his whole life in cities—in the filth and the crowds of cities, in their strife and commotion, and he had learned to be so quiet and content amidst that that he served no purpose other than to add one more to the ranks of the urban population. He was a part of that filth and crowd, that strife and commotion. His neighbours knew of his stoic disposition. That’s why, when they heard about his decision to go to Kashmir, they laughed until their bellies hurt. ‘You’re going to visit Kashmir?’ He couldn’t even see the beauty in a buffalo—and Kashmir? He was setting out to understand the beauty that had eluded even the best artists’ attempts—this slithering worm of the city’s back alleys, eyeless, which couldn’t go forward if it wanted without first bunching itself into a ball. The saying was right—the camel, the horse and the buffalo drown and then the ass asks if the water is too deep!

But because he was a stoic individual, none of these words had any effect on him. He had to go, so he went.

He stayed in Srinagar for several days. He wandered around, drifted in search of the beauty that everyone could see and appreciate, but he was the only luckless one who couldn’t find it. He was slowly coming around to the belief that beauty might only be imaginary—and as he became more convinced, his quest became increasingly disoriented. He went to see the monuments built by the Mughals—cheap ornamentation and experiments in mathematics—that was all they were! He went to the village first and came back disappointed. Gulmarg made no impression on him. Dal Lake seemed lifeless to him, and Wular Lake was just a pool of dirty water.

Ultimately, he became restless to go back to his town—its filth and crowds, its strife and commotion. There things might not have been beautiful, but they were perceptible, they could be grasped and understood! Should he go back?

But leaving a task halfway through—that was what connoisseurs did—and how could he, one numb to pleasure, abandon his quest in the middle? He went outside his tent to sit and think, ‘Am I the only person in the world incapable of experiencing beauty? Am I the only one born with this disability? Or have I not deemed myself worthy yet . . .’

He decided that he would try once—and if he still couldn’t experience it, then he would go back to his dirty, crowded and noisy city forever . . . He would know once and for all whether he had lost or won—if he was incapable of pleasure, then he would live with this harsh inability being his truth . . .

He put all of his necessary supplies on two mountain mules and set out with the mules’ owner.

He climbed the slopes for four days non-stop—the forests grew thicker, the silence deeper and the air thin, short and cold. For three more days, he and his mountain-dwelling companion kept moving on—crossing over countless tiny mountain streams and waterfalls from gurgling streams, strung together like pearls—past where the cedars and the birches stopped and the vast lowlands spread out all around them, lowlands covered in green, red, blue, yellow, white scentless flowers . . .

They went even farther—past where even the flowers stopped—except for the rare, forgotten blue poppy that one could see, and occasionally a strong-smelling shrub or a misshapen bush with dried leaves . . .

And beyond that even the lucky blue poppies stopped, the shrubs stopped, and all that remained were dull crags and trampled, insensitive, dull grass . . .

A thought occurred to him, that one by one all of the pleasurable things had fallen behind on this impassable trail—the trees had been left behind, the flowers had been left behind, the shrubs had been left behind and even the solitary, meditative blue poppies had been left behind—all that was left were the dull rocks, the dull grass and the dull curious one, himself . . . He should have been able to find beauty on this desolate path—but was beauty even a real thing? Wasn’t beauty just a name for an imagined pleasure, the feeling of an imminent experience of attaining pleasure? ‘This is just about to make me happy,’ thinks the person so overwhelmed by the thought that even before he attains happiness, he perceives pleasures and then says, ‘How beautiful!’ Isn’t beauty the name for the satisfaction acquired by the nectar of desire . . .

Did that mean that he had been separated from his own desires? He knew that wasn’t true, that his body could burn with desire, had burned, would burn . . . Did that mean that there was nothing in the world that could bring him happiness, or which would give him the hope of happiness? It was also difficult being that unlucky—even amongst the rocks that lie nearby, one could occasionally spy a green or white coloured vein.

He crossed a mountain pass and suddenly came to a clearing; there was a wide lake before him, surrounded on all sides by peaks—some naked and dark, some veiled in ice . . .

He told the mule driver¹⁷ to set up camp, and in the light drizzle of rain, he went inside, ate a little, and lay down—he was exhausted. He was so tired that he couldn’t even sleep—he just lay there thinking.

He was such a fool . . . Had anyone else set out on such a quest for beauty? One had heard about that in stories—some prince went to the island of sapphires where the goddess of beauty lived, or some king said to his minister that he wanted the essence of beauty—but had anyone ever tried to determine whether these stories were true? ‘Story’ and ‘reality’—even a small child was made to learn by rote that these were two different categories . . .

He was the only fool who hadn’t understood this—he lived in the real world and wanted to obtain something from a story world . . . Why shouldn’t people laugh at him? Or consider him a fool? At home, his wife, surrounded by the crowds and the filth of the city, would also laugh at him, saying that the fool had married but set out on a quest for beauty . . .

He woke with a start. In his dream he had seen a black boulder with two large, round eyes that were fixed on him and it said to him, ‘You did very well to set out on this quest for beauty that led you here—to me.’ And then all of a sudden it transformed into his wife, who burst into thunderous laughter.

