Delhi . . .

Sometimes on the right, through the curtain of smoke, the bridge across the Yamuna River shimmers, and other times even farther on the right, a tower and the walls of the fort; and sometimes when the fog is thinner, one can see the thin, dark body of the Yamuna wrapped in long robes of sand, and as soon as you cross over, the trees, and an unfinished dome covering a well . . . Shekhar places a pillow under Shashi to lift her up so that she can see the scene outside the window and then stands behind her, waiting for the first break of dawn. Everything that could be seen between the smoke and the fog was new and unfamiliar, but a feeling of amiability arose within him towards that newness, because none of this was Lahore, they had escaped a poisonous circle, and behind the fog there was certainly a new personality that was a friend, a comrade—even if it took a few days to recognize him . . .

There was a history behind their arrival here. What Shekhar had learned about the lives of conspiratorial agents became the basis for a novella that he had just completed that was short on art; its primary purpose was to present that life in a glowing light for society and use that as the foundation to spread critical, revolutionary ideas. The novella was so ‘hot’ that it couldn’t be set to type openly, so it did not even get as far as finding a publisher; but Ramakrishna took the manuscript from him and showed it to a few people and then told Shekhar that they were going to find a way to print and sell it illegally, and a ‘sympathizer’⁹ had given a substantial sum of money for this very purpose; and also that the book would have to be printed in Lahore so it was best if Shekhar left town just as he wanted to do; and in order to facilitate this, the organization decided that Shekhar should be given 250 rupees from the sum that the sympathizer had given so that he could go elsewhere and find appropriate accommodations. Shekhar decided to go to Delhi because there was a greater possibility that they could live peacefully in a big city, and it would be possible to find a way to earn a living without drawing too much attention to oneself, and on top of that, there was much that he could continue to do for the organization . . . So that Shashi wouldn’t have to endure travelling at night, they set out in the morning and reached Delhi by evening; one of the members of the organization had found a house with two and a half rooms at a cheap rent near the Yamuna, and they moved in that night. And the rays of the breaking dawn awakened two visitors and showed them a foggy scene of Delhi and tried to make them intimates . . .

The bank of the Yamuna in Delhi, a fully furnished house with two and a half rooms, 250 rupees in their pockets, an unfamiliar and, therefore, liberal atmosphere, and—the shade of the saptaparni tree . . . If there were gods, then they deserved to be thanked for making this possible, that he could stand in Shashi’s loving shade and that he could lose himself in its love . . . and that the growing stain which threatened to wipe out that love had been left behind, and that there was a new atmosphere around them which was sympathetic because it wasn’t familiar, and that Shekhar now had an unobstructed chance to resurrect, or at least make her forget the pain of, that part of her life that Shashi had amputated in sacrificing herself . . . He didn’t think he could ever be free of his debt to Shashi, but he still didn’t have the freedom to accept humbly whatever was left to be had, and now he would be with Shashi and he would care for her . . .

Shekhar hadn’t come to Delhi with any definite plans. There was no worry about finding employment immediately. Although he had made a vague promise that he would definitely maintain some means of steady income, and that as much as possible this work should not bring him into contact (meaning struggle!) with members of his own class, let intellectuals be the kind of people who earn their living by virtue of their intellects and nothing else! He would only make do with the labour his body could perform so that he wouldn’t have to bridle the horse of his intellect to the carriage of another’s purpose—wouldn’t have to kill it.

But what work could he do? Studying in college hadn’t prepared him for any manual labour! If he had any skills, then it wasn’t because of college, but because he never could completely be collegiate! After much thought and meeting with a few people from the organization, he decided that he would work as a signboard painter¹⁰—this would allow him to maintain his independence, and it wouldn’t take too much upfront capital, and it would allow him to display a little artistic talent, and—if the work got under way, then an income could be made somehow. It was the organization’s intention that two or three other individuals could make use of the place, too—they would stay somewhere else at night, and would while away the days at Shekhar’s ‘workshop’ so that no one where they were staying would be suspicious, since they would believe that they went to the workshop during the day and that’s how they spent their entire days. If there was no work, they could work on something for the organization; the property for the workshop would be bought at the organization’s expense, but Shekhar would have to make arrangements for all the other materials.

Ultimately, they found a room on the top floor of a building on New Street for eighteen rupees a month. Shekhar made a large, colourful sign for the eaves in front of the building and hung it up; and with three more employees, the workshop started working. There wasn’t any work, but to keep up the pretence of work, three or four half-painted signboards were scattered throughout the room, a canvas made of thin sacking material was dyed and put up, and canisters and tins of various sizes were strewn about the room. It was winter so it wasn’t necessary to get there early in the morning; Shekhar would get there around 11 a.m. and with all of the mannerisms of one who was very busy he would set himself up to paint and make something; his ‘employees’ would get there a little earlier and would busy themselves with some reading or writing, but then whenever they would hear footsteps, they would abandon their books and notebooks and busy themselves with some ‘work’ or start smoking a cigarette—but when the footsteps were finally attributed to a sweeper or a wandering ascetic or the man with the tape, then all of them would look at each other from the corner of their eyes and smile, since they had been such fools!

Shekhar would head back home excitedly at 4 or 5 p.m., and would find Shashi, despite having been warned, up and busy doing some chore, and he would stick his nose into anything she was doing and make it impossible for her to get anything done so that she would give up. They had come to an agreement, that each day Shashi would cook a vegetable dish and some bread, and Shekhar would take care of the cleaning and the dishes, but they had an argument about it each day, because Shashi would argue that cooking and cleaning were her jobs, and Shekhar knew that she was a better cook. And then the thick fog rolled in, and then their entire house became separated from the rest of the world, separated by a great distance, still, calm and loving . . . But one could sense a deep sadness in that love, and an insufficient love in that sadness, because of which the two of them felt very close to one another but some unknown hesitation kept pulling them back . . . Shekhar thinks that the cool shade of the saptaparni tree is the answer to that insufficiency, and he doesn’t want anything beyond that; but as he thinks this the same insufficiency pricks from the inside and he knows that he wants something which he cannot name, cannot put into words . . . Sometimes Shashi interjects, ‘Shekhar, you can’t just sit around all day—why don’t you start writing again?’ And instead of answering her, he would think that was this what Shashi really wanted or did she want to save him from the emptiness she saw in his idleness? He was empty, so although he couldn’t see it, couldn’t recognize it, couldn’t measure it—he couldn’t fill himself up . . .

As the day broke, the wilting leaves realized that they had grown too yellow, and a heavy push made them wobble and fall to the earth . . . An absent-minded gust of wind shook the branches and set about shaking the remaining leaves off. The wind wasn’t any less cold, but it left one with the mistaken impression that one felt in its fleecy touch the false promise of springtime; the fog lifted, the demon of darkness daily grew slack when it locked claws with the day’s energy . . . And customers began appearing at Shekhar’s workshop! One day, when they got three orders at the same time, Shekhar set out to work with his three colleagues. On his way home that evening, he bought a piece of cheese and a few tomatoes with his dwindling savings, and as soon as he got home he excitedly went to work cooking—the doctor had said that Shashi should eat tomatoes, fruit and green, leafy vegetables, and that she should avoid getting cold and being damp . . . The next day he would come home with six or seven rupees that he had earned, and that hope had given him the strength to give Shashi the good news today—Shashi was gradually becoming more pliable, and she began accepting everything that he said without any argument, so much so that he would become shocked by her displays of total obedience!—So who knows why he felt that Shashi was sad . . . It wasn’t anything new. The tender sadness on Shashi’s face was just as peaceful as it was before. Perhaps it was the effect of the mottled colours of the evening in the northern months of January and February . . . But Shekhar quickly learned that Shashi was sad, and she was sad because she kept thinking about him . . . Which is why he suddenly said, ‘Shashi, congratulate me! There’s finally work in the workshop today.’

Shashi laughed, ‘Well, now that is a cause for great celebration. What kind of work is it?’

‘Three large signboards—there’s some new company opening up, it’s advertising for their oils and soaps, and one fifteen-foot board with their name on it.’

‘Well done, monsieur painter! This must be your lucky day—brilliant!’ Then Shashi’s eyes trembled and she stopped and stared at her plate.

‘Why, Shashi, what’s wrong?’

‘Aren’t you going to write any more, Shekhar?’

Shekhar stopped dead in his tracks . . . It was true, the colours of a signboard were not the colours of the revolution . . . And the calming atmosphere had given him no impetus and had put him to sleep instead—he wasn’t doing anything, had become a mere signboard painter, and an unsuccessful one at that . . .

Embarrassed, he said, ‘Why won’t I write? I haven’t forgotten, Shashi; I will write—’

‘No, Shekhar, you aren’t doing anything. You are cooking and cleaning and painting signs about oil and soap for me, how have you been able to go on like that for so long?’

Shekhar let down his guard and spoke what was on his mind, ‘Shashi, I don’t know what I should write about. It used to be that all of the pressure around me made it difficult; to write, but at least that gave me something to write about; and now everything is so peaceful around us, but—tell me, what do you think I should write? There’s nothing happening nearby—’

‘Shekhar, then why don’t you say that there’s nothing to write about? And are the events that happen around you the only important things, isn’t there anything real in your experiences?’

‘What is real about my experiences? All I’ve ever experienced has been lie after lie—and my experiences are only—’

Shashi pressed on, ‘I can’t accept that, Shekhar, that you have any shortage of material to write about. You haven’t forgotten, you’re avoiding it. Is there nothing in what Baba Madansingh said that is worth writing about? Did you learn nothing from Mohsin that you could pass on to others? Was Ramji unworthy, too? There can be bigger experiences than your own, definitely, but I think that if you write about the truths that you have seen, that you have felt in your blood, they will definitely be worth writing down. They don’t have to be important things, but the feelings behind the things have to be important, man’s ability to comprehend has to be vast—the determination and the courage to take control of the matter. The heat is not in the wood, but in the flame, and if you write about the truth inside you it will certainly have the flame in it—the kind of flame which nothing will be able to withstand and which will wash away the sin of our relationship!’

Shekhar was taken aback by her last words and wanted to object, but Shashi’s eyes lit up with a glow that silenced him.

‘I can tell that I am becoming an obstacle along your path. But I don’t think that this is unavoidable. The day that I can tell that it has become unavoidable, I will—I will—’ Suddenly stopping, ‘No, Shekhar, forget about everyone else and write about your own personal truth, whatever that is—’

He could tell from the way that Shashi was talking that the matter had gone well beyond the mere issue of his writing. Shekhar tried to laugh it off and said, ‘Then I should write your story—a personal truth—’

Shashi didn’t even smile, but rather became even more serious and said, ‘Yes, when it becomes such a truth, mere truth, which you can look upon dispassionately, then you should write my story—’ Suddenly glowing again, ‘And it won’t be as bad a story, Shekhar!’

