Forest
It was not real forests that Chenthiru had in mind. Rather, forests from the poems of Ahanaanuuru. Forests where waterfalls fell sheer, like milk, flanked by granite rocks on either side from which beehives hung. She wanted to go away to a forest. To a forest far away, leaving behind the noise of traffic, the sounds of conversation, of people walking about, of electrical gadgets in the house.
There were those who teased her: Was this an attempt at vanaprastha? they asked. Others ridiculed her saying, “Oh Forest, come come! Oh Home, go away!” Brahmacharya, samsara, vanaprastha, and sannyasa — must all these happen at separate times and stages? Must one enter the next stage only on the completion of the one before? Why could they not all be mingled together?
Her father used to work on a coffee estate. He was chief accountant to the owner of a number of coffee estates. She and her younger brother normally stayed in Bangalore with their mother. When they went to their father during the school holidays, their afternoons were spent running about the coffee plantations, among the pepper and cardamom plantations which lay along the densely forested mountain slopes.
The estate workers always warned them, “Watch out. These are places where bears roam about.”
It seems when her mother started her labour pains, and they were taking her to the hospital which was some distance away, she actually had to get out of the car halfway. They had hurried her out, and brought her to sit under a tree with widely spreading branches; within ten minutes of their doing this, Chenthiru was born.
“As I was walking through the forest one day, I came upon you lying under a tree. So I picked you up and brought you home. Who told you that your mother gave birth to you?” It became a game for her father to tease and provoke her until she was in tears.
She would go to her mother each time, her eyes full of tears, asking, “Is it really true, Amma?”
“Oh yes; very true. You were just lying there; he picked you up and brought you home. He’s the great Janaka-raja himself, don’t you think?”
When her younger brother was a little older, he began to make fun of her as well. “Ei, you’re a girl who was born under a tree!”
But by that time she had learned not to cry. “Why, the Buddha too was born under a tree, you know; didn’t you know that?” she’d retort sharply.
“So, you’ll also go off in search of a Bodhi tree, will you?” he’d mock in his turn.
She declared to Tirumalai that she was the selfsame girl who was born in the mountain woods and played there as a child. Tirumalai could not agree. He claimed she was building up an imaginary picture of herself as a huntress who lived in the forest. Given a chance, she’d start thinking of herself as Valli, singing aalolam songs in the mountains, he teased.
What had he said, after all, for her to want to run off to the forests as if she were venturing into a life of austerities? He certainly was prepared to accept her as a partner in his many-branched business. If he saw himself as king of all that, he certainly considered that she was his queen. If his other business partners couldn’t quite see it that way, how could he be faulted? Surely, she must realize that he too regretted this state of affairs? Should she just bundle up her goods and set off? Run off to the forest? Quite true, during the years when he wandered here and there, struggling to leave behind a mundane life and to make some real progress, she gave him her unreserved support. Did he ever deny that? But the situation was different now, wasn’t it? Just because she had been asked to distance herself a little from business matters, did she have to make these preparations as if she were renouncing everything? Besides, what sort of goal was the forest, anyway? Was it just waiting there, to be her sanctuary, did she imagine? Wasn’t her behaviour like that of someone who dreams that she is in the ancient epic world?
Anyway, even in epic times, a woman only went to the forest meekly accompanying her husband. It was the epic men who went on their own, to hunt or to destroy demons. As for women, they could only be in the position of Sita, accompanying Rama who assented immediately when his father ordered him into exile in the forest. A woman’s visit could only be like that of Damayanti, walking by the side of Nala. It was most appropriate for a woman to be a rishi-pattini, spouse of a sage, journeying along with her husband. If she did go there on her own, it could only be as the seductive Menaka, putting an end to a sage’s meditation. For a woman, a forest is a place where she cannot find her way. Everything there — trees, deer, flowers — is bound to mislead her and make her lose her direction. For a woman, the forest is a means of punishment. To send her there is to cast her aside and make her destitute. So argued Tirumalai.
The time has come to re-write the epics, she replied, smiling. Is that why you are making this trip, he asked. For that as well, she said.
There had been a reply to her application to the official in the Forestry Department. She now had a letter which said she could stay at the government guest house in the forest. A letter of permission on cowdung-coloured paper. She showed it to him. He exclaimed in irritation. He complained that she had made all her decisions herself, informing him only at the end. He said she was behaving as if he had banished her, in some sort of way. Arguments and counterarguments. Threats. Entreaties.
After all this, he said, “The bus-stand is very far from here. Let Annamalai drive you there in the car.”
She agreed.
Annamalai went with her. While they were waiting for the bus, he said, “Anni, you don’t think badly of me, do you?”
“Che, che, it’s nothing like that, Annu. After all, you work with your brother. You have to do as he asks, don’t you?”
She climbed in as soon as the bus arrived. She put her head out of the window, and waved goodbye.
She thought of the notebook with its camel-yellow covers and its blank white pages, lying there in her suitcase among her clothes. She had bought a dozen dark-leaded pencils. A pencil sharpener. An eraser.
The wind traced the first sentences as it went along its way.
The horses yoked to the chariot ran as if they were clashing against the wind. The opposing wind struck hard against their bodies. The trees on either side seemed to come running along with them. The journey had been decided upon all of a sudden. All these colours and sounds of the forest fill my mind as if they were bridal gifts from my parents’ home, Sita said to Lakshmana. He did not answer. He merely folded his arms together, and faced windward. As soon as the chariot stopped and they climbed out, he told her of his brother’s command. When Lakshmana told her that hereafter the forest was to be her dwelling place, Sita looked hard at him, and spoke up. This was not something new to Lakshmana, Sita said. It had become his brother’s main duty to doubt other people’s purity; to put them constantly to the test. He was suspicious of everything. He cross-questioned witnesses. He called upon the sun and questioned him. If Surya protested that he could bear witness only to the times when he was present, how could he speak for the times when he wasn’t there, then Rama flung his barbed questions at the moon. And when Chandra said I can only give you a guarantee for the nights when I am in the sky, after all I am not in the sky on Amavasya night, Rama immediately summoned Fire as the final test of one’s purity. Didn’t Lakshmana himself experience this? How firm he, Lakshmana, had been in his celibacy! How radiant his body! The moment he touched the musical instrument known as kingri by the forest dwellers, who had not been enticed by the music which rose from it, gently at first, like a fine fragrance, then falling like an uncontrollable torrent? Did Lakshmana remember the Gandharva girl? Indrakamini, from the assembly of Indra himself? She who, having failed to arouse Lakshmana’s lust, scattered her broken bangles and her earrings all over his bed in order to discredit and defame him? Was it not Sita herself who had seen them when she came to clean his room, and who then went running to tell Rama about it? The headman of the village was summoned and all the women living there were asked to try on the earrings and the repaired bangles. The ornaments did not fit a single woman there. Rama then asked whether there was anyone left among the women who did not partake in the test. The headman said, “The only one who has not done so is Sita Devi herself.” When she tried them on, they were exactly right for her. It had been Indrakamini’s plot all along. Surely, he must remember the reply he made to his brother’s unjust accusation? Did he not dive into the fire with a newborn child of one of the forest dwellers, emerging unscathed, and thus establishing his purity? She was weary of these purity tests. This forest was not new to her. Nor was it a place she disliked. But before he left her, Lakshmana must look carefully at her lightly swelling stomach. He must make sure to tell his brother she is with child. Otherwise, there will be preparations for yet another ordeal by fire. There are some whose minds cannot travel in a straight line. As for the king of Ayodhya, his mind was entirely warped.