He rose and went outside, taking long steps on his way towards the lake . . .

As if struck by lightning, he stopped in the middle of the path. Some inexpressible thing was gathering speed and welling up towards him—a little cold and frosty, a little awesome, a little thrilling—not just welling up, but shaking every vertebra in his spine and pervading his head . . .

Spread out before him—the light from the moon’s rays, shadows, the blanket of ice, sparkling waters, ripples, stars . . .

Beauty, like a deeply felt wound—the sensation coursed through his veins . . .

The dance of the moonbeams on the ripples of the water—the dance of mountain nymphs on a sheet of liquid velvet—and, on the far side, in the shape of a massive column and in a fixed pose, a row of seated ascetics—peaceful and meditative and immovable . . .

He staggered from the force of knowledge—he was lost in the infinite sky—he had attained it, but far beyond his capacity—his mind was left wounded, defeated and shattered in the face of that development . . .

Whoever sees Diana bathing is left blinded—it’s impossible to retain the ability to see anything after that sight . . .

A madness overtook him, he began babbling and walking forward with his arms outstretched so that he could embrace the beauty of the lake and the ice and the sky . . . But can one embrace a dream with one’s arms, hold it tight . . . ?

He was half-asleep as he was advancing—towards the lake, where the nymphs were dancing on the moonbeams . . .

The next day, when he emerged from his tent by sunrise, the mule¹⁸ driver went inside Shekhar’s tent, but he wasn’t there. He waited for him for some time and then set out to look for him.

There was nothing to be found—save a few footprints in the snow headed towards the lake that disappeared at the edge of the lake—and there was nothing beyond that, except an impregnable, veiled, ancient beauty—silent, smiling, secretive . . .

The very next morning, Shekhar packed up his things, tore down the tent and began his return. Now that he had secured his new feeling, it wasn’t necessary for him to stay there—not just unnecessary, it became impossible, too.

Three days later, he reached his first post office, where a letter finally reached him after having been sent from various places. There weren’t too many letters, only a few from familiar hands—when he saw one in an unfamiliar handwriting he tore open that envelope first, and the rest of the letters remained unread.

Shashi had written him a three-line letter—her father had died and her mother was suffering from repeated fainting spells.

It was evening, dark and silent; when Shekhar didn’t see anyone as he entered the house, he breathed a sigh of relief. For some reason, he was anxious that he wouldn’t be able to handle his share of the grief that had cast a shadow over this house. Even though he had come here and stayed here while Shashi’s father had been ill and had become a part of the household, still he felt that his connection was really only to Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi, and since both were presently racked with grief, he wouldn’t be able to go near them, share in their sorrows. It seemed as if he had become impersonal, personal feelings—pain and joy—didn’t affect him; and in that condition, it was both impossible for him to offer condolences and cruel for him not to . . .

At the door, on the threshold, in the courtyard, on the stairs—Shekhar saw no one. He quietly put his meagre bedding down in the courtyard and walked softly up the stairs.

On a mat spread out on the ground, Aunt Vidyavati lay unconscious; Shashi sat next to her, one hand on her mother’s forehead, the other fanning her.

Shashi’s younger sister Gaura was standing nearby with a glass of water, but it was her silent tears rather than drops of water that she sprinkled over her mother.

Involuntarily, ‘Shashi—’ escaped from Shekhar’s lips and he immediately felt embarrassed. Kneeling next to his aunt, he took the glass from Gaura and sprinkled the water himself; Shashi looked over at him once, in a straightforward, general acknowledgement of his presence and kept on fanning; Gaura perhaps went downstairs to look after his things. Aunt gradually opened her eyes, looked at him blankly, recognized him and then closed them again, and then she tried to roll over and gave up; softly, Shashi said, ‘She’s asleep—it’s the first time in three days.’ Shekhar looked up at her once, as if to ask, ‘Have you been watching her for three days to see whether she’s slept or not?’

But he didn’t say anything; Shashi got up and left the room, Shekhar followed, and as soon as he left the room, she closed the door and asked, ‘When did you get my letter?’

‘Five days ago.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was in Kashmir—’

‘Where in Kashmir? It took you five days to get here?’

‘Nowhere, Shashi. I was out of sorts,’ he said and then fell silent immediately.

Shashi went to the kitchen and slowly began gathering things for cooking. Shekhar asked, ‘Can I help?’ She silently pushed the plate of flour towards him and gave him a jug of water. She began chopping vegetables.

Shekhar was struck by this manner of uncontroversial agreement to his offer of help and he stared fixedly at Shashi. That’s when he realized that she wasn’t there—all that was there was a mechanical human that kept going on only to keep others going, kept going on . . .

He suddenly realized that he wasn’t impersonal, that he was drowning in melancholy, that their sorrow was his sorrow—a font of deep sympathy gushed forth inside him . . .

Sorrow generates connections; it’s also sublime and redemptive. The connection of sorrow can even make the fallen sublime and pure.

While staying with them, some similar knowledge was breaking out inside Shekhar, which is when he decided that he wouldn’t leave and would sojourn in the lap of that sorrow . . .