Shekhar was dumbfounded.

Shashi got up to wash her hands. Shekhar also got up from the kitchen, crossed the room, went to the balcony facing the Yamuna River and stood and stared at the river—the river’s water was hidden under the smoke, but his eyes were fixed on the very spot that would open up in the middle of the smoke just where he should have been!

Shashi also went to the balcony and stood apart from Shekhar.

Shashi was right. When had she ever been wrong? Because everything that she said was gold forged through her own suffering—just like the things that Baba said . . . Shashi was the same age as he was, but she possessed such deep foresight, such unequalled sympathy and such clear intelligence—wisdom! Why didn’t Shashi become a leader herself, why was she settling for playing a secondary, supporting and subordinate role in Shekhar’s life, and why was she sacrificing and continually erasing herself so that he could move forward? Could he accept such an enormous self-sacrifice? What guarantee was there that whatever came from such great sacrifice would be worthy of it in return? And even if it was, how could he take such valuable things from her . . .

Shekhar turned to look at Shashi. He couldn’t make her out in the darkness, all he could see were her unblinking eyes fixed on the Yamuna. Without any explanation, he said, ‘Shashi, it won’t do to have you keep destroying yourself and for me to go on accepting it without any sense of shame. However important I am, you are fifty times greater—a hundred times greater—and I can’t take your sacrifice, I can’t, I can’t.’

Shashi stared at him in disbelief and then went to him and said, ‘Hmm, what are you saying, Shekhar?’

Shekhar took a deep breath and then said, ‘I am saying that I am extremely grateful to you, Shashi. I can’t tell you how much, and that is why I cannot insult you like this. You want to show me something, but you are wiser than I am, you are cleverer than I am, are more compassionate than I am, and you are throwing it all away—for me?’

Shashi came closer. ‘You’re asking so I will tell you. Listen. Woman has always sacrificed herself. She possesses wisdom, just as the earth possesses consciousness. But when a seed sprouts, it does so by breaking through the earth; the earth cannot be fruitful on its own. I might be mistaken, but I don’t think of it as an insult that women are the means by which the totality of men advance—we are the only means. The earth is the earth, but it is also like the creator. Is there anything wrong if that requires suffering and pain instead of a creative thrill and passion?’

Everything went silent. A silent whir rose from the fog that covered the Yamuna . . .

‘I am not wiping myself away—I will have played an equal part in creating the Shekhar that I see before me, which is why there is no question of debts and repayments; it is only your gratitude and your nervousness that are insulting.’

A thicker silence, and then an even more silent whir’s even wilder flight—and the bounded waves of sudden light in between the growing whirs and Shashi’s closeness, her deep understanding of selflessness—impulsively Shekhar moved forward and kissed Shashi’s forehead at the point where her hair met her skin, and then with a touch as delicate as breath, her lips . . .

‘No, Shekhar, no, not that—’ Her voice suddenly breaking, ‘They have already been used!’ Shashi quickly moved back as if she had been stung, and when he heard her violent sobbing, he understood what had just happened . . . And that knowledge was like being slapped and losing consciousness, and even when he saw her standing and crying he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, he just kept staring unblinkingly at Shashi’s blurred face.

‘Shekhar—’

‘. . .’

‘Shekhar, forgive me—but not that . . . You don’t realize that there is a part of my life that has already been tainted, and from the touch of a certain man—whose—shadow even I wanted—to save you from . . .’

Very softly, as if he were embarrassed by his own voice, ‘Shashi . . .’

‘I’m telling you the truth, you don’t understand . . . If I could cut it out and throw it away from my life, I would—but I can’t . . . I endured him—my marriage as both important and true . . . And I was prepared for the fact that he might erase me, destroy me; but he didn’t destroy me, he just amputated me, left me spoiled and threw me away . . . and now . . .’

Shekhar gathered his courage and put one hand on Shashi’s shoulder and then he felt her shoulder pull away, but he still managed to say, ‘Shashi, don’t cry . . .’

Shashi kept on sobbing. Shekhar spoke again, ‘You are making yourself upset for no reason—he’s not worth it, Shashi . . . He’s out of your life—there’s no need for remorse—crying over him is—’

Suddenly crying even harder and angrier, Shashi said, ‘When did I ever cry over him—I am crying because I loved him . . .’

Night is the incarnation of compassion, the darkness is God’s quick cure, capable of dissolving the hurt of all pain . . .

Shashi and Shekhar lay quietly wrapped in the darkness and in their doubled solitude, watching each other’s tremors of anguish, not watching but still clearly knowing and therefore comforted in not having watched. Shashi gradually stopped sobbing and slowly groped her way back inside. A little later, Shekhar also went back inside and put out the candle in the kitchen and went and lay down on his blanket . . .

He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he could clearly see Shashi’s suffering . . . He could always see it, but in the darkness he could see more of it than he had ever seen before . . . There was the saptaparni tree, was the shadow of the Coral Jasmine¹¹ tree, which didn’t offer mere solace, it offered energy, fragrance, pleasure, revelation, not merely the past, but the quivering present and the sleepy future, too—which is also why there was a big emptiness inside it that still hadn’t been filled . . .

Shekhar saw with unblinking eyes and unmoving gaze . . . Saw . . . Let the gods be shocked if the gods are shocked—but why did that love have to be spoken aloud?

Shekhar, why didn’t you realize your destiny right from the beginning?

*

One more thing about dawn in the winter—the same morning fog that gradually went from grey, coppery-red, red and then white, and then a sourceless brightness, and then the lazy first rays of dawn . . . But Shekhar had woken up before the first rays and gone to the window to Shashi’s room and with a finger, he cleaned off the dew that had accumulated on it and looked in.

Shashi was still sleeping—from the position she was in, you could tell that she had been up all night and had just recently gone to sleep; her body had curled up like the touch-me-not, but her face leaning on one side of the pillow seemed to be looking up, her lips were slightly opened, and the lock of hair which fell across her face gently swayed with each inhalation and exhalation . . .

Shekhar stood still for a long time and watched her face—he caressed her ever so tenderly with his gaze, just as Shashi’s breath touched the loose strands of hair . . . Shashi’s eyelids seemed to be transparent, he had realized that before, but now it seemed as if her whole face were transparent—as if quietly suffering all her torments had further cleansed her already pure skin and had given her an internal lustre . . . Shashi’s face was not the face of infirmity, and definitely not in this moment of tranquillity—but by looking at her, it was certain that the knowledge of an all-encompassing, bright pain would come quickly—a suffering that would bathe and tremble you like moonlight . . .

‘No, no, Shekhar, they have already been used—’ Was there anything out there that could use up her face let alone touch it—this glowing face, scrubbed clean by suffering, was untouchable just as no one could touch metal heated to the point of being white-hot—until something just as bright touched it—

But had Shashi’s penance really taken her so far away—so impassably, immeasurably far—had her purifying pain become a crystal barrier around her—through which everything could be seen bright and clear, but which made it impossible to touch?

The light inside the fog grew and turned into rays of sunlight; Shekhar drew in a deep breath which immediately transformed into a blessing for Shashi, then he quietly snuck out of the room and readied himself to go to work . . . It was for the best that Shashi was still sleeping and getting her rest and—because who knew, if when she woke up that same thick panic would arise again . . .

The group of painters kept busy working for the majority of the day; the boards were ready. They hadn’t even finished drying when the customers came for them that evening, two had already been picked up that day and the third was waiting to be picked up tomorrow—two had already been paid for. Shekhar divided up the money into two portions—one was his and the other was the organization’s—the organization had all kinds of expenses for which each member had to make some contribution or another . . . it was customary to give between a fifth to a half of one’s earnings . . .

Shekhar returned home with seven rupees in his pocket. This was literally the income from his sweat—it was manual labour, and he was finally able to give something back to the organization, and he was headed home—headed to Shashi—with the fruits of his labour . . . Whom he always loved, but who—but who—Shekhar couldn’t find the words, he could only imagine that Shashi had taken the shape of some godhood that contained all of the wonder of life within . . .

But for some reason, he wasn’t as excited today coming home with the fruits of his labour as he had been yesterday coming home with the mere prospect of work. And as he got closer to home, he was gripped by some unknown doubt, a vague hesitation . . . Without a doubt, Shashi would be happy, but he was afraid that her joy would depress him, and that Shashi would recognize his dejection and retreat to some impregnable distance . . . And this was the divine form of love—unflinching divinity and unflinching love . . .

He stopped for a moment outside his home and was stunned. Shashi was singing inside—a Punjabi folk song—in the melody of the mountain folk, the kind of melody that captures the desolate emptiness of the mountains, their incomprehensible heights and impassable depths, and which because of the echoing fluidity of Shashi’s voice became even more unbearable, as if it were the melody of some cruel, endless separation . . .

Two leaves of a pomegranate tree

They will understand our sorrow

Two stones on a mountainside!

My robe is tattered—

Return, just once,

And see the plight of your fakir!

Shekhar recalled a Greek verse¹² in which the dripping sounds of the tears of a certain sad forest nymph turned into a waterfall whose crashing waters sounded like a pitiable shriek to each passer-by and left them feeling a twinge of her pain—then he slowly went inside . . .

Shashi stopped singing as soon as she heard footsteps; the silence seemed so heavy to Shekhar that he immediately said something to break it, ‘Look, I’ve finally earned my keep today.’

‘Really? How much—’ Shashi tries to laugh.

‘Take it, there’s a lot—I didn’t keep track. Give me your hand—’

Shekhar takes out the rupees one at a time and puts them in Shashi’s hand. When all seven rupees were handed over and he stopped, Shashi teasingly asked, ‘And?’

‘And what? It was only one day’s income.’

Laughing mischievously, ‘Is that all? Is that worth asking me to give you my hand?’

A little hurt but still laughing, Shekhar said, ‘And, what else—I handed you everything that I had—’ And then he choked on the secret meaning of what he had said and stood perfectly still and silent!

His silence betrayed his secret to Shashi. Her face became serious and the hand which she had held out fell to her side, and she slowly turned and went back inside. Shekhar heard the clinking sounds of the money being put down, and then he went to the balcony, too.

Then a desolate feeling filled his mind—his eyes went dark . . . and in that emptiness Shashi’s words began to hum slowly—

They will understand our sorrow

Two stones on a mountainside!—

Two stones on a mountainside . . .