The chariot began its return journey. The sound of the horses’ hooves could be heard for a long time before silence reigned in the forest once more. She was alone. The gusting winds covered her body with dust. She was alone. Gazing at the stream that flowed in front of her. Thinking of herself. Thinking of her own birth.
As the stylus finished writing that last sentence on the palm-leaf, a shadow fell. Sita looked up. The sage Valmiki was standing in front of her.
“What are you writing, amma?”
She stood up and bowed to him. “A life-story,” she said, “Sita’s ayanam.”
“Isn’t the Ramayana that I wrote sufficient?” he asked.
“No. In the ages to come, there will be many Ramayanas. Many Ramas. Many Sitas.”
He picked up the palm leaves in his hand and asked, “Is this not the same Sita I wrote about?”
“You were a poet of the king’s court. You created history. But I experienced it. I absorbed into myself all manner of experiences. My language is different.”
“And where will this story be launched?”
“In the forest. In the minds of forest-dwellers.”
It was not a particularly large room. But it was arranged in such a way as to invite one to stay there. There was a sense of warm comfort about it, like the feel of a hot-water bottle that soothes away one’s pain. A small bed, covered with a spread of handloomed material, bark-brown, scattered with deep red flowers. Next to it, a table and a chair. A bathroom with just the essentials. More important than anything else, that window. A window right in front of the table. It had shutters fitted with slats that moved up and down, and which opened outwards.
When the bus dropped her off, it was already the very last moments of dusk. They told her she would have to walk a little, to reach the government guest house. A small boy offered to carry her suitcase. In the fading light, she walked along a path through the trees, the boy showing her the way; by the time she arrived at the guest house, it was totally dark. As soon as she introduced herself, an attendant there opened the room for her. While she looked about her, the attendant leaned across the table, stretched out his arm, and pushed the window outwards. Suddenly, there in front of her was the forest, enshrouded in darkness. A wide forest, where the branches of trees hung in festoons like snakes, or stretched upwards like the necks of giraffes. Strange and unrecognizable noises. Right in the middle of the window, as if it were strung upon a fine thread, a moon — the colour of well-thickened milk. In her mind a song echoed, in Raghunath Panigrahi’s voice, throbbing with life: When I look for you, must you run away? Why do you turn away from me, white moon?
The attendant went away, having asked her about her evening meal.
Still watching the moon, she sat down in her chair and leaned her arms on the table. Then she climbed on to the table and sat there, her legs hanging down sideways, and turned her head to watch the moon, and the forest spread with its light.
Before she went to sleep, the camel-yellow notebook found a place on the table, with the dozen pencils and the rest on its back. Through the slatted shutters of the window, now closed, the moon shone in many fragments.
A pond filled with lotuses. Each lotus as wide as a mother’s lap. Each lotus made up of a thousand, thousand petals. As he walked past, surrounded by his retinue of soldiers and bodyguards, Ravana glanced at the pond with its floating lotuses. Their colour and form attracted him, enticing him to pluck one at least. Handing his bow and arrows to one of the soldiers standing by, he waded into the pond, his silk garments dragging in the water, when he heard a child’s voice saying, “I will kill you. I will kill you.” Thinking it must be a myna-bird, he looked about the pond to see if any were about. Not a single water-bird that spoke with a human voice was to be seen. Each time he touched a lotus, the same voice spoke up again. He couldn’t make out from which lotus the voice actually came. He plucked all the lotuses he could reach, and gave them to Mandodari when he reached home, telling her about the voice that he had heard. The entire floor was covered in lotuses. Mandodari sat down and opened the lotuses one by one, gently smoothing them out, petal by petal. As she opened the innermost petals of the very last flower, there, right in the heart of it, she saw a girl baby. The baby looked up at Mandodari with her dark eyes, and said clearly, “I will kill Ravana”; but the next moment she smiled widely, and began to babble, lapsing into meaningless baby-noises. Mandodari’s stomach churned. She placed the baby in a box made of bamboo. With two maidservants in attendance, she walked to the seashore. She waded in among the waves and put the box out to sea. It floated onwards, riding on the waves.
It went a long way and at last touched shore. The first person to open the box raised an outcry; others thronged about him, and the baby was handed over into the safe keeping of their headman. That headman was Janaka. He gave the baby the name Sita.
Sita came into being, in touch with flower and earth and water.
Rama, as soon as he was born, caused grief to a living creature. Kosalai determined that they would serve venison at the feast celebrating the child’s birth. Under a green tree there rested a male and female deer. The doe looked troubled. “What has happened? Didn’t you find any green leaves? Are you thirsty?” asked the buck. “No, I’m not thirsty. But I hear the sound of hunters coming near. You’d best run away,” said the doe. Then, to the hunters who approached them, she offered, “You may kill me if you like.” But they killed the buck instead, saying, “It is the flesh of the male that is the best.” The doe then ran to Kosalai and pleaded with her, “Please at least give me the skin of my dear partner. I will gaze at it and assuage my sorrow.” But Kosalai said, “I intend to make a beautiful kanjira with that skin and to give it to my baby boy to play with.”
Each time Rama crawled up to the kanjira, tapped it with his hand, played with it and made it resound, the echo would make the doe’s entire body quiver. Each time she wailed with grief, saying, “Kosalai, one day you too will suffer this pain of loss.”
Sita tied the palm leaves together and looked up. Some distance away, Valmiki was telling Lava and Kusa about the putrakameshti yagna which Dasaratha performed for the begetting of children; and the births of Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrugna.
As soon as she woke up in the morning, she felt an urge to walk until her legs were weary. She put on some sturdy shoes. When she came out of her room, she happened to see the guest house attendant. She asked him to bring her some tea, and sat down outside on the verandah steps. Dark green, light green, and palest green stretched away in waves as far as the eye could see. In a cleft where two greens collided, light red rays of the sun played hide-and-seek, appearing and disappearing.
The tea arrived.
She took it and began to drink, blowing on it again and again. The scent and flavour of tulasi leaves were soothing to her. When she returned the cup, she questioned him about the extent of the forest, where the tracks began, and where they led. She decided upon an easterly direction, and began to walk as if she were hastening to greet the sun.
Many paths branched off, one from another. As she walked further and further along, the densely spreading trees spread out like a shadow above, completely hiding the sun. Sometimes, suddenly, a single ray of light sparkled like a diamond and sped along the leaves. And was hidden again.
Suddenly, something cool touched her. In front of her there was a stream. Before she could reach it, however, she was surprised by a peacock flying low, dripping its blue and green tail-feathers. And before she could recover from the shock of it, it touched the earth, walked about, and then, in an extraordinary instant, spread out the full extent of its tail, and began to dance, hopping from one foot to the next. A dance for her alone. The peacock danced, watching her, and moving about in a small circle. Beyond it, the stream.
She sank to her knees in front of the peacock and began to weep as she sat there. I don’t understand, peacock. I don’t know my goal. Is there a goal at all? I know how to overcome the obstacles that stand in my way. But I don’t understand the quest. What do I seek? And how? Do I even seek? How much further is it going to be? Even though I have come so far, the burden has not eased from my body. I want to feel light. As soon as my toes press against the earth, as if I were propelling a swing forward, I want to feel myself rise up into the air.
The peacock continued to dance.
Oh peacock, peacock, peacock, peacock…
She heard voices coming towards her from a distance.