More than a month had passed since this family suffered deep wounds from the maelstrom of death; the house, at least, seemed to be running as usual from the perspective of regular activity—daily obligations are the only thing keeping the order of the world constant and stable—and Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi were busy all day with some chore or another. Whenever women from the neighbourhood came over to offer their sympathy, they would sit with some work and faithfully remain receptive to collect the fleeting, sometimes fake and more often ritualized sympathy, because that was convention, obligation, even if the deep wounds of fortune became even deeper, burst open and drained the life force in the process . . .

Shekhar would be perfectly still while watching this pervasive, silent faith in duty—standing at a distance, with eyes wide open, he would stare at Aunt Vidyavati and Shashi; whenever they looked at him with a momentary concern, he would leave quickly . . . Sometimes his aunt would call to him to ask, ‘What’s the matter, Shekhar?’ He was never able to respond, and she thought that she shouldn’t display her own grief and make him sad—she couldn’t imagine that it was her refusal to show her own pain that was creating the tumult inside him, that which immediately transformed her joys and sorrows, scolding and anger, love and indifference into work, which is ready to lead an individual on a rugged path to the highest peak, but will not stop for even a short while to help create a flat, paved street that will help an entire community . . . which has no self-control, which has a command of the physics that go into the flow and diversion of water, but hasn’t understood the work of irrigation . . . That’s when he would run into an empty room to hide, and he would curse himself for having wasted a long life; he was a dog running around in small circles in the same area chasing his own tail, he hadn’t understood, hadn’t wanted to understand, hadn’t set in motion his ability to understand the pain that others felt, their suffering . . .

Who knows who should get the credit for this, but that day all of a sudden, the dam burst and three of them—Aunt, Shashi and Shekhar—began talking. It made Shekhar very happy to see that his aunt would even smile occasionally at something Shekhar said—although that smile could have brought someone else to tears.

Perhaps Shekhar said something about his future plans and let it slip, ‘I won’t be able to do that—I don’t have the line for it in my palms.’

Shashi asked, ‘Do you know how to read palms?’

Before Shekhar could answer, Vidyavati extended her hand and said, ‘Really? Look and tell me how long I’m going to live.’

The question startled Shekhar so much that he couldn’t respond even in the negative to Shashi’s question; he took his aunt’s hand in his own, looked at the life line and, as if he were responding to some unspoken doubt, said, ‘Why, there is still a lot left—’

‘No, no, Shekhar, tell me that it won’t be long now!’ There was a piercing sharpness to Aunt’s response—‘Not long, Shekhar, not long!’ It was as if he were drifting in a current of pity. His aunt fell silent and drew her hand back . . .

Shekhar’s hand remained outstretched and half-opened, just as it had been when holding his aunt’s hand—his eyes fixed, as if hurt, on his aunt’s and he stared—a glorious light flashed in those bottomless lakes of the soul and then burned itself out—his aunt regained control and composed herself and laughed a false laugh. She said, ‘Let it go, it’s not as though palmistry is ever accurate . . .’

Is life so cruel, and was a clear purpose indispensable for living? Shekhar didn’t know what his purpose in life was . . . He got up to go.

Shashi had finished seventeen years of her life and was starting on the eighteenth. Shekhar could hear talk of this fact from different places in the house—almost as if from the walls—and sometimes from the mouths of the women who had come to offer sympathy, ‘Dear God, who will get this one married? Dear God, to have such an old, unmarried girl still living at home!’ Still Vidyavati never mentioned this nor did Shashi ever give it any thought—even though Shekhar could clearly see that there was a huge difference between the Shashi from four years ago and this peaceful, grave idol.

Shekhar’s vacations were over; it was time for him to go back to college and enrol in the MA programme. But he didn’t want to go. When Vidyavati asked him, ‘Shekhar, how many more vacation days do you have left?’ he knew that he could still get admitted even after registration had closed, so he said, ‘There’s still a lot left.’ But when Shashi asked him the same question, he said, ‘Why?’

‘Aren’t you going to continue your studies?’

‘Yes. But what’s the rush in going back?’

‘You really should complete your education. You can always come back here—what do people like us have after all? And these days we can’t even offer you the slightest bit of happiness—’

‘I’m never as much at peace as I am when I’m here—’

‘That’s just what people say—’

‘No, it’s true. And this time, there was a special peace in being able to share in your grief—’

‘Why?—’

‘The pallor of grief is a kind of penance—it redeems the soul.’

‘Are you certain?’

Shekhar was a little taken aback; he said, ‘Why?’

‘Grief only cleanses the soul of one who attempts to drive it away. No one else’s.’

‘So . . . I don’t follow.’

‘It’s true that you’ve come and shared in our grief, and it offered us consolation, too, but did you think that your obligation ended there? There is pain everywhere. So, you’ve decided that pain only lives here and you want to live under its shade, but you’re showing no interest in the obligations that you do have. You should go back to college—’

Shekhar was stunned. Shashi had never spoken so many words to him before—and not just so many words, but also deep ones . . . He said softly, ‘You’re right—I . . .’

‘And look, don’t you dare ever call me “Aap” again! My name is Shashi and yours is Shekhar.’