What did stones understand of pain—perhaps what this meant was that no one understood pain . . . Two stones on a mountainside . . . But the stones are from the mountains, and they have seen the summits eroded by the unrequited love of endless ice storms, seen the outcry of the wind being frustrated in trying to touch even the smallest shoot of green life on a naked cliff with its blind fingers, which soars ever higher like vanity and crashes to the ground like pride—perhaps stones on a mountainside really could understand pain . . . They will understand our sorrow, two stones on a mountainside . . .

Shashi again stood next to him quietly. Shekhar remembered the evening before; and for an instant he wondered whether the events of that evening would repeat themselves day after day, year after year—inconsequential repetition . . . He still couldn’t ask for anything, because the two of them shared a single artery, whether that sharing was the result of a curse of oneness, or whether it was a gift . . .

Shashi had said that he was a creation, and she was an equal partner in that creation . . . But he was a structure, a composition—an endless campaign on life’s completed path to nowhere?

‘Shekhar, should I go back?’

‘Yes—’

‘Back—to the place that I was given to—’

Shocked and hurt, Shekhar asked, ‘What are you saying, Shashi—Back there! Is that even possible now?’

‘Yes. He—had he known how to love, then perhaps it might not be possible, but still, perhaps—it’s possible. Gradually—’

‘That’s not what I asked, Shashi, I am asking you—can you do this now—do you now want to—’

‘Oh, me . . . Shekhar, I can see that I am getting in your way, dragging you down. And I won’t ever let that happen—it’s much easier for me to go back—’

‘No, you can’t talk like that, Shashi! Forget about me for now—how can you even think about going back?’

‘Why? If it helps you, makes things easier for you, then—’

‘And does your own soul mean nothing to you? I can’t let anything happen which will injure your soul—’

‘This won’t kill my soul, Shekhar. I can survive there—can live—because I will be saving you—helping you move forward. . . . I am going away from you, Shekhar, because I’ve been injured, not because I don’t know the meaning of love. No woman understands love who cannot give a sister’s, wife’s, and mother’s love at the same time—and I will be able to go on living after I go back because—I will be able to raise you like a mother—you have no idea how necessary that belief is for me—now and always! . . . I will certainly survive. It might be the life of an insect, but a woman can be a firefly, whose stomach contains an endless flame . . .’

Agitatedly, Shekhar said, ‘I won’t hear a word of this, Shashi. You’ve lost your mind—you’ve become a mental case.¹³ You—’ and then finding the word and filling out its absence with emotion, ‘have become a wretched Hindu—a suffering-and-calling-it-penance Hindu! But I can’t let you destroy your soul—and besides, such foolishness can be committed by two people, too.’

Shekhar noticed that Shashi was crying quietly. Becoming stern for some reason, Shekhar said, ‘Shashi, should your suffering help me become something, then I say to hell with that! Your—’

‘You don’t understand, Shekhar. You think that I am prolonging my agony. Do you think that I want to go back there? But I am not speaking of love, because—I can’t speak its name—more love than you can imagine, Shekhar!’

Shashi went back inside, leaving him there wounded and speechless, and after a little while Shekhar could hear the muffled sounds of her sobbing . . .

Was Shashi right? And if Shashi was dragging him down then what else could lift him up, that might save him from descending into the seventh circle of hell? And then the matter of being an amputee—wasn’t it the cold heartlessness inside Shashi that made her an amputee, which had tied her own life into a knot and never allowed it to be untied—was it one’s duty to quietly accept that knot, wasn’t one obligated to untie it, release the bound life within and rebel? If life was a gift—if life had any meaning, then it was one’s duty to keep it floating, to accept its drowning by virtue of a submissive fatalism was to be indifferent to life and to commit a sin . . . Defeat was a lie, the defeated were the only lies, for where is the blemish on the spirit of the undefeated? Shashi is wounded, but isn’t the depression that tells her that her life has been despoiled the same depression that is proof that her life hasn’t given up its fight yet—and therefore also hasn’t been despoiled, is unhurt and unbowed. No, Shashi’s defeat is not to be borne, it won’t do to let her waste away like that—if she won’t fight for herself, she will have to be fought for—

Shekhar went to Shashi and said, ‘Listen, I need to tell you something.’

Shashi turned her tear-stained face towards him to look at him once and said, ‘No.’

Shekhar held her head with both hands and stared directly into her eyes, and slowly emphasizing each word he said, ‘You will not go anywhere, and—you won’t be defeated, and—you won’t be afraid.’ And then without loosening his grip, he bent forward and touched Shashi’s lips with his own. Shashi’s head pulled back, her entire body was shaking, and her eyes were closed. Lifting her head, Shekhar looked at Shashi’s closed, wet, trembling eyelids and leaned in once again and kissed her on the lips. Her lips were trembling, salty from her tears . . .

Then Shekhar let go of her head and left Shashi’s room. He lit a candle, went into the kitchen, and began cleaning up the pots and pans . . . The porridge of rice and lentils was ready in a short time, the milk that had arrived earlier had been heated up, and then he went in front of the door to Shashi’s room and said, ‘Shashi, get up. Dinner’s ready. Wash up.’

A steady, controlled voice from inside said, ‘I’m coming.’

The calmness of the voice reassured Shekhar. Perhaps life hadn’t become impossible yet . . .

They say that lust is transient and that love is immortal. I can’t say whether there has been inversion of meaning between the two, but if this is what they say, then they are completely wrong! Love only lives once; it only comes once and when it dies it dies forever, it is not reborn. Lust is immortal, it can die from being frustrated, or from being sated, like the slain-but-unslain demon Raktabeej¹⁴ that finds a new life and rises again . . .

Education, civilization, tradition . . . We raise all of them above us; we remove them from the bounds of our personalities and establish them on a plane of a higher, greater existence, from the smallest plane to the plane of universal feelings.

But tradition and education are such enormous knots in human lives! Because anyone who is educated, who can detect the tiniest tremor in a life of refinement (those tremors that are deeper than those of common civility), they immediately realize in the most important moments in life—in moments of love or of great emotional upheaval—that they are incomplete, lacking an engrossing, encircling movement, that they only possess a strange, disconnected indifference—a kind of separation from their own feelings, that makes of the doer a spectator and a critic—meaning, it exiles one from one’s own personality . . . We create an image in our imaginations that there is a lover (or a beloved) whose heart beats (or can beat) with the great pulse of our very souls; who can be a companion not just for our physical and social existences, but can also share in our vulnerabilities and our extremely personal, unique feelings—share with us in art, in poetry, in song, and even in our experiences of joy and sorrow . . . But in reality, we find that love means that no matter where and no matter when, we are only unable to dissolve ourselves into one or another or any other person . . . There can be intimacy, there can be a relationship, a relationship of incredible unity, but we always discover that the relationship is a kind of subservience, a dependence on something external to our beings—to an image, to an idea, to a poem, to a song, to a sound, to a sweet dream, which despite being our own can never really belong to us because we are not alone, we are the sloughed-off skin, crowned with education, and refined and civilized, of that original and endless ‘we’ . . .

The days were peerless and the flowing fragrance of the acacia blossoms gave the wind a tenderness in which various other scents yawned and stretched their limbs . . . The violent torment that had plagued Shashi previously had quieted down; she was calm, and Shekhar felt that there was nothing else in the world except their intimacy—or rather nothing valuable, and that intimacy was both prosperity and happiness . . . But if you cut this plane of consciousness at an angle, you could see a cross section which said there is work to do, that the individual owes a debt to the collective, that there was failure and frustration and therefore rebellions, that there were entanglements and knots and ropes and chains and therefore revolutions; and there was a third cross section in which he was a miser who wanted nothing more than to hoard his wealth, which was fading away by itself, in which Shashi was calm but was being washed away, and one day would be completely gone . . . And the various torments of life that had been divided up between these various planes, suddenly burst within him, all the chains begin to bite into him, he wants nothing more than for all the entanglements to be sundered, even if that means cutting off a part of himself with it . . . Then he thinks, these agonies are the consequence of the dissatisfactions within him; then he prays for that rebellious spirit to be snuffed out, torn to shreds, so that he can let himself become a tamed prisoner—not just bound and obedient, but willingly and dispassionately bound—so that he could forget the incessant, fiery, stirring, impatient explosion of rebelliousness . . . It is the flame’s duty to reach higher, but that knowledge gives it no satisfaction when it can neither destroy everything nor devour everything . . .

Had he been an illiterate yokel, had he been an animal—had he been anything where he could have found completion, could have drowned, unhesitatingly, completely . . .

*

Work steadily came into the ‘painters’ workshop’, and there was some improvement in income, too. The way Shekhar was living, he could easily manage his expenses within his income—or rather with the half of the income that was his. He had decided before coming to Delhi that he would become a hermit rather than meet with people, because he didn’t want Shashi to be insulted again and have to leave town; and because of the political unrest these days, the two of them remained even more aloof socially—the members of the organization had stopped coming by to meet them as much as was possible and even then, they only met with a select few ‘sympathizers’; contact was made through them as was the passing on of a few confidential documents and donations would be sent back through these very people. That was why Shekhar never had to spend anything on ‘social expenses’. He also didn’t have any special hobbies and when it came to entertainment, he never did care much for the cinema or the theatre—neither did Shashi.

But on the other hand, Shashi’s health worsened. She didn’t say anything, but Shekhar could see it on her face that she was suffering terribly. He would try as much as possible to follow and make Shashi follow the doctor’s orders, and he didn’t have much trouble doing that, because surprisingly Shashi was becoming increasingly agreeable and obedient. But still her body was gradually getting weaker, and sometimes the pain would be so great that she would suddenly close her eyes and become so still that Shekhar wondered whether she became unconscious each time it happened. He took Shashi to see a very famous doctor. He examined her and asked her about her medical history; he repeated the previous instructions and then said that they had to be very careful because of her kidneys, and he also advised them to get an X-ray of her abdomen. He prescribed three or four medicines, too . . . They took the X-ray despite Shashi’s objections and had it sent to the doctor; when Shekhar took Shashi back to see the doctor, he stared at the plates of the X-ray for a long time and then said, gravely, ‘Hmm, I am still worried . . . but let’s see—’ and he began to explain why it was so important to keep her back from getting cold or damp, and complete rest, and psychological calm, and fruits and soft vegetables, and the avoidance of any kind of stress . . .