“Ayiga! Tya morala bag.” Startled by the sight of the peacock, a group of women exclaimed in Marathi, “There will surely be a drop or two of rain at least, look at the peacock dancing!” As they approached, their bundles of food swung from their hands. They washed their faces in the stream. They shook out the cloths which were tied about their heads and wiped their faces. When they saw her, they showed their surprise. Opening their bundles, they invited her to join them.
She went and sat by them. Thick rotis made of millet flour. A bright red thuvaiyal, made of coarsely ground garlic and chillies, roasted groundnuts, desiccated coconut, and rock-salt. One woman broke off a piece of roti, put some of the thuvaiyal on it and gave it to her. Another took an onion between the palms of her hands, squashed it, and gave her half. Yet another laid four or five green chillies on her share of roti.
With the ease of long-familiar friends, they asked after her and told her about themselves. They told her their names: Minabai, Rukminibai, Savitabai. The millet-flour roti went down her throat to the savoury accompaniment of the thuvaiyal, between bites of onion and chilli. When they had finished eating, Minabai took some tobacco leaves out of the drawstring bag at her waist, placed them in the palm of her hand, and began to roll them with her thumb.
“Would you like one?” she asked Chenthiru.
“No, I’m not used to it. Do you know that it’s not good for your health?” Chenthiru remarked.
“Ravde Bai. If it isn’t good for the health, then why has that Dev put so much flavour there?” Minabai asked in her turn. She spat out the spittle that had gathered in her mouth.
Chenthiru’s mother used to say exactly the same thing. Her mother used to chew tobacco. Wherever they went, her eyes would rove in search of a betel-leaf and tobacco stall. “My mouth feels bland and numb,” she’d say. If ever Chenthiru protested, “You don’t need that,” she would retort, “If I chew tobacco, why do you get so annoyed?” Chenthiru’s father never said anything. He, after all, smoked cigarettes. “Call it quits,” Amma used to say in Telugu. Amma had travelled about with her parents and lived in several places with them. She used to say she had acquired her tobacco habit in Kerala and her love of music in Andhra. Her father had said, “They say that in certain places in Andhra some women smoke great big cheroots. It’s just as well, Chendu, that your mother didn’t pick up that habit.” Amma had returned, “It’s not too late, you know. Just bring me a box of Havana cigars from Cuba, I’ll smoke one and show you.” In this, she and Tirumalai’s mother were exactly the same. There was a period of time when Tirumalai’s mother suffered from ill-health, and Chenthiru refused to allow her to buy tobacco. Tirumalai’s mother would keep opening her betel-box, looking inside it and fretting. She’d take Chenthiru by the chin and plead with her, “Listen, princess. If you like you may starve me. Only don’t punish me by keeping me away from tobacco.”
Rukminibai lit her bidi and began to pull at it. “Ei, don’t blow your smoke all over me,” said Savitabai, moving away. She went a little further off and lay down, pillowing her head on her arm. A foot or two away from her, Chenthiru lay down as well.
Savitabai asked “Chendiyabai” what she was doing in these parts. When she replied that she had just come away on her own, Savitabai proceeded to ask her a series of questions: Was she married? Did she have children? Where was her husband?
Rukminibai, who had finished her bidi, scolded Savitabai. “Ei, Savitabai! Are you looking for a second wife for your husband or what? Firing off all these questions, one after another!”
“Oh yes, as if Chendiyabai is of an age to get married now! And as if all that drunkard needs is a second wife!” Savitabai sat up, loosened her hair, and tied it up again.
Chenthiru laughed and rose to her feet. She told them that her children were studying abroad and that she had left her husband and everyone, and come away just to be by herself.
“Is that so? Very well, then,” they said, and made ready to go. They told her that if they were in the vicinity of the guest house, they would most certainly come and see her, and then they walked on at a swift pace.
The peacock had disappeared a long time ago. Only its dance continued to unfold in her mind, green and blue.
She began to walk in the direction of the guest house. Tirumalai’s trademark was actually a peacock. A peacock in profile, spreading its tail on the ground. Tirumalai’s father ran a small business in vibhuti and kumkumam. A swamiyaar who was like a guru to the family had given them the symbol. When she first met Tirumalai, he was carrying packets of vibhuti and small tins of kumkumam in a cloth bag, the colour of a peacock’s neck. He had brought these materials which had been ordered by the members of the Women’s Association who met regularly at her Periamma’s house in Bombay. He must have travelled quite a distance on his motorbike. He was exhausted. He asked for some water to drink. She brought him a glass of cold water, and another of lime sherbet, just as her Periamma had told her to. Completely relaxed, smiling, he asked her, “Have you come on a sightseeing visit?”
“No, I’m here for my further studies.”
“What will you be studying?”
“M.Sc. Textiles.”
“Do that.” He put his glass down.
“And what do you do?” she asked him.
“I’m in trade. With my father. I studied up to my B.Sc. But my father’s health wasn’t up to it. So I became involved in this business. My younger sister is studying for an MA degree.”
“Where?”
“Oh, she is here too.”
Her aunt came in and asked, “Well, Tirumalai, why couldn’t you have brought your mother and sister with you?”
“Amma is not very well, you see.”
“What do you mean, she’s not well? It’s a whole year since I saw her,” she complained.
“She’s just tired. I’ll bring her one day,” he promised.
“This is Chenthiru,” said her aunt.
“Yes, we chatted,” he said. Then he said goodbye and left.
It had only been a casual conversation. But the thought of him remained in her mind. A very tall figure. Dark skinned. The darkness of his pupils seemed to shine against the whites of his eyes. A moustache which very slightly hid his mouth. A finely sculpted body. His buttocks were modest, and didn’t protrude or swell out. The back of his trousers did not bulge in an unseemly way, but fell somewhat loosely, with a fold. It was her opinion that a man’s bottom should be tightly muscled and well-knit.
She wrote to her father about him. She said that she liked the fact that he worked independently, for his own business. She wrote that his unflashy, simple lifestyle really attracted her. Her father, surrounded by coffee blossoms that were bursting open, could not make any sense of vibhuti and kumkumam. He didn’t see what was happening to her.
By the time she finished her M.Sc. she had become totally familiar with him and his family. She wrote to her father again. He immediately telephoned her.
“What Chendu, is this all about love?”
“Mm.”
“Does he have a moustache, this man?”
“Mm.”
“Tell him you have a great big bow in your house. Tell him unless he bends and breaks it he can’t marry you.”
“Go on, Appa.”
“What does he look like?”
She sang softly, “His body is like the green mountains…”
Her father laughed.
The trees spread their shade above her, so she did not feel the excessive heat of mid-day. She walked on at a fast pace. Nowhere was the peacock to be seen.
Whenever she crawled in the courtyard, the baby Sita’s eyes fell upon it. That huge and heavy bow. She first learnt to walk by leaning against it and holding on to it. Ever since her earliest memories, she knew of it as Shiva’s bow.
All hours of her day were spent playing in the forest. She knew all its secret places: the mountain springs where the water was as sweet as honey, the ponds full of water-lily and lotus, the trees where ripe jackfruit lay, burst open, the streams where the deer came to drink, the rocks where the beehives hung, the best places to rest, where the trees gave their most dense shade.
One day she decided to stay at home and help her mother. While her mother was resting, she brought fresh cow-dung and began to pave the wide courtyard. When she came to the place where the great bow lay, she lifted it with one hand in order to spread the cowdung underneath. She had just finished and was replacing the bow when her father came by. His eyes widened in surprise.