Perhaps surprised by her own audacity, Shashi immediately turned around and left; Shekhar was left staring.

This time, Shekhar didn’t have to do anything extra for his studies, because since he was studying literature for his MA he was already familiar with most of the material included in the syllabus—a few special textbooks—one on literary criticism, one on linguistics, and the rest could even be read afterwards . . .

Shekhar kept himself at a remove from ordinary student life and began digesting the experiences of the last several months—becoming the monitor of a small hostel helped him in establishing his distance. A while later when the National Congress asked for volunteers for its next session, Shekhar signed up with the first group and duly began learning the official drills.¹⁹ It wasn’t that he had some political awakening, but he found a kind of comfort in the discipline the drills provided. He also thought that these external rules might provide a discipline in him internally.

After he completed his training, he was given the task of training the group of new recruits. In truth, this was even better as training because along with disciplining the body, one had to have an alert mind to see what someone was lacking and how that would be remedied . . .

It didn’t take long for the Congress session to draw near. One day, Shekhar rolled up his bedding, draped it over his uniformed shoulders, got in a lorry and arrived at the camp with the first group of volunteers.

The training was mostly completed, all that remained was the attempt to ready the few latecomers by making them march in formation four times, quickly; but, the volunteer corps still hadn’t been organized. There were commanders and volunteers. But the network of junior officers which is necessary to link them to one another didn’t exist. Until now, it hadn’t been given any special attention, because ‘We only have four days. Everyone has to come together and make this work.’ But ‘come together and make this work’ doesn’t tell you who gives the orders and who follows them, so one day five head officers—group leaders—were chosen and the next day the remaining five officers were ‘elected’ during the parade. Other than his strengths and his weaknesses, Shekhar had nothing to recommend him, but he was still made a junior officer—‘chief’—and given the job of managing the camp.

There were 1400 volunteers in the camp. Taking care of them shouldn’t have required anything special, but amongst the volunteers, there were at least 300 college students who believed that since they had become volunteers and paid for half of their uniforms, there was no reason that they should also be expected to do any work or be prevented from watching the spectacle of the Congress party. They also required three leaves each week so that they could go home—they couldn’t be expected to freeze to death in this jungle. Work was done during daylight hours, so whose business was it where they slept? And on top of that, after carrying the heavy burden of voluntary service, they also needed entertainment, and there was no cinema in the Congress encampment; they had to go to the city, all that you could do in the camp was play cards or backgammon, and to make that a little more interesting, sometimes they need to bet a little something.

Then there were those poor souls who had no idea where they should go to relieve themselves; where, how and what they had to do for food; whom they should ask when they didn’t have a blanket; and who thought it wrong to ask or ‘complain’ about these things. Brother, we’re working for the Congress, is it really that much of a problem if you have to burden yourself a little . . .

And there were those who, because they had put on uniforms, felt entitled to do all the things they had seen the white soldiers or the police doing and which had made them fill up with hatred and impotent rage—threatening passers-by, suspecting a poor person of something and therefore insulting and harassing him, et cetera . . . According to them, not exercising these entitlements amounted to turning the ‘soldier’ into a cripple since there would be no reason for him to be here if it was enough just to fold one’s hands and flatter someone . . .

Then there were certain visiting delegates (and their entourages) who had paid the rent for the tent and therefore turned the whole group of assembled volunteers into their servants—at all hours of the day, they would say, ‘My stomach hurts, I need a volunteer to warm some compresses’; ‘I have a fever, I need two volunteers to be by my side all night’; ‘I’m having indigestion, send a volunteer to clean the toilet’ . . .

Even if such requests were legitimate, they should still have been taken to a doctor who was responsible for the appropriate remedies for any ailment; but upon saying such things, every volunteer—or just Shekhar—would be reminded: a volunteer must make it his religion not to look down upon such requests—‘Do you know that while he was in Africa, Mahatma Gandhi cleaned toilets himself? And you’re not more important than he is—’

And then there were certain volunteer officers whose worthiness was not based on their abilities, but rather on the influence of their friends; such people had no shortage of things to do, but they still came to the camp though to not engage in dialogue with fools. The fellow who was supposed to relieve the volunteers from their post would go around twice during the day and relieve people, but in the evening, after supper, he found it disagreeable to leave his place and return to camp in the bitter cold of January, so often the volunteer on duty in the evening would be left standing there after dark because no one came to relieve him . . . After 11 p.m. Shekhar would start receiving messages, ‘Volunteer so-and-so has been on duty for five hours, no one has come to relieve him’, ‘Volunteer so-and-so has been out for six hours, he’s soaked through in the rain’, ‘I’ve been standing here for eight hours, I got someone to stand in for me so I could come here; if you’ll send another volunteer, I can show him where to go’ . . .

There was a lot of work for Shekhar to do. He would come into his office under the tent at 6 a.m. and sit on a stool. At 2 p.m. and at 10 p.m. his Pathan ‘orderly’²⁰ would have to argue with him until he got him to eat somehow. He’d also bring him his tea once a day. At 12 a.m., Shekhar would leave camp, demoralized from the complaints and think, ‘I should go around once to see who has been out and for how long, so that I can sleep worry-free . . .’ But there was another problem for him—replacements could only be made by the officer in charge of replacements, Shekhar didn’t have the authority, so when the volunteers didn’t come by themselves he would send one of the volunteers he was in charge of who had been sent to him to help manage the camp . . .