All of these things were expensive . . . So that Shashi wouldn’t have to worry about any of it, he would get up early every morning, make the necessary arrangements, and go for a walk to clear his mind and let go of his worries, so that when he got home his mind would be refreshed . . . He would walk up and down Bela Road near the edge of the river, and sometimes he would turn into the fields. One day while crossing through a field he picked a few tomatoes from an especially large plant and brought them home with him; the next day, without thinking of a special plan, he wrapped himself in a shawl when he set out for his walk . . . He walked along the edges of fields of vegetables, and each day he would pick something from a new spot, sometimes he’d pick tomatoes, sometimes a nice head of cabbage or dig up a few turnips and hide them under his shawl, and he’d keep on walking; then when he got home, he’d cook the vegetables for Shashi and after feeding her, he would eat and leave for work . . . He never thought about the fact that this was stealing; it was enough for him to think that Shashi got her vegetables and whatever money was saved this way could be spent on getting her medicines. Except for one day, after he had picked a head of cabbage and had hidden it in his shawl, he heard the sound of footsteps and it startled him and scared him a little; when he thought about that fear he realized that he knew he was doing something immoral; but how much damage could he possibly be doing to anyone? The birds and the wandering cattle would probably have eaten just as much—and what could the loss of a few heads of cabbage mean to such a large farm, and the tomatoes would have become bruised on the way to market anyway—he placated his conscience with such ridiculous arguments.

But there was no significant change in Shashi’s condition; the doctor advised a diet of only fruit juices, and Shashi’s translucent skin became even more clean and lustrous, and her eyes seemed bigger; each day, when Shekhar came home from work, Shashi was becoming increasingly agitated to see him . . . When he would come home, Shekhar’s heart would immediately melt from this eager expectation and such a loving welcome—Shashi’s mere presence changed the world so greatly . . . Along with the painting jobs at the workshop, Shekhar was handed even more work—his organization had decided to expand its influence during these days of political unrest, and so Shekhar was asked to write an ‘appeal’¹⁵ or a pamphlet on something or another each day. He also discovered that his colleagues were hatching a plan to free some of their more important comrades by storming the jail, and he was given a job to write as part of that plan. He was soon given a pistol, too. All of these things made him constantly nervous and his mind would race with all sorts of questions, doubts and worries; but as soon as he went home and saw Shashi’s face, these unnecessary, worthless and trivial dried-up leaves would fall from their branches and all that would remain was the cool, jasmine-scented sky—the sky of Shashi’s eyes . . .

Sometimes he couldn’t speak. He would put a sitting-up Shashi to bed and sit near the head of the cot and gently pat her forehead. He would get annoyed with the burden of having to get up to do the chores, light the fire and do the cooking; he would start to wonder whether it was necessary to eat; for Shashi, making fruit juice or warming up milk took very little time, but he would manage without or would eat leftovers—from now on, he would only cook once a day . . . Sometimes Shashi would say, ‘Shekhar, you don’t seem happy. What’s the matter?’ and then he would be secretly moved . . . As he patted Shashi’s forehead, it was as if the beat made her breath echo with the sound of some melancholy tune. Shekhar’s mind would again be full of those same entanglements and worries, and sometimes these thoughts would come to his lips, and Shekhar would softly begin to tell Shashi what was on his mind and she would quietly listen . . .

One day Shekhar suddenly received word that one of his ‘colleagues’ had run away from a town in Uttar Pradesh and was a conspirator with a reward on his head. He had been identified by the police in the city, and so it was possible that the police traced him back to the ‘workshop’ and so he had to remain extremely vigilant. That was the day when the collaboration of the three colleagues ended—two of them left for somewhere that very day—Shekhar later learned that they had gone to Kanpur—and the third, who had been recognized in the city, was going to stay with Shekhar for a few days since it was decided that it wasn’t possible or good for him to leave immediately but that he would leave town as soon as it was possible. Shekhar came home early that afternoon—he had been told that a guest would arrive sometime around 3 p.m. so that he didn’t have to cross the city with him.

Shashi would be pleased that he was coming home early—the presence of the guest for two or three days would pose a problem for their closeness. When Shekhar came home with these two opposing ideas in his head, Shashi was surprised and quickly gathered up the pages that were scattered in front of her. She asked, ‘Why so early today—’

‘What were you writing—are you writing a book in secret? I didn’t even know—’

‘It’s nothing. I was writing a letter—’

‘Such a long letter? On whom are you showering so much affection—’

Shekhar had wanted to tease her, but when he saw the nervous expression on her face he fell silent. He also noticed that Shashi’s face was unusually sallow, and she clearly looked exhausted . . . An idea flashed across his mind like a shadow, and he thought that she might have been writing a letter to Rameshwar—because if it were a letter to her mother why would she have hidden it; but who knows, she might have been hiding it because she was writing about Shekhar—whatever it was . . . He said, ‘Things just fell into place so that I could come home earlier. We’re going to have a guest.’

‘A guest—here? Who?’

‘It’s someone. And Shashi, he’s a very nervous character—he didn’t come with me. He said that I should go and check with you first, otherwise he would be worried, and that he would be embarrassed if I introduced you to him face-to-face for the first time.’

‘Then of course not. But tell me who he is? If he’s that worried you can put him up on the ledge above the stairs—then he won’t have to see me face-to-face!’

Shekhar burst into laughter. Then he told Shashi the whole story.

Concerned, Shashi asked, ‘He’s a suspect—so the police could come here, too, couldn’t they?’

‘Yes. I don’t expect them to, but it is possible—why, are you afraid?’

Shrugging it off, Shashi said, ‘No, what’s there to be afraid of—’ But then Shekhar’s mind turned to the possibility that if the police really did come, they might arrest him along with their guest, and then Shashi would be alone . . . This concern gave the whole issue of hospitality a new twist. Shekhar fell silent. Then after a little while, he said, ‘Shashi, let’s not think about it—hurry up and let’s get things readied.’

‘What do we need to get ready?’

‘First you need to lie down and then you can be impressed by how skilled I am at everything around here!’

After they finished their discussion, they decided that the guest and Shekhar would both sleep on the floor in Shekhar’s room—if the guest wouldn’t agree to taking Shekhar’s cot and letting Shekhar sleep on the floor by himself. Shashi insisted that she could sleep on the floor and that they could take her cot, but she didn’t really press the issue. The guest would bring his own bedding—if he didn’t, they would borrow some from someone. They would work out details about food after he arrived—it was possible that he would eat elsewhere. After they had decided all of these things, Shashi laughed and asked, ‘So what do we need to get ready?’

It turned out that there was only one thing to arrange, and that was to move the books and notebooks from Shekhar’s room into Shashi’s, and to take a small table from there and move it into Shekhar’s room where it would do the work of a table, a place to have tea and a desk . . .

The guest arrived and settled in. He brought bedding for himself, but he had no other luggage. They learned that he would eat dinner with them, but they shouldn’t wait for him during daytime; he would be wandering around town making arrangements to leave Delhi and would eat whenever he got a chance . . .

He went to bed very early after dinner. The next day, when Shekhar woke up, he saw him ready to go out. He said that he would be back in the evening and then left. As he was leaving, Shashi quickly said, ‘Look, if you are staying out all day because you are worried that I am here all by myself, then let me reassure you that I have no problem with that; you can stay here throughout the day. I won’t be able to host you properly, for which I am definitely sorry. But I don’t have Shekhar’s permission—’

Shekhar added, ‘Yes, it isn’t really because of that is it—’

The guest quickly blurted out, ‘I was a little anxious, but—’ and then he looked at Shashi, ‘I’m grateful to you. If it makes sense for me to come back here, then I won’t hesitate any more.’

Shekhar was alone in the workshop. He became busy with the job as soon as he received it, but his mind was not in it; the image of Shashi’s exhausted, yellowish face appeared to him, and again and again he would think that both Shashi’s problem and his were merely internal, but also external, not merely about spiritual love, but also about worldly life; and not only that, but also that the problem was not merely theirs, but belonged to the whole collectivity of life that knew them . . . And going further, that it wasn’t just their love, but all love—mere love—was basically one problem and it didn’t end with two individuals . . . There were so many sayings—durable and flimsy, crude and nuanced, straightforward and indirect—that were tangled up in this problem and made it overwhelming . . . The real problem was compatibility; love is an attraction, a force, that moves life out of its inertia, and it is this movement that is the source of the problem because it is pervasive, and fundamental, on the edge of life’s dagger—on countless edges!—it upsets an established balance . . . The problem persists as long as an equally compatible object is not found . . . It is a problem and an accomplishment, and a penance . . . And after getting this far in his investigation of the problem, his mind would return to Shashi’s jaundiced face and there would immediately be smaller issues to attach to the knot of this very large issue . . .

He hurriedly closed up shop a few minutes before 5 p.m. and went home. The days had grown quite long. By the time he got home these days, it was already time to put out the mat and the pillow on the balcony for Shashi, bring her out and stand next to her waiting for the water of the Yamuna to turn red . . .

When he was still at some distance from his home, he saw Shashi standing at the door, watching the road and waiting for him. When she recognized him, she immediately went back inside and sat down on the cot. Shekhar came in and asked her, ‘What’s the matter, Shashi?’

‘Nothing—’

‘Is something bothering you?’

‘Not at all; I’m quite well.’

‘You were standing outside just a moment ago—I saw you—’

‘Oh, that was just because. I was wondering when you were going to come and whether it might be very late—’

‘Why?’ As soon as he said it, Shekhar realized that she was worried because the guest was in the house. After a while, he said, ‘I will start coming home earlier from now on—’

‘No, you have work to do. Unless you would be coming home to write something—’

As if revealing a secret, Shekhar said, ‘I’ve been writing a little at the workshop—I didn’t have anything else to do—’

Shashi became slightly excited, ‘Really—you didn’t tell me!’ She paused. ‘Why don’t you bring it back here—you could finish it up quickly—’

‘No, Shashi. I won’t write here any more. I don’t want to do anything when I am with you—not even write. I can’t concentrate—’

Quietly, Shashi said—‘Crazy!’ And then she was silent.

The guest arrived a short while later. He came inside and carefully closed the door. Then he looked at Shekhar and said, ‘It’s good that you’re here.’

He went into the room, took out a couple of bundles¹⁶ from underneath his coat, put them on the cot and then sat down. He said to Shekhar, ‘I think that you should lock the door.’ After Shekhar had done so, he slowly began to unpack the bundles. At the same time, he said, ‘I’ve almost completed the arrangements to leave town. I will leave in the morning the day after tomorrow—if nothing happens in the meantime. But there’s something important that I have to do tomorrow—and I will need your help. I have to evaluate these—’

Shekhar looked. There were three pistols in one of the bundles, and two revolvers of different sizes in the other, and the third had bullets of various calibres. Taken aback, Shekhar managed, ‘What will I have to do—’

Caressing one of the revolvers with his hand, the guest said, ‘This is my faithful companion—I know this one well. The rest are new. They have to be tested. We’ll find some place near the bank of the Yamuna to do it. It will be safer there. But we will still need a “lookout”,¹⁷ so—’

Shekhar understood. ‘When will we leave?’