He lifted her to her feet, her hand still full of cow-dung, and held her close.
“With one hand, my daughter has lifted up the bow that no one else could carry. Only a man who can bend and break it shall be fit to marry her.”
She turned around and gazed at the bow.
Of course, she married the man who alone could break the bow. But he was not someone who was unknown to her. One evening when she went to the orchard to pick fruit, she saw a young man standing among the fruit trees. They looked at each other, the two of them. When he opened his arms, she walked into his embrace, without even knowing what she was doing. Then she freed herself, exclaiming that if her bangles broke in his tight clasp, she would not know what explanation to give at home. After that she ran homewards. Her mother asked her why her eyes were red, why there was that drawn look on her face. She said that however angry her mother was going to be, she would accept it; take whatever punishment she thought fit to hand out, even if it went to the extent of driving her away from home. With complete honesty she said that she had met Rama in the orchard, and been embraced by him. Her mother consoled her, saying that it was certain that the very same Rama would break the bow and marry her.
He broke the bow. He married Sita.
It was time to light the lamps. Sita rose to her feet. Lava and Kusa came running in with their bows. Breathlessly they told her about chasing after a deer, far, far into the forest. They had been surprised, shocked, by the beauty of the deer, and the terror in its wide eyes. You must let the deer be; let it run, you don’t have to chase it, said Sita.
The tea that arrived in the evening was fragrant with ginger. That morning’s long walk had left her feeling pleasantly tired. The hot tea was as comforting as a poultice. The languor of her afternoon nap hadn’t quite left her.
She found that she had to speak to Tirumalai almost immediately after she returned to the guest house. He said he had tried to reach her by telephone three times, and had been anxious when he was told she wasn’t there.
“Why should you be anxious? I went out intending to walk a little while. But I found I had gone a long way.”
“Why do you have to wander about like a ghost, a pisaasu? See if there is a tamarind tree close by you. That’s the right place for you.”
“So I am a tamarind-tree pisaasu, am I?”
“Yes, a stubborn pisaasu. A beautiful temptress of a pisaasu. Have you eaten?”
“Mm. I saw four or five men when I was out walking. I swallowed them up in one gulp.”
“Yes, you’re quite a one to do that. Isn’t it enough that you’ve swallowed me?”
“I swallowed you, yes. But I couldn’t digest you.”
“And why’s that?”
“Too much fat and impudence, you see.”
He laughed. Then he said, “Valli and Kaarmegam both telephoned.”
“What about?”
“Kaarmegam needs to go to Canada, he says, next week. He said he hoped to see his sister. Then Valli rang to say she’s expecting him there. Both of them said they wanted to speak to you.”
“Shall I put the receiver down, now?”
“Why?”
“It’s getting too expensive, isn’t it, this call?”
“So when do you plan to come home?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Once again she said, calling him by his name as she did when they were alone, “I don’t know, Tirumalai.” She could hear his sharp intake of breath at the other end.
“What on earth is going on in your mind?”
“I need to feel easy. I need to feel light.”
“Come home. Come back, amma.”
“No, I have to do it on my own…”
“On your own, in that forest?”
“Yes. Even if it is a forest path, Even though it is beset by robbers.”
Silence.
He would call every day. He would plead with her to go back. She put on her shoes and began to walk westwards. Apparently, she had begun to walk early, when she was only ten months old. When she was eleven months, and they were visiting her Periamma in Bombay, she had walked across the street and gone off to Shivaji Park all by herself. She could remember to this day the young boys dressed in khaki clothes, doing their drill. She had never forgotten how she stood on an ant-hill, how the ants had bitten her, how it had hurt. If ever anything happened, she always set off walking at a swift pace. The family teased her, “The ants are biting her feet. That’s why she’s off.” On both occasions when her parents died, she had walked and walked until her feet were swollen. Tirumalai, and her younger brother who had come home from abroad, had caught up with her and insisted she return with them.
Everywhere she turned, there were ant-hills. If she went in a slightly different direction, or went away on her own, there were ants biting her feet. She wanted to roam at will in several cities and in desolate forest interiors. She wanted to sleep wherever a ledge was available to her. Watching the dark sky with its sparkling stars, she wanted to sing aloud, raising a voice from her very underbelly, without any particular aim, addressing no particular god, “Diamonds encrusted in an indigo sari are the stars you see at midnight, di.” She wanted to sing, in the Kaavadichindhu raagam, just for the pleasure of the sound of the words, and for the sake of its rhythm, “In the forest of time, in the tree of the universe, a bee buzzed; calling itself Kali-shakti.” She wanted to dive into whatever pond she chose, and rise from it.
Tirumalai’s father used to sing:
His stomach dropping, his hair whitening,
his teeth rattling, his back bent,
his lip hanging down, one hand on his staff, he comes –
to the sound of women’s laughter.
He’d go on, melting, melting as he sang,
When my woman weeps and wails, when Yama’s messengers gather around,
when the waters spill out of the body, when my life is ending,
come to me swiftly, upon your peacock.
All visions and all quests are allowed only to those who are old enough. And only to men. As for her, she had to give a thousand explanations. Make excuses. Or become a devotee of Kannan or Shiva. She must seek sanctuary, repeating, “Mere to giridhara Gopala,” or the Varanamayiram, or the words, “She worshipped at the Lord’s feet.” Then she could reach liberation, mukti, at once. And become one with the light. Those journeys in flower chariots were only meant for male bhaktas. Tukaram could hope for it. Not Janabai. As for herself, she hoped for neither visions nor for heavenly chariots. She only hoped to achieve a sense of expansion. An expansion that knew no boundaries.
Tirumalai’s father was a humane man. A man of integrity. If Tirumalai questioned something, he’d say, “I’ve given my word, Thambi.” It was a sentence that came to his lips every day. Tirumalai’s mother suited him, like a lid that fits a jar. It was under her supervision that the vibhuti was made. As soon as Chenthiru and Tirumalai were married, the father gave up his position as head of the business.
Tirumalai teased him, “Why, Appa, have you gone and given your word to anybody that you will give up all your responsibilities as soon as your son gets married?”
“Yes, I have,” he said, “I promised your mother.” Then he called Chenthiru to him and said, “Look, amma, people tell this story. One day, a thorn entered Dasaratha’s hand. He felt a terrible throbbing pain. While he was suffering like this, Kaikeyi came to him and gently, very gently, drew out the thorn. At once he gave her his word: he would grant her wishes, whatever they might be. Just so, whenever your mother-in-law massaged my back, or rubbed oil into my head, or pressed my forehead when I had a headache, I too have given my word, I don’t know how many times. Now she’s nagging me to make good my promises. Now she wants to travel, and see the sights in Kodaikanal, Ooty, Kuttralam and all those places.” And he laughed.
“Shameless man,” said Tirumalai’s mother, laughing along with him.
She worked tirelessly alongside Tirumalai as they gradually turned the business in the direction of masala powders, and then expanded it to include silk material and readymade garments. For fourteen years they struggled in the jungle of commerce, as if they were competing in a race, running to touch the boundary line. Now their business had reached as far as Canada. For the past eight years they had also gone into the totally unknown field of leather goods. She herself had seen to the expansion of their sales: suitcases, handbags, shoulder-bags, wallets, purses for holding small change. There was talk of making her an equal partner in the business. It didn’t come to anything. At once she was seized by a frenzy to walk. To walk a long, long distance. The rejection was not a reason. Only the signal.