He would get back to his tent at 2 a.m., and without loosening his uniform or taking off his shoes he would fall down on to his bedding, spread out over straw . . . Not taking off his shoes was for the best since a tent housing eleven men had barely enough space for him to lie down and spread his legs—his heavy shoes and thick socks were his real lifesavers . . .

Discipline—discipline—discipline—one day, exhausted from chasing after discipline night and day, Shekhar sinned gravely against that very discipline.

In the tent for college students, groups of people had been found gambling a few times. The first time, Shekhar merely confiscated the dice and gave them a warning: that this was unseemly behaviour and shouldn’t happen again. The second time, in addition to confiscating the cards and the money that had been wagered, he made them perform their drills. The third time, he kicked the three individuals out of the camp and had a notice circulated throughout the camp that gamblers would be removed from the volunteer corps.

The hard workers would complete their assignments—as they never had occasion to gamble—but they were also the ones ground down by the mercy of the assignment officer so that even when they had spare time they could do nothing but collapse on their backs. But the college students didn’t do any work, and if they ever fell into the clutches of the assignment officer (and even he didn’t disturb their liberties because how could he maintain his own unfettered freedoms once he had upset the group which raised the loudest cry of them all?) and were sent on assignment, they would immediately leave their posts, ‘My friend, this is such dreadful work—guarding the streets. Is someone going to come and steal the street?’ This group had a lot of free time, so each time Shekhar admonished them, it was fruitless.

The fourth time a group got caught gambling, two of the members of that group turned out to have participated in the previous three incidents, so Shekhar thought it necessary to enact more serious consequences.

The bugle sounded for assembly. The volunteers who were present in the camp stood in formation in the space that had been left empty for the parade drills. From their faces, one could tell that they were surprised to hear the bugle sound in the afternoon because who knew what hardship was about to fall on them all . . .

Shekhar gave the order to stand ‘at ease’ to the men in formation and stood under the flagpole. He said, ‘Volunteers, you have been called here for a necessary announcement. It’s an embarrassment to this camp that a group of people have been caught gambling here four times. The first time—’ and Shekhar listed in succession the names of the individuals involved in each of the four incidents and the first three punishments delivered. ‘The fourth time, three of them were first offenders, and they will be given the same punishment that was given out last time, but for two of them, this is their fourth time being caught gambling. It is clear that the last punishment was not enough for them; rather talk of any punishment appears to be a waste.’

He stopped momentarily. He looked all around. His pause had an effect.

‘The only solution is that we regretfully find these volunteers are not worthy of their uniforms.’

Stopping again for a moment, ‘—Three steps forward—march!’

The two of them stepped forward. Shekhar said to his ‘orderly’,²¹ ‘Bring their things out here.’

The orderly brought their things—their bedding, small luggage.

‘The two of you need to take off your uniforms. Put your own clothes on.’

The two of them gave Shekhar one look of contempt, but the perfect stillness which had fallen over the entire parade ground made them yield. They quietly changed their clothes.

‘Pick up your things—about face! March, leader, show these men out of the camp.’

The footfalls of three pairs of feet—thud, thud, thud—could be heard . . . Shekhar was listening to them but was looking at the remaining volunteers and thinking to himself, ‘If they had refused to obey, what would I have done?’

All at once, three men from the ranks stepped forward. All three were college students—Shekhar had seen them before. They knew him, too.

‘What is it?’

‘You have no right to take away their uniforms. We are opposed to this. You have insulted the students from the college—we’re going to protest.’

This was not a time to show indecisiveness. Shekhar said, ‘Volunteers, those of you who think that it is an insult to put an end to gambling, please step forward three paces.’

Three individuals stepped forward. It was as if their brazenness spoke for them, ‘We despise your rules.’

‘All right. You all want to break discipline. You can. All six of you can take your uniforms off. Orderly, gather their uniforms in a pile.’

Their momentary hesitation was a signal to Shekhar that discipline had won. He said, ‘Those of you who will follow the rules are welcome to return to their places.’

Four men stepped back.

‘And you two—do you still want to break discipline?’

‘We want to appeal to the general. We—’

‘You only get an appeal after you’ve been punished. But you definitely can. Return to your places.’

The ranks were dismissed. As he returned to his office quietly, Shekhar thought that he hadn’t wanted to escalate the conflict, but what alternative was left? And it wasn’t as though he had done anything inappropriate . . .

He had just sat down in his office when he was summoned—the general wanted him.

Shekhar went over, stood at attention, clicked his heels and gave a salute. The general was sitting on a mattress in his tent. There were two high-ranking party workers with him.

‘Come, come, sit—don’t be so formal.’

Shekhar stood as he was.

‘These two have some complaints.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What’s all this about?’

In his summary, Shekhar included mention of the four incidents of gambling and the events of that day. He continued, ‘These people have an objection to my decision.’