‘Can you come in the afternoon?’

‘Fine.’

After dinner, the guest excused himself and went to bed early. Shekhar lay down but was distracted and wide awake, and then when he found it impossible to sleep he got up to see if Shashi hadn’t gone to sleep so that he could sit with her. But there was a light on in Shashi’s room—he went inside. Shashi was lying down quietly, staring at the ceiling. Next to her cot were an inkwell and a pen, and next to the head of the cot were a few pieces of paper—

‘Were you going to write something? Let me write for you—’

‘No, they are just there in case I remember something—I have become very forgetful.’

Shekhar looked at her critically, and asked, ‘Are you sleepy? Can I sit with you for a while—’

Shashi gathered up the blanket on one side of the cot to clear a space.

‘I’ll sit here, by the head of the cot,’ Shekhar said and then moved towards the pillow.

‘No, I can’t see you there. Sit in front.’

Shekhar sat down near her arm.

He had come looking for company, and he had certainly found it, but it was a mute companionship! He didn’t say anything and neither did Shashi, and now she had even closed her eyes.

‘Are you going to sleep?’

‘No, I can’t with the light on—’ And then silence . . .

To continue the conversation, Shekhar said, ‘There’s no news from Aunt—who knows how she’s doing or what she’s been thinking . . .’

‘We haven’t written to her either—does she have our address?’

‘We’ve only given her the address to the post office. I’ve contacted the post office and given them our information, but we haven’t received any mail.’

‘It’s probably right. What would she write, anyway—I’ve broken her . . .’

Shekhar gently put one hand on her arm.

‘I’ve been thinking that I should write to Gaura and ask her to send us news regularly. She could do it—she’s older now and understands things.’ And then as if following up on some unspoken thought, ‘She idolizes you.’

‘Me—why?’

‘Ever since you went to jail. She doesn’t say anything, but she thinks a lot.’ And then silence descends. Suddenly Shashi asks, ‘What were you doing in there behind locked doors?’

‘Nothing—he’s leaving the day after tomorrow.’

‘Is that why you locked the door? Keeping secrets in your room? And there are still two days to go—’

He paused for a moment and then told her everything. ‘Shashi, he’s probably thinking about keeping you safe—he’s hiding pistols and the like.’

‘Why did he bring pistols?’

‘He keeps them with him—he could have need for them.’

After a little while, ‘When is he leaving the day after tomorrow?’

‘At dawn.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know—he’ll leave from here. It didn’t seem right to ask Brother—the fewer insignificant details we know the better—’

‘Hmm.’

The conversation topic ended.

‘Shekhar, do you ever carry a pistol when you are in trouble?’

‘. . .’

‘It doesn’t seem right to me that one should be prepared to kill someone at any time just because one could be in danger . . .’

‘Those are the rules of war—’

‘Is war a good thing? But there’s also a difference—war is an exceptional thing, and a person knows that as soon as it is over he will return to an ordinary, peaceful life. But this is a matter of daily life in the city—for everyone to be armed and ready to kill anyone at any moment—’

‘Why—only our enemies have something to fear—it’s not like you or I are in any serious danger? And if you want to talk about exceptional times—’

‘That’s fine. I’m not saying that they will kill anyone, but it must have a damaging effect on someone’s psyche—it can’t be good for any man.’

‘Perhaps he would say that he pays the price for his plans with his life. If it’s an expensive transaction, then it’s one that only he has to pay, and he’s willing to pay it.’

‘All right, let it go—when are you going tomorrow?’

‘Where—to the workshop? Same time—’

There was silence again and it lasted for a long time. Shekhar began getting up very slowly but it made Shashi suddenly open her eyes. Before she could say anything, Shekhar said, ‘No, I won’t leave yet—’ He got up and blew out the candle and then came back and sat by her head. He put one hand on Shashi’s forehead. Shashi closed her eyes.

From a distance came the muffled cry of a man guarding a field somewhere. A little later, the laughter of jackals and from the north the barking of dogs, and then the violent screams of some aquatic animal twice or thrice, and then a silence in which the internal quiet of the darkness echoed . . .

Shashi had perhaps fallen asleep—she never slept straight, always turned to one side or another with her legs pulled in. She was sleeping like that now. Shekhar’s hand wasn’t on her forehead, but just above her ear, and the hand above her ear could feel the gentle pulse of Shashi’s veins . . .

Suddenly, Shashi called out, ‘Shekhar!’ She took his hand—Shekhar responded calmingly, ‘What is it, you’ve woken up—’ Shashi didn’t respond. She kept a hold of his hand and pulled it over her mouth and she slowly moved his fingers across her perfectly still lips . . . After a while, she let go of his hand and said, ‘Shekhar, you should go to sleep now. It’s late. I just woke up for no reason. I’ll go back to sleep soon.’

Then she became perfectly still, which is when Shekhar got up. He leaned down close to Shashi’s face as if to smell Shashi’s hair and then walking softly, he returned to his room.

The first thing in the morning, a young man came and asked, ‘Where is Brother—’

‘Brother who?’ Shekhar said drily. In the meantime, the guest entered and said, ‘Oh—good. Shekhar, he’s come for me.’

Brother kept his revolver and bullets and gave the remaining firearms to the young man and gave him some instructions and then sent him off. Then he left, too, but as he was leaving he said to Shekhar, ‘Be ready this afternoon—’

At first Shekhar had thought that he wouldn’t say anything to Shashi, but she would ask questions if he came home early that afternoon and then left again, and it was better to explain things sooner rather than later. He came to that decision and told Shashi that he would be back in the afternoon because he had to go somewhere with Brother.

‘Where? To do what?’

‘Somewhere on the other side of the Yamuna. I don’t know why.’

‘You mean, you didn’t ask?’

‘No, Shashi; I really don’t know what he wants me to do.’

Shekhar came home earlier than necessary that afternoon and waited for Brother.

Brother didn’t come. Around 3 p.m., the young man from the morning arrived and said, ‘Brother wants you to come to him. He can’t come here now.’

Shekhar quietly got ready and went with him. As he was leaving, Shashi asked, ‘When will you be back?’

Shekhar estimated, ‘I’ll be back before it gets dark—don’t worry.’ And he left.

Both of them crossed the bridge and stood on the other bank of the river. After they passed one village and had walked a mile, they found Brother in a thicket of reeds. As soon as he saw them, he asked the young man, ‘All clear?’¹⁸

‘I believe that we are fine. I saw someone on the bridge, but everything seems to be fine here.’

Beyond the thicket was a sandy slope that made something of a dry trench, and beyond that was higher ground. In the trench, a person could remain unseen from all directions, and it was as if the sandy walls on both sides had been especially made for target practice. The thin course of the Yamuna was on one side—and it shocked Shekhar to realize that his house was directly across on the other side of the river.

Shekhar was given the task of keeping watch on one side; the young man on the other. Brother went into the trench. A little later they heard gunfire; and then at short intervals, the sounds of single and double rounds, some loud and crackling, some serious . . .

Brother returned in a little while; he said, ‘Everything works. But some of the cartridges are old—they might let us down.’

The three headed back. But when they got to the road, Brother stopped unexpectedly. Shekhar saw a khaki-coloured truck coming from the bridge carrying several police officers. The truck didn’t stop, it was slowly moving towards Shahadara, but Brother said, ‘Something smells fishy,’ and they made a big loop and came back to the clearing. Shekhar and the young man followed behind.

There was another path out of the clearing. That’s the one that Brother took.

‘Where does this go?’

‘It must go back towards some settlement or another—it’s not as though we can wait here until evening.’

Shekhar wanted to ask why they had to wait until evening, and what would happen next, but he left everything to Brother and remained quiet. After they had gone about three miles, they came to a village; the sun was about to set, so Brother felt it pointless to go into the village and they went around it.

‘Shekhar, do you know how to swim?’

‘Yes, more or less. Why?’

‘We’ll cross the Yamuna from over here somewhere—the bridge will be dangerous.’

‘All right, the river shouldn’t be too high now—perhaps we won’t even have to swim—’

‘That would be great, but if we have to—and we have to protect these things from the water, now, don’t we—but I will take care of that. I know how to swim with my hands above water. How far do you think the river is?’

‘About a mile—two miles by road.’

‘Why bother with the road. We’ll cut straight through here—’

‘It looks like there are canals in between—it will be muddy—’

A doubting ‘hmm’ from Brother who turned and walked around a field.

From the edge of the field in front of them, a young peasant girl was walking towards them; she had a bundle on her head that she held one arm up to support but her arm didn’t touch the bundle; it swayed with her gait, and the girl was gently humming a song.

Brother stopped for a moment to ask, ‘How far is the Yamuna?’

The girl was taken aback. ‘Eh—Jamanaji? Turn around and walk straight in the other direction. It will be about two or three miles. Why are you going this way—’

‘Can’t we get there this way?’

‘No.’

Shekhar asked, ‘Can’t we go this way—if we can save some time—’

The girl looked at Shekhar once and then once again, carefully observing Brother from head to toe. Then she turned to face Shekhar and said, ‘It’s muddy. And there are some steep hills. You’ll be fine, but I don’t know about fatso over here.’

Shekhar was stunned. Brother was definitely heavyset, but Shekhar didn’t know if he had ever had anyone so frankly critique his body before. He graciously smiled at her sidelong glance and said, ‘Daughter, time makes everything possible, watch—’ and he walked on.

As the girl walked on, she said, ‘You’ll get stuck!’ and she burst out laughing as if she were imagining the situation.

The three of them walked towards the canals. When the sand began to give under their feet they took off their shoes and held them in their hands. The mud really was as bad as a swamp . . . The sun had set; the embankments of the canal in front of them were barely visible and the evening wind made the tamarisk bushes rustle . . .

When the embankment was directly in front of them, Brother thoughtfully said, ‘I walked more than sixty miles at one stretch and the girl calls me fatso!’—then laughing a little,—‘I have indeed become a little fat.’ And as if to challenge the stigma the girl had given him, he began climbing first . . .

From the top, they could see the Yamuna; lamps had been lit on the other side. Shekhar suddenly became very worried about Shashi . . . Even after they crossed the river, he still had another two miles to go . . .