In front of her, the sunset unfolded like a silent drama, spreading different colours in the sky. The crimson ball which had been sinking very, very slowly was suddenly not to be seen anymore. Its remains were in the skies. She wasn’t aware of the passage of time. Then she heard the sound of voices.
Rukminibai and Savitabai were approaching with their water-pots. They had no more drinking water left in their homes, they said. She walked along with them. Just nearby, there was a small water-hole full of water. The water was still and clear, almost as if it had been rained in. Moonbeams lay scattered upon it. Amidst the scattered light, the moon could be seen, clearly outlined. The water held it captive there. As soon as Rukminibai dipped her water-pot into the well, the moon dissolved into fragments and spilled all over the water. When the water-pot was held upright again, there was the moon, within its narrow mouth. Savitabai too lowered her water-pot and lifted it out. Again the moon floated in her water-pot. The water in the well became motionless once more, and lay there with the moon.
She began to walk back towards the guest house with Savitabai and Rukminibai. The moon accompanied them, floating in their water-pots. Along the way, she said she was thirsty, and at once Savitabai poured some water into her cupped hands; the moon remained within her hands for a moment, then partly slipped down her throat, and partly drained away through her fingers. When she looked at the moon within her cupped hands, drank the water, and then looked again, Savitabai laughed.
“It’s gone, Bai. If there’s no water, there’s no Chandrama either.”
True. In all the open courtyards of all the little houses of the forest, there must be innumerable moons in water-pots and little puddles of spilt water. Perhaps, if you put out a small vessel, a moon as big as a small coin would float there, who knew? Moons that float so long as there is water. Moons which approach with every scoop of water, and hurry off as the water drains away. A moon brought down from the skies. And then its extension. She felt a coolness pervade her body. She was a woman who had feasted upon the moon. She had eaten her fill, and returned the rest to the skies.
As soon as they reached the guest house, the other two said goodbye, and hastened away. In the dining room, her meal had been placed ready for her, under covers. After she had finished, she went to her room and switched on the light. Then she sat at her table.
The larger part of Sita’s life was spent in the forest. The forest of her childhood where she had played, plucking fruit and flowers and leaves, was a miracle, hiding many, many secrets deep within itself. Later, it was a refuge and an asylum for her and her husband. A place where many experiences became possible. Sita was then an entirely innocent girl. When she saw herself in the clear water of the pond where she first went to bathe, she came running back to Rama, to tell him the moon and a swarm of bees were inside the water. Rama had to return with her and point out that it was her own face she saw; what she thought was a swarm of bees was her own long curly hair that flew about her. It happened another time too. On that occasion, the face she saw in the clear water was a radiant one. It was filled with grace. She went off in haste to pick a quarrel with Rama. She said that he lied when he spoke of his faithfulness to his only wife; she accused him of keeping another woman hidden somewhere. Once again, Rama went with her, and asked her to look in the water. Immediately she saw the beautiful woman. I will show you the woman’s husband, he said, and came to stand next to her. When she saw Rama’s reflection next to the woman’s, she recognized herself. She was ashamed.
It was in a forest, too, that she was imprisoned. And now, it was a forest that was her sanctuary.
With what intensity, with what childlike obstinacy she had thought of Rama alone, in her forest-prison! And what was it that Rama had declared publicly, the very day the war ended? When he sent word through Hanuman that she should come to him, attired in her best clothes and ornaments, had she not replied that she would rather come in the clothes she had always worn in Ashokavanam? Even when they had insisted on adorning her, her heart had not been in any of it. There was a big stone beside her, where she sat under a tree. She had often thought, when her whole body felt shrivelled, when she longed for the day when she would be rescued, when she would at last be home in Ayodhya, how useful that stone might be, to grind sandalwood into paste. When she confided this to Hanuman, he tried to pull it out of the earth right away. But the elder statesman, Jambavan, intervened to say that one must never take back a gift. This land has been given over to Vibhishana, he said, and she must not take anything without requesting for it properly. She was a girl who had longed for a deer, and for fruits and flowers. She had given up the comforts of royalty. She had made the forest itself her companion. Out of all the kingdom of Lanka, she had only asked for a stone. She wondered whether he implied that she had not behaved with the dignity of a royal princess, and she felt ashamed.
At the great battlefield strewn with the dead, her legs entwined and buckled. She thought of the many who had died to rescue her sole self. It seemed to her that Rama was treating her like an exhibit in front of the crowd. She had been alone for so long in Ashokavanam, totally protected from public gaze; now she had to come out into the wide-open battleground, in the midst of all the men standing there, battle-stained and weary, and in front of the thrusting crowds who had gathered there to gaze upon her. She arrived in her best attire and ornaments, as if she had not suffered in the least, as if she were now proclaiming aloud, “Look, I am a redeemed woman.” But it became apparent very soon that all that adornment had not been for the sake of delighting Rama. He told her that all eight points of the compass surrounded her, and that she was free to go in any direction, and with whoever she chose. The battle had been fought in order to defend his honour, he said, not to rescue her. She could choose to live with anyone: Lakshmana, Bharata, Vibhishana, Sugriva. The Jambavans who had reminded her to behave as a princess did not raise their voices then. He who was so aware of the pride of his lineage, did he forget that she too belonged to a proud clan? Had she not herself made it necessary for him to wage a battle, because she was so aware of his pride? Otherwise, would she not have sat on the shoulders of Hanuman, who thought of her as a mother, and left Lanka when she could?
Hanuman set fire to Lanka. All Rama could do was to light a fire in his wife’s heart.
Her very first words to Lakshmana, who greeted her after those long days of parting, were, “Lakshmana, light the fire!”
Even after she finished writing about it, that moment was like a weight upon her heart. A little way off, Valmiki was telling Lava and Kusa the story of Ahalya and her deliverance from the curse that had been laid upon her. How many changes there are, while an event becomes gossip, and then turns into story! Ahalya’s heart had hardened into stone. Only when she worshipped Rama’s feet did it melt again and fill with the essential waters of the fountain of life. But, Sita thought to herself as she rose, there is even more miracle and drama in turning a stone into a woman.
East, west, north, and south, she had walked in all the directions, many times. As she walked and walked, she felt a prickling sensation at the base of her spine, as if something were trying to grow there. At night it spread all over her body, and rocked her to sleep. Eastwards, past the stream, they told her, was a small waterfall. One day she set off to meet the waterfall. It was a restrained little cascade. Like washed hair, left loose to dry. As she sat down to look at it closely, she discerned a face at the edge of the water. Its body glowing like gold in the sunlight, a deer was drinking. It drank some water, then shook its head, and looked all around. It stooped to drink again. The next time it lifted its head, it spied her. It leapt, startled. Then, like a yellow whirlwind, it was gone.
She went quietly to the edge of the waterfall, and lay face down at the place where the deer had drunk. Holding in her stomach, she reached out and drank, just as the deer had done. The water trickled through her, in some hitherto unknown path. As soon as her thirst was quenched she turned over, face upwards. Above her, the sky. Pale blue. Her dupatta caught in the wind, flew upwards, and covered her face. She gazed up at the sky through it. Her eyes were heavy with sleep.
…She was running to catch a train. Why were all the roads made of mountains and deep gorges? A deep fear arose within her, as if someone was chasing her. She heard horse hooves. Horse hooves, in the middle of the town? She reached the railway station. She hung on to the metal handle and climbed into the train. Her breath came fast. Even before she could sit down, they had reached the next station. When she looked out of the window, she saw her father sitting on a bench, a little distance away.