The general turned towards the plaintiffs and said, ‘Look, brothers, it’s wrong to play dice, so those who play should be punished.’

‘We aren’t talking about that. But it is completely unacceptable that two college students were publicly humiliated. There are several uneducated rustics amongst the volunteers. What must they be thinking? We didn’t come here to be insulted like this. If you won’t intervene, then all of us will—’

Now the general turned to Shekhar and said, ‘Look, brother, it’s only a matter of ten or fifteen days. We’ve got to come together and get through this. What’s the use in getting someone upset? We have to get by.’

Shekhar couldn’t let this go. He bit his lip in anger and said, ‘Get by? Is that what you want, to get by? Then why all of these uniforms, all of this organization, all of these ranks? Why are you sitting there wearing a uniform with golden epaulettes and a sword attached? Why do we perform these drills? Why do we blow that bugle? The old village councils were better than this. All I know is that you need discipline to have an organization. I don’t think that my decision was wrong. You can overturn it—that’s up to you.’

The general was unprepared for this outburst. He said, ‘You seem very angry.’

‘No, I know exactly what I’m doing. I know that if we had the kind of discipline that I want, I’d be suffering the same punishment that I have doled out to these gamblers. But if that were to happen, I wouldn’t have had to show up here. You can get by however you please. I couldn’t care less about that. I’ll take your leave.’

Shekhar was about to leave when a fellow, wearing pure khadi, sitting next to the general, said, ‘But this goes against our principle of non-violence.’

Shekhar turned around. Angrily, he said, ‘What?’

‘To humiliate two men like this and cause them pain is violence. Our volunteer corps is non-violent.’

Shekhar was speechless for a moment. He wanted to burst out laughing and go away. Then, regaining control of himself, he said, ‘The answer to your question will also be violence.’ And then he left. When he got outside, he happily remembered that a few days ago he was given an opportunity to join the general’s security detail on account of his height—the members of that detail didn’t have to do any work, except for every two or three days when the honourable general went out somewhere with his entourage, they would have to march in front and behind him carrying spinning wheels on their shoulders as if they were Lewis guns.²² He had turned down that opportunity then. Had he not done so, would he have been able to forgive himself today? . . .

Nothing came of it. The people who had been kicked out weren’t asked to return, although they were given their uniforms back because they had paid for them. Aside from a few officers, who only did paperwork and never showed up, everyone else was opposed to overturning Shekhar’s decision.

The student rebellion that was going to happen didn’t. To create an unnecessary conflict and cause a commotion and to watch a free spectacle in the confusion—this wasn’t their objective!

It was almost 9 p.m. By evening a thick fog had descended. It had begun to dissolve because it had started raining. Shekhar had put on an overcoat²³ and was standing at the gate to the camp watching people prepare to go to work and he thought to himself, ‘The complaints will start coming in soon—“No one came to relieve of me of my duty”—who knows why the people responsible for the watch can’t make adequate arrangements . . .’

To the left, there was a commotion near the statue of the dead leader who was this city’s namesake. Shekhar tried very hard to listen; the commotion was getting louder and coming towards him. He took big strides and set off in its direction.

Three or four days ago the police had raided the camp—after searching the entire camp, they had left empty-handed. Ever since then, the mood in the Congress encampment had been a little tense—the volunteers suspected each person who looked strange, wore a black coat, had a long moustache, wore a turban with a plume, wore shoes and socks or held a cane in his hand of being an agent of the secret police. There was no threat from the secret police, nor was there a prohibition. But since the volunteers felt that this was inappropriate meddling, and because exposing spies was a natural human tendency, the volunteers would routinely tussle with such men and sometimes bring them to the camp’s headquarters.

Five or six volunteers had just apprehended such an individual and were dragging him back with them. He was cursing at them and kept trying to free himself, but he was dragged along.

Shekhar approached and barked out, ‘Who is this? Let him go! What’s the problem?’

‘He’s a CID, CID!’²⁴

‘He’s a thief! A thief! He was trying to get away!’

‘Congress rule is no joke, you fool.’

Ignoring all of these replies, Shekhar broke in, ‘Let him go!’ The volunteers let him go and stood to one side. ‘Who apprehended him? What’s the problem?’

‘He was walking by himself near the statue. I asked him what he was doing there and he told me to mind my own business. I told him it was my business to guard the statue and that if he didn’t have any business here that he should move along. He said, “I know your type, you watchmen.” When I told him once again to leave and asked him for his name and address, he cursed at me. We caught him and were bringing him back to camp but more people showed up in the commotion, a couple of men even slapped him.’

Shekhar asked the man who was dusting himself off, ‘Is that what happened?’

‘I am a CID inspector. The men have disrespected me and have interfered with my work. I am to see each of them punished.’

‘If you had just said at the beginning that you were a CID inspector, do you think you would have been insulted? These men are supposed to watch out for thieves or crooks. You have to agree that your behaviour was suspicious. Look, you are free to go. Please accept my apologies for your inconvenience.’ Shekhar turned to the volunteers, ‘You men have needlessly humiliated a respectable man. Those of you who hit him should apologize and will be punished back at camp. Two of you should take this man out of the camp, respectfully.’