Brother said, ‘Shekhar, I’m going to take a detour through somewhere and be back,’ and when he gave him permission to go straight back home, Shekhar was not only happy, he was grateful—because now he could walk faster and get home sooner, and he could ask for Shashi’s forgiveness before anyone else arrived . . .

Shekhar didn’t look up as he began walking faster—whenever he found an empty stretch of road, he would run for a little while and then walk again . . . As soon as he set foot on the threshold of his home he lifted his head because someone was standing still in the darkness—Shashi . . . She had lifted the edge of her sari to cover her mouth and nose and all one could see were her eyes . . .

Shekhar’s heart began pounding. Without saying a word, he encircled Shashi with one arm and pushed until he got her back inside—Shashi was trembling from the cold . . . Just as he was sitting her down on the bed, it seemed to him that Shashi cried two tears—there was no lamp lit inside the house—embarrassedly, worriedly and lovingly, he said, ‘Shashi—’

That was all it took. Shashi spoke, her voice breaking, ‘You’ve come back—’ and then she burst into tears . . .

Shekhar was overcome with shame. He couldn’t say a word . . . Then he quickly remembered his responsibilities, so he wrapped Shashi in the blanket and got up to light the stove. While he was blowing very hard to get the coals to light quickly, he heard the muffled sounds of Shashi’s sobbing. That sound felt like a dull knife stabbing him somewhere deep inside . . . When he got the fire going, he took the stove into Shashi’s room, set it down and gently tried to get Shashi to lie down. He said, ‘Child, why did you let yourself catch cold—why were you so worried—’

Shashi held herself up stiffly. Pushing his hand off her shoulder she said, ‘Move—’

Shekhar stood there meekly for a while. Then he repeated, ‘Shashi, child, lie down and cover yourself with the blanket—why are you punishing yourself for my mistakes—’

Shashi didn’t say anything, or move. Shekhar kept standing there desperately.

After a little while, Shashi drew a long breath and then lay down by herself—curling up her hands and feet, looking at the burning coals in the stove with unmoving eyes—

‘Shashi, I wasn’t late on purpose. We had to take the long way across the river—that’s why I’m so late—’

Those same eyes now pierced through him, ‘Why, what happened—’

‘Nothing. When we were heading back, Brother saw a truck carrying policemen and said that we couldn’t cross back over the bridge. So we walked about five or six extra miles and then crossed the river.’

‘What were you doing there?’

Shekhar was silent. After a while, Shashi said, ‘Well, at least you’re back—’

‘Why, Shashi, why were you so afraid—’

Shashi laughed a forced laugh as she kept staring at the coals. ‘Hmm—why was I afraid. What do you know about fear . . . I thought that you weren’t—you weren’t coming back—’

‘Why, Shashi? What made you think like that—’

As if looking inside herself thoughtfully, Shashi said, ‘You went to the other side of the river, that much I knew. After you left, I was standing outside when I heard sounds of gunfire from the other side of the river. I never specially worry about you—I had thought that if you were hurt I’d feel it somehow; but for some reason today I felt like I would never see you again—that you were gone now . . . And perhaps gone now because—I am leaving, too.’

‘What, Shashi—’

‘Yes, Shekhar. Fear is a terrible thing; but sometimes it gives you extraordinary insight. Watching what happened to you—not you, but rather waiting to hear any news of you—I’ve seen quite a bit in the meantime which I hadn’t seen before—or at least not as clearly.’

‘What was it, Shashi?’

‘Many things . . . I read in some foreign novel that love is an art, and that art is another name for discipline. And the intent of the novel was to say that no one should love another person so much that they have no room for any other purpose—that life is an independent unit and if it becomes completely dependent then it is no longer an art because it is beneath art’s ideals. Then, I didn’t understand what all of that meant . . .’

Shekhar also stared at the fire.

‘I still haven’t fully accepted it—but I’ve understood what it means finally . . . I—have moved beyond art . . . And—I’ve seen that this was the right thing to do—the right thing for me. I don’t need room in my life for another purpose—because—I don’t have life left to live.’

Shekhar was hurt, ‘Shashi, you’re only talking this way because you’ve been hurt badly—’

‘No, Shekhar, no. The things that I have realized about you today, I might have got completely wrong, but about this—no. I’ve done all that I had to do . . .’

Shashi’s voice was so definitive that Shekhar was unable to raise an objection. He had been standing, but now he sat down on Shashi’s cot. His dumbstruck mind was trying to understand the full import of what Shashi was saying—but he couldn’t get any further than the thought that she was saying that she wasn’t going to live much longer . . .

Shashi slowly closed her eyes. Shekhar kept his eyes glued to the fire. Much time had elapsed—there was a layer of ash on the coals . . . He was going to get up to shake the stove when he noticed that Shashi was breathing quite rapidly. He quietly called out to her, ‘Shashi—’ and then he put his hand on her forehead and immediately drew it back. Shashi had a fever . . .

Shashi said, ‘It seems as though it’s getting worse.’

Shekhar took a blanket off his bed and wrapped her in it, relit the fire in the stove, and then began pacing in the room . . .

Brother gave a single warning knock and opened the locked doors and entered. Shekhar left Shashi’s room to greet him and all at once he remembered a thousand responsibilities that he had as a host—

But Brother said, ‘Take this. It’s for both of you. I’ve just bought some dinner from the bazaar—it’s very late—’

Shekhar was silent and grateful.

‘Is Shashiji feeling all right?’

‘Umm, no, she has a fever.’

Brother went into Shekhar’s room and began putting his materials away. Shekhar stepped forward to get the plates.

*

Brother explained that he would be leaving early the next day—he would be out of Delhi before it was light out and would get on a train at some smaller station.¹⁹ Shekhar wouldn’t have to get up to see him off, he would just leave quietly, and it would be wonderful if they were to meet again, but if not—‘If not, then whatever will be!’

After he had lain down to sleep and had started breathing regularly, Shekhar quietly walked out and went to Shashi’s room. He felt Shashi’s forehead—it was still feverish. Shashi wasn’t asleep, she was lying there exhausted . . . He stroked her head for a while and then left, he put some more coals in the stove and increased the flame and put it in Shashi’s room. He put a glass of water on the table near her head; softly, he said to Shashi, ‘Shashi, call me if you need anything—don’t get up for just any reason . . .’ He stood there indecisively for a moment and then went to his room and lay down.

He didn’t think that he would be able to sleep the whole night, that he would be up thinking—but somehow, he was worn out from the day’s wandering and he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was startled and looked at the radium watch on Brother’s table, it was 4 a.m. . . . He knew that this was usually the coldest time of night so he thought that he should relight the stove and put it in Shashi’s room again, but when he got up he noticed that there was a lamp burning brightly there even though he had dimmed it earlier . . . When he hurried over he saw Shashi lying down, supporting herself on one elbow and writing—not was, but was still writing, and now it seemed as if she was hanging her head and resting from exhaustion, the pen was still in her hand. His first instinct was to read what she had written, but he suppressed that urge and when he moved to lay Shashi down so that she could rest, she woke up. When she sat up, she straightened out her tired arms and began collecting her papers.

Shekhar’s voice scolded Shashi deeply, ‘Shashi . . .’

Shashi spoke plainly, ‘Enough. Now I’m done writing—’ But when she saw Shekhar looking so hurt she was embarrassed and said, ‘It was important for me to write all this—I won’t do any more mischief—Shekhar, I’ve become very obedient these days—’

Shekhar was disarmed. He picked up the stove and went to relight it.

The noise woke Brother. He got up, went outside, and asked, ‘I was going to leave quietly, but you’re up before me!’

Shekhar was still lighting the stove so he washed up and got ready. ‘All right, Shekhar, I’ll be leaving now. I’m sure that we will meet again—the two of us still have much to do!’ Laughing a little, ‘Give my regards to Shashiji. I am grateful to her—although all I’ve been able to give her in gratitude has been trouble and more trouble . . . All right—’

Shekhar quickly washed his blackened hands so that he could see him off at the door, but unaccustomed to goodbyes, Brother didn’t wait. He flashed him a racing smile and left.

Shekhar slowly closed the door. He went back inside, took the stove and puffed away at it as he took it to Shashi’s room.

He put the stove down and locked the door to the room, only the window was open a crack. And then he sat down as if thinking about what he would do next—

Shashi moved. She let her body go slack and stretched out as she drew a long breath. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and began looking at Shekhar. Shekhar asked, ‘Shashi, are you comfortable? It gets really cold this time of day; the stove—’ and then he stopped. Shashi wasn’t listening; her vacant expression was washed out by the thinnest of smiles and she had closed her eyes. Shekhar quietly observed her face. Suddenly Shashi opened her eyes. She fixed her gaze firmly on Shekhar and kept staring at him. Her long, piercing stare made Shekhar’s soul swoon; he saw—an ultimate truth; boundless; omnipresent . . .

‘Shekhar, come here.’

Shekhar moved towards the cot.

‘Sit next to me.’

Moved by a feeling he couldn’t name, Shekhar sat at the foot of her cot—Shashi seemed so far away, other-worldly, dreamy, disembodied, as if touching her would scatter her to the wind—

‘No’—what was the secret speaking through her voice?—‘Not there, come closer!’

Spellbound, Shekhar shifted towards her.

Then without saying another word, Shashi lifts up her chin; her eyes are half-closed and her mouth is half-opened, and that unchanging expression reveals nothing—

Shekhar doesn’t understand what is happening for a moment. Then a dam bursts inside him, and he bends down towards those half-opened lips—and as he bends down, his own flood of desire holds him back, a loving tenderness takes its place and tells him that half-opened jasmine blossoms should only be touched with the most loving of caresses, and as he gets closer and closer to her lips he bends his neck and touches Shashi’s lips with his earlobe. Her lips are tight—from the fever; that downy touch makes a shudder run through his head, and then compelled by a new wave in his consciousness he bends down again and kisses Shashi’s loving, fixed but unflinching lips . . . an unopposed, bestowed, interminable kiss . . .

Shashi drew a deep breath and closed her eyes; bewildered and unmoving, Shekhar takes a silent breath and sits down. He can hear his pulse in the silence, then he doubts that the pulse is his, but is rather Shashi’s heartbeat—and then he thinks that it is neither of theirs, but is the beat of the internal, ever-present silence of dawn . . .

The dusty blanket of night melted into the rosiness of dawn . . .

‘Shekhar?’

‘Hmm—’

‘You used to make me sing for you; if I ask you now will you do so for me—’

‘Me? . . .’

‘Yes, but you don’t have to sing, just read,’ and gesturing to the cabinet with her eyes, Shashi says, ‘There’s a black notebook in there—on the bottom shelf—’

Shekhar found the notebook.