“Appa, Appa, how did you get here?”
“I’m waiting here, just for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes.” Her father straightened his glasses with one hand, smiling at her.
“But I can’t get off, Appa.”
“Why not?”
“There’s all my luggage, Appa.”
Appa smiled. He stretched out his hand towards her. His hand was still in that position when the train began to move.
“Appa, Appa…”
Suddenly, her father, who couldn’t sing a single line in tune, mimed as if he were keeping time with a sapplaakkattai, and began to sing, jumping up and down. The song came from Appa’s throat in the voice of her first music teacher, Ramachandra Bhagavatar. In the background was the sound of the vinai. Purandaradasa’s Devarnama.
“Naaneke badavanu, naaneke paradesi?…Am I really destitute? Am I truly a wandering beggar?”
The railway station moved along with the train.
Ramachandra Bhagavatar was blind. He used to go from house to house giving singing and vinai lessons. When he first came to their house, Amma asked him, “Sing us a song.” A streak of a smile spread across his pockmarked face. He tuned his vinai and began to sing, accompanying himself. “Naaneke badavanu, naaneke paradesi?…Am I really destitute? Am I truly a wandering beggar? I who have been gifted with that rare treasure, Purandaravittala himself, how can I be destitute? How can I be a wandering beggar?” It was a song composed in Sindhubhairavi raagam, a ragam that has dazzling highs and lows, twists and bends. But in this song there is no technical wizardry, only a straight and sliding path.
He always arrived on holidays, just when she had finished eating and was considering a nap. A young boy usually led him by the hand. Annoyed at having lost the chance of an afternoon nap, she’d shake out her skirt and sit down for her lesson. In loving tones he would ask her in Kannada, “Why are you so cross, amma?” All those memories and details fell, one on top of another, thud after thud, as mere words, reflections; linked, dissolved, floating. In pieces, fragment by fragment. Just as Appa sang, outside the window.
Appa, who had for so long been jumping about and singing, began to stumble like a blind man. The train gathered speed. The station had stopped in one place. Appa was a mere dot in the distance, his hands groping in the air. Only the song still sounded in her ear, “Naaneke, naaneke.”
Her face pressed against the window bars, she stretched out her hand. “Appa, Appa…”
She heard a voice calling out, “Bai, Chendiyabai.”
She woke up with a start. Rukminibai, Minabai, and Savitabai — all three stood there, leaning down and looking at her as she lay there.
“Kai jaala bai?…What happened?” asked Minabai.
She sat up then.
They said they had been searching for her. They wanted to invite her to their homes. Their families and husbands had gone elsewhere. All four of them walked along together. Chenthiru had not quite recovered from her dream. It was as if she were still in an extension of it.
Savitabai’s house had more space than the others. So they went there. Savitabai switched on the lights. She opened the back door.
Her house was spotless. To the right side of the single room there were two trunks. In the left-hand corner were an oil stove and a firewood hearth. The back door was half open. Beyond, there were banana trees. Clothes drying on bushes. Minabai and Rukminibai ran to their own homes to bring various things. They returned in a short while. By that time, Savitabai had lit the stove and made tea. All four sat down facing each other, and drank the tea. When she asked what they were celebrating, they said it was nothing special, that they tended to get together now and then, just like this. Savitabai teased Minabai and Rukminibai, saying it was very rarely that their husbands left them and went anywhere, here or there. Their sons and daughters were all married, they were grandmothers. Even so, their husbands always held on to them, wherever they went, she teased.
“Be quiet,” Rukminibai chided, affectionately. She removed the lid of a small aluminium dish she had brought with her. Fish pieces spread with masala, yellow and red. Savitabai lit the firewood hearth, placed a shallow pan on it, and poured in some oil. Minabai went up to it and began to fry the fish. Savitabai sliced onions and chillies and put them together on a plate. Rukminibai lit the kerosene stove once again and put the chapati griddle on to heat. She took the millet-flour dough which Minabai had brought with her, rolled out pieces of it, placed these on the griddle, and began to cook them, frequently dipping her hands in water, and patting them as they baked. It fell to Chenthiru to grind the thuvaiyal. While she ground it, she watched Rukminibai who was humming a song under her breath. When she strained to listen, she realized they were the words of the saint, Bahinibai, “Arré sansara, sansara.” Life is like a griddle on which you are cooking baakri; it is only after you have burned your hands that you get your baakris, the song went. The rhythm of the song was completely in accordance with the pace at which Rukminibai was making the baakris.
When it was all done, Savitabai pulled out a tray, on which a dough of wheat flour mixed with oil lay covered with a cloth, and placed it in the middle of the room. She took out the puranam, a filling of mashed channa dal, jaggery, and coconut. The fragrance of cardamom filled the air. As if they were well rehearsed at this task, all four began to pat out the puranpolis, dipping their fingers in oil every now and then. Savitabai briskly fried them in batches, as they were patted out. The smell of roasting coconut and jaggery pervaded the room.
Savitabai arranged all the puranpolis in a neat pile and covered them. The other two went quickly into the backyard. She could hear water being drawn from the well. Chenthiru wiped her hands on a towel and stood up. The other two returned, wiping their faces with their sari-ends, which had been pulled tightly and tucked in at the waist. Savitabai went toward the back door. Minabai drank a tumbler of water. Before Chenthiru could have a drink, Savitabai had returned. When Chenthiru went to the back of the house, Savitabai came with her to show her the privy. By the well was a bucket of water, and a piece of soap on the parapet of the well. She splashed the cold water on her face, again and again. When she squeezed the soap, spread its lather all over her face and splashed it with water once more, she felt cool, comfortable. She wiped her face with her dupatta and looked ahead, where the banana trees, the shrubs, and the neem tree in a corner, were all like outlines in the dark. “Chendiyabai…” The invitation came from the house.
Inside, all three of them had knotted their hair back tightly. Tattoo marks shone on the forehead and chin of their well-scrubbed faces. They all stretched out their legs, and leaned back against the wall, relaxed and easy. As soon as she sat down with them, Minabai set the plate of fried fish in the middle. Rukminibai took a couple of bottles out of a bag. “Palm-toddy,” she said.
The other two women put the glasses out.
“Is Chendiyabai used to drinking palm-toddy, though?” Rukminibai asked.