‘I don’t need these bastards,’ he said and then started off in one direction.

‘It’s for your own protection so that it doesn’t happen again.’

Two volunteers followed him.

The guard had changed. Shekhar thought that while he was out, he would make a circuit through the township and see where the guard hadn’t been changed so that he could do something about it.

Shekhar was startled to learn that because of the rain, some men had abandoned their posts after completing their shifts without being relieved and had returned to camp to find their replacements to send them to their posts. There was only a day left in the Congress session—only three days left for the camp—which is why he decided that it wasn’t worth it to ask too many questions about all this. And besides, the men had enough good sense to go and find and send their replacements. He remembered what the general had said about ‘getting by’ and smiled.

It began to rain harder. Shekhar sped up.

As he approached the statue, he heard someone singing.

‘Where are you, Krishna of the flute . . .’

And then a little haltingly as if he were experimenting with something new.

‘Where are you, Mohan my replacement . . .’

The singer stopped when he heard the sound of Shekhar’s boots. Shekhar saw the watchman eyeing him intently.

Shekhar asked, ‘Is this your first shift?’

‘No, sir.’

‘How long have you been at it?’

‘Since 3 p.m.—’

‘Three? And no one came to relieve you at 6?’

‘No, sir. The person who was supposed to replace me told me he had to go somewhere and asked me to cover for him. I agreed.’

‘And at 9?’

‘I don’t know about that. Had someone been assigned to replace me, he would have shown up by now.’

Shekhar smiled and asked, ‘Is that whom you were serenading?’

Embarrassed, ‘I was just trying to ward off the fatigue—’

‘Are you very tired?’

‘No, but I am soaked through, and my arms hurt—’

Shekhar immediately felt sorry for the fellow who had done the work of two men and was now doing the work of a third—he felt as though he had found the one man in a camp of 14,000 who believed in his idea of discipline—not just believed but also followed it. First of all, it immediately lightened his heart and, second, he wanted to know what it felt like to stand in the rain, alone, for three or four hours. He came to a decision, ‘You should go. I’ll relieve you.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. I should see what it’s like to be on the night watch, too.’

‘But you don’t have an umbrella,’ said the volunteer as he uncertainly extended his own torn umbrella.

‘This overcoat²⁵ should be enough. Go on, you should get some rest now.’

The volunteer left. Shekhar began pacing, steadily . . .

The night felt long. Shekhar thought about that volunteer for a short while, and then he fell into a conundrum.

It was wrong of them to have beaten up the CID man. But he had identified himself—what would have happened if they hadn’t apprehended him? What would the point of keeping guard have been? If a stranger were to show up here, wouldn’t I ask him who he was? Perhaps he came just to pick a fight—that’s what they do after all. There was a tussle, so he accomplished his task. But how could we have avoided a fight? And if he had begun defacing the statue . . . How much should we put up with? Was the matter finished or were there new blossoms waiting to bloom? We’ll have to see.

That volunteer had been on duty since 3 p.m.—he had to be one of the people who caught that man. So why didn’t he go back with them? Perhaps he thought it necessary to guard the statue—he was standing there as if it were his only purpose in life . . . Would I be able to do anything with the same kind of devotion? If it’s something that I think is important, then I stick to it like a leech, but what about work that has no meaning—work that is only work and more work? . . . Could I lose myself in work, forsaking all worldly distractions?

That’s what Shashi had said, that I worry about my own problems and don’t fulfil my obligations to the world around me . . . ‘Grief only cleanses the soul of one who attempts to drive it away. No one else’s.’ That’s what she had said . . . And ‘pain is everywhere’—I had assumed that it was only in one place—and I am wandering around carrying only my own sorrows . . . Redemption does not come from sharing someone else’s pain, but only in taking the place of someone in pain.

Is that why I decided to relieve him? I had also wanted to do something mindless—I relieved him for my own pleasure . . . and how could one ever avoid such pleasures? They were everywhere. There was also a pleasure in self-destruction—did that mean that people destroyed themselves for the sake of pleasure? . . .

Truth be told, I should have first called that scoundrel of an appointed officer here, given him a piece of my mind, and told him, ‘You should relieve this poor man’s duty. Walk and do some rounds in the winter rain, you might lose some weight’ . . . To suffer injustice is to increase it—was it a penance to suffer for the wrong reasons?

In the distance, the bells rang, marking midnight. It seemed as if the sound of the bells had frozen from being drenched in the rain—it was so faint . . . Shekhar felt as if his overcoat were four times as heavy as before, and if it was once his protection, it had now become his enemy—because of his overcoat, his uniform was also soaked through and small rivulets of water ran down his back, tickling him. The socks on his legs were also soaked through—water filled his boots. The soles of his shoes were ‘waterproof’²⁶—they wouldn’t let water on the outside in, nor would they let water on the inside out . . . Shekhar shivered once and then started walking faster.

It kept getting colder . . . ‘Why hadn’t the replacement come yet? Would this shift be just like the last?’ His body was numb down to his thighs and knees. Now he couldn’t even tell if there was water in his shoes or not, whether he had feet or not . . . It felt as if his hands and shoulders were only being held in place by crutches . . . He thought, ‘If I stand perfectly still, I’ll be stuck here like this statue.’