‘Let me have it—’

Shashi opened the notebook. She flipped through the pages using one hand and her chin and then finding her place, she said, ‘Here—read from here—’

Shekhar took the notebook and was surprised—it contained poems copied in Shashi’s hand—Hindi, English, Bengali—

‘And don’t just read them to yourself—read them out—’

Shekhar was about to start, he read half of a verse and then stopped. Then he looked at Shashi’s face once and continued reading slowly.

I want to die while you love me

While yet you hold me fair,

While laughter lies upon my lips

And lights are in my hair,

I want to die while you love me.

Oh who would care to live

Till love has nothing more to ask

And nothing more to give?

I want to die—²⁰

He stops suddenly and said, ‘No, Shashi, I won’t read this—’ And the mysterious, instructive intention of the poem and of Shashi’s making him read it just then pierced his soul. . . . I want to die while you love me²¹ . . . ‘No, absolutely not!’

‘Why are you scared, Shekhar? It’s an old poem—my laughter died a long time ago—No, Shekhar, I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t look at me like that—I realized things too late—just last night—yesterday in the evening, when you had gone to the other side of the Yamuna—’

Shekhar closed the notebook. He put it to one side, and he extended one hand and grabbed both of Shashi’s hands tightly . . .

After a while, Shashi said, ‘Let go. It’s not as if I am dying right now—’ And she smiled. And then changing her tone, ‘Shekhar, if you need to go to work, you should go. I am going to sleep.’

Shekhar looked up at the day. He wanted to say that he didn’t have any work any more. He thought that if she could get some rest he would be doing her a favour, and he quietly got up and walked out, although he had decided that he wouldn’t go to the workshop today . . .

After he did his daily chores, he lit the stove, heated some milk, made a porridge and juiced three oranges; then he quietly started keeping an eye on Shashi’s room. He peeped in through the window and saw that Shashi was sleeping peacefully . . .

Why had Shashi made him read that poem now? I want to die while you love me . . . Shashi never talked about mere sentimentality—so what was this—was it a message? Or was it only a possibility? . . . or a feeling—a gratitude for love . . . Or—pure—information . . .

He went to his room and wrote out a letter to his aunt that said that the two of them had been worried as they hadn’t received any news from her, that everything was going well, that Shashi was getting worse, and that if it were possible, she should send some money. At one point his hand stopped in wonder at where his former pride had gone, but he couldn’t see the reality of his pride clearly in his mind at that moment . . . He wrote the address on the envelope, took one more look at Shashi, and then went outside quietly to drop the letter into a letter box around the corner.

Shashi hadn’t got up yet. There were beads of perspiration on her forehead . . . Her fever was breaking . . . Shekhar crept into her room quietly and sat down on the ground near Shashi’s head. There were several things that he had to take care of away from the house, and there was nothing to do in the room as long as Shashi was sleeping. But Shekhar had so many things to say at that very moment to that sleeping face . . .

*

Why is it that whenever I recall these most intense days of my life I am left perplexed about what actually happened, and about what didn’t happen and was only imagined? My external and internal worlds had become so entangled that it was impossible to separate them—perhaps the force of my internal world had become so intense that it ripped the physical boundaries of the external to shreds and burst forth—even when it didn’t exist, the intensity was the truth, was real—is real . . .

‘Listen, Shashi. There’s much I have to tell you. Don’t wake up, keep sleeping. Even while you are asleep you will hear the things that I want to say to you—because I am not speaking to your ears, I am speaking to your lips—lips that hesitated with me today, lips which I will never hesitate to speak my mind to—and especially not when they are asleep . . .

‘Shashi, you have given me love—you’ve granted me a boon . . . But before you gave me this book, why didn’t you test me? You need to test me—to see whether I am worthy or not . . .

‘Shashi, I have always had a power in me, but I never recognized it. I’ve been a rebel my entire life, but I’ve always been uselessly squandering my rebellious energies . . . That’s what your face taught me one day—it taught me that fighting is not an end of itself, to fight for the sake of fighting is inconsequential, and that a rebel has to rebel against something—God, society, illness, falsehood, mother, father, one’s self, love, it could be anything that a rebel rebels against . . . That’s when my rebellion found an edge—it became an opposition . . . I became an oppositionist . . .

‘But that was really only partially understood, and so my rebellion was also only partial . . . Then—then you taught me that it wasn’t enough just to fight against something . . . I learned that everything was polluted, was in ruins, was in decline—that it wasn’t just one society, but all life that had been corrupted from its very roots—God, man, everything . . . corrupted from the roots—was corrupted and rotten, there was nothing left to fight with! Or maybe everything could be made use of, which was saying the same thing—clay can be cut, but a marsh cannot—you can only sink deeper and deeper into it . . . It isn’t enough to fight against something; one also needed to fight for something . . .

‘To fight for something . . . but for what? When everything was rotten, what was there to fight for . . .’

‘So what did you decide, Shekhar?’

‘I never needed to—you showed up again—you came into my life—I never knew what I should fight for, but you were with me; I started fighting for you—or I planned to start fighting. Shashi, I’ve been struggling continuously for my whole life—I’ve even fought with you, but now I acknowledge that I have loved you, too. I’ve given the best of myself in fighting, because I was doing it for you. Sometime in the middle I feared that all of my ideals were ignoble, but that vanished, because you were no less than a pure ideal . . . But then a hunger grew inside me and that brought with it a new fear . . . Shashi, have I sinned?’

‘Shekhar, I have only ever loved you. I have never committed a sin.’

. . . Two disconnected sentences . . . Shekhar only gradually absorbed their meaning . . . But when he fully realized them, then—

‘And Shashi—now that I have found a goal to fight for—Shashi, Shashi, are you really going to leave me, Shashi—’

Suddenly, Shekhar took Shashi’s head forcefully . . . Shashi woke up, his fingers kept tracing patterns on Shashi’s hand—

‘Shashi, will you really leave me—will my life really never have any meaning—’

Shashi patted his hand and said, ‘It will, Shekhar, it does. It will after I’m gone, too. You won’t be defeated—never defeated—for me, Shekhar, for me . . .’

‘I know, Shashi . . . I cannot stop—you’ve never let me. But I don’t know how I will go on—I can’t see how—for whom . . . Or whether I go on just for you—I go on, without seeing, without understanding, somehow, for you, only for you, Shashi . . .’

Shashi’s forehead was cool, her face gentle and peaceful, so calm, so still that Shekhar, terrified . . . panicked, said, ‘Shashi, have you—gone?’ Then feeling embarrassed, alarmed at the stupidity of his question . . . But Shashi isn’t alarmed, her fingers reach out for Shekhar’s hand again—

Had the atmosphere changed? Could the sun and the shade trick someone? Why did tiny shadows dance on Shashi’s face and then disappear when her unblinking eyes were still bright and her lips are still and gentle? Why did the fingers of her left hand sometimes curl into a fist while lying on her chest even though the rise-and-fall of her breasts was regular?

‘Shashi, are you in pain?’

The blinking of her eyes says no.

But why did it seem to him that underneath his hand, Shashi’s cool forehead would be struck with a pain that then lingered, why did it seem as though Shashi was trembling?

‘Tell me, Shashi, why, what is happening? What is happening . . .’

Shashi takes his hair and pulls his head towards her and says, ‘Joy, Shekhar, joy . . .’

Day, afternoon, evening, night, morning, day, afternoon, evening, night, dawn . . . Fever, sweat, exhaustion, a slight ache, shivering, fever, loving-yet-limp hands, fever, sweat, cold . . . The air smelled of Holi, gentle and cool; the incessant falling of leaves, round, white clouds like scattered cotton, nomadic, carefree, aloof; dusty grey, whirlwind . . . Doctor, a wash basin filled with ash, charts and bottles, fruit juice . . . A letter from Aunt written in Gaura’s handwriting—‘Mother’s eyes are seriously troubling her which is why she isn’t writing herself. She sends both of you her best blessings, and she says that you should write very soon about Shashi’s condition, it isn’t good to wait so long between letters. God willing she will get better soon . . . She sends 100 rupees . . .’ And then from Gaura, herself, ‘Aunt wanted me to send the money by money order, but I’m putting them with the letter and sending them by registered mail because you might not accept a money order sent from here. I am very worried about Shashi’s health, would you even write if we weren’t worried? Shall I come to help nurse Shashi to health? I haven’t asked Mother, but if you say so, I will definitely come, no matter what happens—write to us soon about everything . . .’ Gaura had become very wise—such a slight girl . . . Commotion, the racing and roar of cars, white caps, red shirts, ‘Black Laws’, ‘Bhagat Singh has been hanged’, ‘Gandhi’s pleas unheeded!’ . . .

Afternoon, evening, night; and everything is unreal, a lie, a delusion—a distant mirage . . . There were only two big, starry eyes nearby, the shimmering sparkle of stars which hides fear, alarm, worry, panic . . .

*

I am writing Shekhar’s story, because I am trying to find the answer to life’s questions in it, but there comes a point after which I cannot maintain the separation between Shekhar and myself—the one who suffered that day and the one who narrates today become the same, because ultimately the meaning of his life is the same as the meaning of my life; and I am not neutral towards the answers that I have to find, have to search for, I am not!

If this means that the ultimate victory is the historian’s, then so be it. History means nothing to me; the succession of events also means nothing. Life is ultimately redeemed by life—the best aspect of our lives is that wondrous creation, human being—and the pride of an individual’s life is his love—his ability to dilate himself, to sacrifice himself, beyond himself . . . The import of the story is not for me, its meaning is for the character that I have been narrating; and so that I can acknowledge it, bear witness to it, before I pass on . . . When I will no longer be, then this work can stand as a memorial to him! Had the circumstances of his life been different, then his future would have been as well—perhaps he would have been the head of a household and all of those lives would have been blessed with that gift-like, affectionate, pure love which is the offering of every expansive soul . . . But that is not what happened. I am the only one who has seen that expansive soul close up, I, who became the cause of its destruction . . .

But I am not offering testimony, making a confession, to wash away my crimes or as atonement. Even crimes could have drowned in that love, as expansive as it was . . . I won’t minimize Shekhar’s crimes, because his commitment to love lay behind them, that Shekhar who is me . . .