There was palm-toddy on the night they went to the Murud-Janjira Fort. They had gone with their friends and their children, in two cars, to Alibagh. And from there to Murud-Janjira. The fortress was right in the middle of the sea, a fortressed island, once in the possession of sea-pirates. The boatman hurried them into the boats which they rowed towards the fort. They reached it in two boat-loads. Right around the ruined fort were heavy chains, looking like mountain pythons. The boatmen urged them to look around the fort as quickly as possible, and return swiftly. One boat left for the mainland, Tirumalai and the children having given the fort the hastiest of glances. Within the next fifteen minutes, when the rest of the party tried to climb into the other boat, the sea had become turbulent. They were only rowing boats. Beneath the surface were huge rocks. The boatmen feared to put out to sea. At first they waited and delayed, but eventually they said they could not risk it and would wait until the morning. She and Tirumalai’s friends went and sat in the central part of the fort. The boatmen brought them the fish they had kept aside to take home, and Steven made a small hearth of three stones, lit a fire, and roasted the fish. Lankesh brought out a bottle that he had bought from the men. Palm-toddy. Annamalai and he poured it out into the plastic cups they had in their bags. Kaarmegam helped his Chitthappa, and handed the cups around. The fish, roasted to a turn without any masala whatsoever, melted in the mouth. The palm-toddy, which she was tasting for the first time, travelled in many directions in her head, and made her fly. Above them, the sky was a pitch-black magician, who had tied up all the stars. Lankesh took out his mouth organ. He was a fan of S.D. Burman, Manna De, and Pankaj Mallik. He began to play S.D. Burman’s song:
Sunu mere bandhu re…e sunu mere mithuva…
sunu mere saathi re…
Listen, my friend, listen my beloved,
listen my companion…
A song of the boatmen. A folk song. It made them feel as if they were sitting together, swaying in a boat. Steven and Kaarmegam began to whistle and sing Beatles songs. The toddy, S.D. Burman, and the Beatles went to her head, making her quite intoxicated. She lay back on the floor and sang one of Annamalai’s favourites, “A tiny, tiny, nose-drop; a red-stone…encrusted nose-drop…” Then, a lullaby in Nilamabari for Kaarmegam who came and leaned against her. Her voice, touched by the toddy, went slipping and sliding. Songs, conversation, until daybreak.
The sea had calmed down by early morning. The boatmen came and summoned them. On the opposite shore, Tirumalai waited anxiously. A weariness, from having waited the whole night, was apparent on his face. A sleepless night. His eyes were red.
“Tirumalai sir, your wife is back from the pirates’ fort, safe and sound,” Lankesh’s wife said.
When they told him about the toddy and the fish and the music, he asked his brother, “What, Annamalai, did you actually give your sister-in-law some toddy to drink?”
“Yes, Anna, hereafter you should give her a drink every day. It’s then that her singing voice really comes into its own.”
Tirumalai laughed with him.
After that one occasion, now once again, fish and palm-toddy.
“Yes, I’m used to it,” she said in reply to Rukminibai.
A cool breeze blew. Rukminibai filled their glasses. When she bit into her fish and drank a mouthful of the toddy, her throat burnt. Then, gently, gently, like a smoke-cloud, a sense of intoxication rose in her head.
“That song that Rukminibai sang was one of Bahinibai’s, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s always Rukminibai who will sing at any of our organized struggles. She’ll sing Bahinibai’s songs, but she also knows the songs that mock the government officials.”
Even as they talked, Rukminibai raised her voice and sang the same Bahinibai lyric, loudly. When the song was over, Minabai said, “It is Rukminibai who sings, and Rukminibai who settles our quarrels.”
‘What quarrels?”
“It’s nothing,” Rukminibai hastened to explain. “Minabai’s granddaughter’s husband deserted her. She was then four months pregnant. As soon as a baby boy was born, he wanted to claim him. I questioned him properly, in front of all the people.”
“What did you ask him?”
“Look here, I said, the vessel is ours and the milk is ours. Just because the man gave a drop of buttermilk to turn the milk into curd, can we be expected to hand over the whole pot of curd to him, I asked.”
“What did you say? Just because he gave a drop of buttermilk…” Chenthiru put her glass down and began to laugh.
They laughed with her.
After that, when they had eaten the millet-flour rotis with the thuvaiyal, both her stomach and her heart felt full. When she got up to wash her hands, she hit her head on the edge of the roof, with a sharp “ping.” At the very same moment, she heard vinai music. It is said that at the seventh stage of meditation one can hear the music of the vinai. Could there be a seventh stage of intoxication, too? Once again, the music.
“What is that, Savitabai,” she asked.
“Biin,” said Savitabai. On the other side of the waterfall, there was an ashramam. Apparently, an ustad lived there. People called him the Sufi Baba. He was said to be somewhat like Sai Baba of Shirdi. Sometimes, he stayed here for two or three months at a stretch. He played the instrument. Sometimes, they went to hear him.
Even after they had washed their hands and lain down to sleep, they could hear the vinai play.
On the table in the guest house, the camel-yellow notebook lay open. The pages that had already been filled were ruffling in the wind.
Rama’s sister, Shanti, kept on pestering her. “What did Ravana look like? Why can’t you draw a picture and show me?” Sita’s ability at drawing was well known. At last one day she agreed to her plea, took a piece of paper, and drew on it with a brush. After she had done his arms and legs, his entire body, and when she was just about to embark on his face, Rama entered the women’s rooms. After an instant’s confusion, she hid the picture under the long end-piece of her sari. The picture with the unfinished face was right there, under her sari. Sita was in distress, unable to move. She could not tear up the picture until Rama had gone, could she? As she was serving him his meal, Shanti mentioned the picture. “Some people here think of Ravana the whole time,” she began, and went on and on.
The journey by chariot happened very soon after that.
Mid-day. It was the usual time for Lava and Kusa to come home for a meal, after their morning archery exercises. She laid her stylus down. The boys came in a great hurry and ate the food she served on their leaves. As she watched them, she imagined how her life would have turned out if they had both been girls. Would she have allowed them only to pick fruits and flowers, and play at home? She didn’t think she would have done so. She would have brought them up, too, as women warriors. Nobody would have been able to kidnap them and carry them away.
A shadow fell over the threshold. It was Rama standing there. Lava and Kusa began telling her that they had met him in the forest; that he had asked them who they were; that they had said their mother’s name was Sita, but they didn’t know who their father was. They said it was possible he had followed them home. “Good,” said Sita. “Your father’s name is Rama. He is the king of Ayodhya. He’s standing in front of you now.” Without a moment’s hesitation, they leapt towards their father. The kingdom was their father’s, wasn’t it? Had they been girls, they might have stood close to their mother. They might have looked upon a father who abandoned their mother in the forest with suspicious eyes.
Rama began to plead with her. Could Sita not understand his position? Did she think he lived happily without her? As he spoke on and on, she wondered, with a terrible pain, why the earth could not split open and draw her inside. She refused his plea with firmness. She said her journey lay in a different direction. After that she felt as if the earth had indeed split apart and she had gone within, somewhere far, far beneath.
As soon as they opened their eyes at break of day, Savitabai made tea without milk or sugar and gave it to them, piping hot. The other two set off for their own homes.
She had not forgotten the vinai music she heard during the night. Chenthiru began to walk in a southerly direction from the waterfall. After she had gone some distance, she saw four or five small hut-like dwellings. The door of what looked like the principal hut was open. She went in, softly.
On a thick mattress, spreading from one end of a facing wall to the other, were three rudravinai, left uncovered. Next to them sat a man, about sixty years old, with a vinai on his lap. White-bearded. He wore a chequered lungi about his waist. A kurta over that. He was fine-tuning the instrument, adjusting the pegs and bringing his ears close to the strings.
As soon as she went in, he spoke to her familiarly in pure Hindi,
“Come here, beti. Listen to this. Tell me whether it is in tune or not.”
As if she had spent her entire life listening to the pitch of a vinai every day, she went up, listened carefully, and said, “It’s just right.”
She sat down in front of him.
“Everything comes down to sruti, getting the pitch right, doesn’t it?” he asked her. “We speak of sur, being in tune. Who then is an asur? Not someone with crooked teeth and ten heads, but one who is ignorant of sur. A-sur. Because such a thing as sur isn’t resonating within them, they run away with themselves, without subjecting their impulses or their strength or their direction to any discipline. They are not reined in by their sur.”
She nodded.