One . . . The sound from the bell was so faint that had Shekhar not been listening with rapt attention to the silence, it wouldn’t have been heard . . .

The appointed officer . . . Everyone had become worked up about discipline—‘It’s violence.’ If that was violence, then it was established on the fundamental violence of duty—of life even. Look at this, the appointed officer should be made to stand outside in the rain all night and that’s called violence, but if he makes countless men stand here all night, drenched and exhausted, without a word or a sound, that’s not called violence . . . If I were to say anything to anyone about this, he would say, ‘What’s it to you? You should do your work dispassionately. You should carry the weight of his mistake yourself. That is true penance. Penance is divine merit. Penance is religion. Penance—penance—penance! I am not trying to suggest that penance is bad, but who are you to demand penance? If you can tell me to renounce things, to do my duty selflessly, why can’t you also tell him to do his duty one way or another, whether it is selflessly or selfishly . . .’

Two . . . This time Shekhar didn’t get angry. An irrelevant smile spread across his face.

Penance . . . Everyone has their stick that they measure penance with—and that stick is a person’s own penance or ability for penance . . . He who cannot renounce anything can be found praising renunciation everywhere, all the time—‘So-and-so has performed such great penance’, ‘So-and-so is so sacrificing’ . . . His stick is so short that everything appears to be extraordinary to him . . . A person who actually performs penance has no idea that it is a big deal. Giving of himself is only one part of his regular, daily routine, which is not strange, surprising, praiseworthy or exciting, and it does not explode with excessive sentimentality . . .

But would no replacement ever come and would this night never end?

Appointed officer . . . Make him stand on a stage and he would thunder out a speech about penance and make it seem much easier than his appointed post . . . Those obese, cursed people . . . Will only unqualified men ever become officers and honest men only ever servants? Each day I hear, the leader isn’t here, the leader isn’t here . . . Society will be crushed under the weight of such leaders, never to rise . . . The load that is placed on top of us can only be a burden; it can never help in carrying any weight, the ability to bear the burden will only be possessed by those that rise from beneath—overcoming obstacles, ties, burdens, fetters; with haunches hardened from wounds and hearts steeled through struggle, proud and free . . . We are fighting for freedom, but all of our leaders—those who will us forward, bear our burdens—are like snow falling from soaring clouds; none have grown from this broken earth, none have broken through the tough soil like new shoots . . .

Freedom, liberty, independence—such beautiful words! But where is the tilled, fertilized soil in which they can grow—the people; where can you find the chemical reaction in that soil to fertilize it—the people and the people’s leader; and where is—

Three . . .

No, there was no use thinking about the replacement—what would happen now? It was 3 a.m., soon it would be 6 a.m. Then someone would come or he could go and call for someone. At 6 a.m. the morning bugle would sound, and he would have to take attendance.

Yes, the leaders reproached the people, but was it the fault of the people that those leaders didn’t come from within their ranks?

Independence is a natural right—those who desire it should appear automatically, they should grow like weeds. What need of soil or fertilizers or gardening? Then is it right to say that the people are to blame, that there is something wrong with the soil and that we aren’t worthy of independence?

But our forests have been felled, our natural streams and springs have dried up, our soil has turned into wastelands. Whether jungles or orchards, we have to cultivate them again, so it is necessary that . . . And our leaders—they aren’t necessary—there is no juice in those thorny cacti of the desert sands, nor do they have the ability to catch the rains of life or to break down themselves and make the desert bloom . . .

Shekhar was startled—the sound of footsteps . . . Would he really be relieved? There was no need for him now. The rain had stopped and he was as cold as he could possibly get . . .

But these were more than a single set of footsteps—Shekhar was blinded by the light of four or five flashlights and torches. Someone said, ‘This is where it happened—this man is the officer in charge of the volunteers who attacked me.’ Shekhar recognized the voice of the CID officer from earlier in the night and saw that a few police officers were standing with him. The officer said, ‘Arrest him. Tell the Congress headquarters in the morning.’ Two soldiers flanked Shekhar on either side. Shekhar asked, ‘Am I a prisoner?’ He got a response, ‘Yes, you’ll have to come to the police station.’

‘What’s the rush? You can arrest me in the morning. Right now, my legs are stiff from the cold; I can’t walk.’

The soldiers caught him under his arms. The CID man who had been beaten said, ‘Do you see his arrogance?’ The soldiers dragged him along. Suddenly feeling insulted, Shekhar broke free with a jerk and said, ‘I’ll go where you want to go—I’m not desperate enough to need your help.’

The officer and the spy exchanged glances. The group advanced—and as they walked on Shekhar saw that the volunteers had seen the hubbub and spread the news and that people had begun to gather.

As he sat in the police car he remembered Shashi’s words again, ‘Pain only cleanses the soul of one who tries to end it. There is no purification in sharing someone else’s pain, but only in taking the place of someone else in pain . . .’

Was he merely a vessel? Was a new chapter of his soul about to begin? Was he fully a man—a conqueror—a master of his circumstances?