Worry, worry, fear . . . Decision . . . Perhaps Shashi already knows, but one day suddenly Shekhar realized . . . To make the ignored visible is perhaps both proper and necessary; one cannot aim for ignorance . . . He had stopped going in to the workshop for a few days now. Now he had given up leaving Shashi’s side, he had moved his bed into her room, he would sleep two hours at night and an hour or so whenever he found the opportunity, otherwise he would remain in constant vigil by Shashi’s bed; when she would wake, he would caress her forehead or the hand that lay across her chest; when she was falling asleep, he would curl up and be perfectly still so as not to disturb her, and if she slept peacefully he would immediately watch her face—and such opportunities for watching gradually increased . . . Or sometimes when Shashi would tell him to get some rest, he would lie on his stomach on his cot, balancing on his elbows, his head on his chin, he would keep watching her . . .

Nursing a patient is a science. It depends on the intellect; there is no place for emotion in it. People who have been colonized by western civilization laugh at the Indian mother who won’t take her sick child to see a doctor, clutching it instead to her chest all night paralysed with fear . . . Mere, instinctive love—the unreasoned agitation of a maternal animal for her wounded infant—this is not scientific nursing; but one animal’s cry is also a medicine for another animal, not only a medicine but also a necessity . . . And for those instances where science acknowledges its impotence, there is the power of this basic instinct which is not powerless—not even in the face of death because death is first and foremost a fear of death, and that fear cannot touch an individual enveloped in a cloud of love . . .

The doctor came twice a day, and he would leave medicines or have them sent. Two young men from Shekhar’s organization would leave meals and ask after them, sometimes they would tell them of the happenings in the world which even when he heard them would not remain in Shekhar’s mind, because there was no room for them there . . .

Shekhar spoke very little, and Shashi almost never spoke, and only when she gave Shekhar a reassuring message with her eyes . . . After each new attack of illness—a full cycle of tremors followed by fever, and fever followed by sweats and cooling off—when Shashi’s aching hand would be trembling on her breast, and her fingers would curl up and then open fully, and the lids would tighten over her already closed eyes and then fully open, that was when Shekhar realized that entertaining conversation was necessary to keep Shashi happy and to keep her mind off the pain. He would try to start such a conversation, but his mind would go blank, and he could think of nothing distracting to talk about. Then he would reach for Shashi’s hand and softly say, ‘Shashi, don’t be afraid. I’m here with you—’ Shashi would open her eyes and look once at him; that gaze had the slightest, laughing compassion in it. ‘Am I afraid? You should not be afraid, I am with you . . .’

And in this way the wick of the lamp would burn out, but Shekhar sat and watched the light . . .

The night was long, but it kept moving; the stove had gone out, Shekhar was awake . . .

Shashi gently called out, ‘Shekhar—’

Shekhar bent down towards her so that he could hear Shashi well, so that she wouldn’t have to repeat herself.

‘Shekhar—in the cabinet—a letter.’

Shekhar understood her words. He opened the cabinet and took out a few folded pages on the bottom shelf and asked, ‘Do you want to send this letter somewhere or to give it to someone?’

The blinking of her eyes meant yes.

‘Someone—I’ll send it—’

Her eyes were fixed on Shekhar; her mouth opened slowly, ‘Read it.’

He didn’t know to whom Shashi had written the letter—should he read it? He is still racked with doubt when he opens the pages, he haltingly reads the first paragraph (Had Shashi written to Rameshwar—How could she write to him—) when a flash of lightning strikes him; how could he have been so blind . . . Shashi had written to him, to Shekhar—to Shekhar!

Shekhar stopped at that realization. His hands trembled; unable to read any further, he stares at Shashi—

‘No, not later, now—’

He reads the whole thing in one breath—it wasn’t the case that by reading it so quickly he didn’t understand its meaning, its words—sentence after sentence branded his consciousness like a hot iron and continued to ring in his ears . . . And things began to happen at the same time, things that Shekhar was fully and consciously party to, but that ringing was also present, as if two lives were being lived at the same time, one that was intense because it was life in its immediacy, and the other which was even more intense because it happened before the immediate and was trying to lay siege to the present.

‘. . . You were only gone for a few hours, you even came back; but I lost you and found you so many times in those hours, sent you away and then propped you back up with my own hands . . . But I never forgot about your love for even a moment, Shekhar, but when the headiness of the moment passed I saw something greater than your love—your future. I say that it is bigger than love because love will be a part of it . . . I am grateful for that moment . . .

‘I am writing this letter to you so that you can read it after I’m gone—when you read it later, perhaps you will ask why Shashi didn’t tell you these things earlier when they wouldn’t have felt like such a vile curse—but it was for the best, Shekhar . . . If I had a long life to live, things might have been different, but in that clear moment I also realized that I only had a few days left . . . Which is why I won’t write about my love in this letter, either—the love of one who has passed can only produce anguish, and anguish should not speak . . . I will only talk about your love . . .

‘Love can also be an art, Shekhar; it is not a wicked thought, I consider it to be an auspicious one; but to me it’s become more intimate and necessary than even art—I don’t say that out of conceit, I consider it my failing . . . The joy of art is a controlled joy; and just once, I poured my entire being, my entire world, into the sacrificial flame—that wasn’t controlled, so perhaps—it wasn’t joy either—but it caused so much pain that we can’t even really call it a tragedy²² . . .

‘Once, I said to you out of vanity, “Can you write something for me?” You had said that ideals weren’t enough, that you needed a tangible symbol of those ideas; and I had come to you hoping to be your symbol . . . Shekhar, I didn’t do that out of conceit—I do not claim that I was the alpha and the omega of your life—I am not audacious enough to claim to be the ultimate conclusion . . . All I wanted, all that I had asked for, in exchange for destroying my life—sacrificing it, reducing it to ashes—was that it be useful for you, that it find its meaning in you. You became my symbol, a symbol for me and my life—a symbol of my place in the sea of trembling failure and idiocy and frustration and ruin all around us, a symbol of my crossing over . . . That’s why I asked you to write for me—not to give your life hope, but for me to find hope from you . . .

‘What you have given me I have gratefully accepted—as a boon, not as a right; I never imagined that I would be able to keep it tied up forever. I need you because the wreckage of my life finds its expression through you—through you, and from the dream that I dream for you; but I know, I realize that you are not wrecked, and that is why I have decided that as long as I have any say in the matter, my love won’t be the kind that tries to hold you back . . . Shekhar, my love for you knows no bounds, but I want you to know that I have not tied you down, am not tying you down—not now while I am still here and not—after . . .

‘You have your own future, Shekhar; my future was you and only you. If in your quest for your future you ever—’

Shekhar looked at Shashi to see whether it was necessary to read all of this in front of her or—but he realizes that Shashi’s eyes are telling him something more immediate than the letter. He comes very close to Shashi; her lips want to say something, but they are speechless, perhaps they want to say something speechlessly—Shekhar puts his lips over them and they stop quivering. He looks into Shashi’s eyes and slowly gets up—he knows that he has heard what she had to say, those lips still had the ability to be kissed left in them—and then there were no more words, just a nervous flutter which, it seemed, her will had tried to control but had gradually given up in frustration—in one ultimate deliverance all of the tension and strain and pressure—

‘If in the quest for your future you ever think of me, don’t blame yourself that you are able to go on without me; you can go on. That won’t be my defeat; it will be my greatest victory . . .’

Shashi’s entire body, except her eyes, became lifeless matter—

‘Everyone can be fortunate enough to be an ideal for a while, a day, a moment; but no one is an eternal ideal, cannot be. That is why one who is “eternally” true to one’s lover is always certainly failing in the face of the ideal, and the one who is faithful to the ideal will always certainly let his lover go on . . . An ordinary man and an artist—that’s what is different about a rebel . . . I don’t want you to be less of a man, Shekhar, but if you have it in you to be more than that, I happily give you permission—freedom to . . .’

Shashi’s eyes didn’t die; seeing the expansive, fearless, bright kindling inside them having burned out, they retreated inside themselves . . .

‘The two of us, you and me, have been building a mansion for years in which neither you nor I will live . . . But will it be any less beautiful just because neither of us lives in it . . .’

In this tranquillity, in this dwindling light, could there be any weeping, any wailing? The mechanical form of Shekhar’s numb body moved over to the window, the window opened, and the light from the day flooded inside . . . He turned around to see Shashi’s face, bathed in rosy rays, sparkling with the colours of life . . .

Shekhar remained stunned—paralysed, both in the knowledge of some superhuman, cosmic presence, the long-awaited dawn of some inner truth . . .

A sudden revelation . . .

*

But there’s no story after this. No sequence of events. Life has lost all meaning, lost all reality, order, motion, everything. Even mere existence—the continuous addition of one moment to the next—had been erased. I am a shade, a dream, a spectral resentment, a parting, a mystery . . . A thought that wanders from feeling to feeling—setting fire to everything, itself scorched in the light, burning higher—continuously rising, rising, not dwindling, not dying . . .

Death, you are also a shadow—devour this shadow, if you have the strength in you—if you have the courage . . . Break the torch, snuff it out, tear it to pieces—the body is a torch and one day it too will burn and be destroyed, but its flame reaches higher—there, and there, and there—evading your clutches, daring you, imperishable, free . . .

Devour it, touch it if you have the power in you, if you have the courage . . .

A young man showed up.

Brother had sent him a hand-delivered letter appealing to Shekhar to come to Lahore if at all possible—some of the organization’s members who were in prison were going to be sent to the prison colonies in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; if the independence struggle were going to be kept alive, then it was necessary to save them from this living tomb, and in order to accomplish this, Shekhar’s participation was necessary . . . He didn’t know how Shashi’s health was, but he was completely prepared to make arrangements for her care and treatment—

The young man spoke compassionately, ‘Brother didn’t know when he sent the letter . . . You’ve been deeply hurt . . . But you should come, the work will give you some comfort, and the job requires much effort . . . If sister Shashi were still alive, that’s what she would tell you, too—and I have faith that even now her soul will find some peace from it—’

Shekhar wasn’t listening at first, but he heard the last sentence; he wanted to slap this young man across his face for speaking so easily; but then all he said was, ‘Someone will have to look after all of this—and the workshop—’

*

Hail, Yamuna; hail to the East; hail to the blooming acacias and dhaks of spring; hail to the sad rustling of the tamarisk and whirlwinds of dust; hail to the sandy riverbanks traversed thousands of times by these two feet; hail to the handful of ash that has floated away . . . I used to think that if something else had happened instead of this, or something else, or something else, then . . . But today I think, no, today all I am asking for is for everything to happen just as it did; shadow, you and I should be just as we are—separate but locked in perpetual, active, ordinary competition to see who would lead the other, but in reality, bound together in unbreakable faith, of a single artery . . .

Shadow, I am not leaving to abandon you, you should come with me—first to see Aunt and Gaura and then—onwards; there is no forgetfulness in action, Shashi, there is only you, an eternal urging: eternal because free and—liberating . . .