“The pitch must come right, holding everything in tune. All of us are a-sur. Seeking after the right pitch.”
“Is it such a difficult thing, then, to be in tune?”
He laughed.
“It’s not a thing to be held captive, is it? It’s like a wave. Even when you think you have overcome it and are riding on its crest, it can collapse beneath you. It can rise up again in a gigantic billow. It can turn into nothing but foam when it comes close to you. It will come together, and dissolve. Come and go. Drown you. Fling you right away.”
His very words sounded like the sea.
“Can you sing?” he asked.
“A little. Carnatic music.”
“Mm. Sing something. Sing in your Sankarabaranam.”
Softly she sang the opening lines, the pallavi, of the Sankarabarana varnam.
“Mm,” he said. Then taking the vinai on his lap, he pressed down on the daivadam, the sixth note, as if he were flicking a nerve. Then he played several cadences. Then once again that note, as if plucking at a nerve. Dani…
“This is the Bilaval raagam from Dhrupad,” he said. She stooped at his feet and pressed her head against the edge of the mattress. Dani…dani…dani…It ran through her body like electricity.
“What is it you want, beti,” he asked, his hand pressing upon her head.
“I don’t know,” she said, without looking up. “Even when I think I understand, I haven’t really understood at all. As soon as I think I understand, I lose it all.”
“That’s how it is,” he said, patting her head.
She lifted her head and sat back. “I’ve left Mumbai and come away.”
“Each of us has just two choices. One is to renounce, the other is not to renounce. Why do I play this instrument? Why do you listen to it? Because we haven’t yet understood what is renunciation and what is not.”
“I cannot breathe in Mumbai.”
“Mumbai can follow you here. And the forest too can go with you to Mumbai.”
She looked into his eyes.
“That’s how it is,” he said. “Bilaval was a favourite raagam of my Mataji’s. Whenever a dove cooed outside our window, in the narrow lane off the crowded Mohammad Ali Road, she would say it was doing riyaaz — practising the Bilaval. Sometimes, she would hear the dove’s voice above the roaring of a bus or a train. “A perfect Bilaval,” she would say. She died here last year, in this very place. She was eighty years old. It was springtime when she died. She used to struggle all night because she could not sleep. At earliest dawn, by four o’clock, she would take a chair and sit outside. Opposite her, the mango grove. Around five o’clock, she would call out to me, “Jalaluddin! Ei, Jalaluddin! Come here. The koel is singing the Bilaval.” She’d tell you exactly the notes it was singing. “A perfect Bilaval,” she’d say, rejoicing. She could hear the Bilaval, wherever she went, in all places.”
He ran his fingers over the strings. A waterfall of sounds.
Some lines from a song she had learnt a long time ago, at school, came to life in her mind. In sound-shapes. In magical Sindhubhairavi.
“Like the unrestrained wind…” those low bass notes.
Outside, a sunlight which would not torment. Ustadji began the alaapanai, the preliminary free rendering of the Bilaval.
“Like the ocean that has seen the moon…” long, ascending cadences. Ustadji’s students gathered quietly inside the room. They sat down, surrounding him. Again and again, there came the plucking of the rudravinai’s strings, like the plucking of one’s nerves.
“Like a cascading waterfall…” the notes reached a high point and poured downwards.
Ustadji continued to play.
“Play the music on the flute of life…” the notes returned to their path after their wild wandering.
The koel which sang the Bilaval called out from the mango grove. Dani…dani…dani…
The koel sings everywhere. The koel’s song is transformed into the tune the listener wishes to hear.
She rose to her feet and began to walk towards the guest house.
Nobody was willing to accept Sita’s decision. They said it was not proper to refuse to go, when the king of Ayodhya himself came to take her back. What was her goal, after all? What was she seeking? Then there were Hanuman’s long appeals. The denunciations of the rest of them. She could not recover from her sense of having gone somewhere beneath the earth, somewhere so deep that nobody could reach her.
She rose to her feet and looked around the cottage. This time it would be a total renunciation. A lone journey which left behind all those who were known to her, those who spoke lovingly, who dispensed advice. A journey that would be long, that would go very deep.
The more she walked, the more the forest seemed to extend. She crossed the river, went past a waterfall, and walked on; saw the deer drinking at a small stream, was shocked by deer-eating tigers, delighted in the sight of baby elephants running alongside the herd, encountered nights through which owls’ eyes glowed, observed the shimmering of green leaves as the sun’s rays fell upon them, was surprised by the leaping of monkeys from branch to branch, their young clinging to their bellies. She walked on. Eagerly. Wearily. She rested.
And again she walked.
Their meeting took place early one morning. A time when not even the sound of birds was to be heard. The sun was hidden, secretive in the skies. Far away, she saw a small hut. The dim light of a lamp flickered through it. The sound of a musical instrument came to her, tearing the darkness. As she came nearer and nearer, she recognized it as vinai music. A tune that she had surely heard at some time. As she came yet nearer, the music bound her in its melody. The door of the hut was open. She looked inside. Someone who looked like a tapasvi, living a life of austerity, was playing the vinai. When she asked whether she was disturbing his practice, he said no. He had been waiting for her, he said. “Don’t you know me? I am Ravana.”
Startled, she stepped back.
“I thought you died in the war…”
“This life is full of magic, is it not? When Rama demolished everyone in my palace, there was one bodyguard left. He pleaded with Rama to spare his life. And he then prayed that a friend of his should be returned to life. Rama did so, and told them both to flee before Lakshmana appeared. When they said they no longer had the strength to run, he gave them wings. They changed respectively into a kite and a parrot, and flew away. This is a story that people tell. Could I not be that parrot that has been flying about in these forests? A parrot waiting for that moment when he would meet Sita once more. A tired old parrot.”
“Even now, this infatuation? I have seen so many tragedies. My life has been like a game of dice in which I am a pawn. I am tired. I am weary. I am more than forty years old.”
“It is then that a woman needs a friend. To support her when she is distressed by her changing body. To serve her. To encourage her. To stand at a distance and give her hope.”
Sita sat down on the floor.
Ravana went on, “I have never refused to give my friendship to anyone. Before the battle began, Rama wanted to perform a puja. There were only two people in the world who could have conducted the puja for him. One was Vali. The other, myself. Rama had killed Vali with his own hands. So I was the only one left. He sent an invitation to me. I went to him. I did the puja as he desired. I blessed him and invoked his victory.”
Sita addressed him by name for the first time. “Ravana, words make me tired. Language leaves me crippled. I am fettered by my body.”
Ravana smiled. “The body is a prison. The body is a means of freedom,” he said. “Look,” he said, showing her his rudravinai. “A musical instrument that was created by imagining what wonderful music would sound if Parvati’s breasts, as she lay on her back, turned into gourds, and their nipples attached by strings. It is an extension of Devi’s body. You lifted Shiva’s bow with one hand. You should be able to conquer this instrument easily. Will you try?”
“Will you teach me?”
“I did battle for you once, and lost. Would I deny you music? I will be your guru and give you lessons every day. Let the music break out of the vinai and flow everywhere in the forest. Don’t think of it as an ordinary musical instrument. Think of it as your life, and play on it. Here.”
He lifted the rudravinai from his lap and stretched it out towards her.
“Leave it there on the ground,” said Sita.
“Why?”
“It is my life, isn’t it? A life that many hands have tossed about, like a ball. Now, let me take hold of it; take it into my hands.” So saying, Sita lifted the rudravinai and laid it on her lap.