It occurred to her that the most difficult thing to accept about oneself was one’s own mediocrity. There was nothing more terrible than having to live with that for the rest of one’s life.
When she stood in front of her professor, asking a question, and quick as a flash, he exposed her with his reply, a sense of her own mediocrity would press back her tongue against her cheek, mocking her. She had a great desire to sit in the professor’s room; to talk to him at length about the historical period he had researched; to point out the flaws in his arguments, sifting and separating them out; to become the teacher’s teacher. But if she ever even mentioned a book which she had just read, he would immediately tell her about the article that had followed it.
Her mediocrity troubled not just her, but her professor too. It was put about that on the day she finished her thesis, 15 August, he had remarked to another professor, “My independence day. Anjana has finished her thesis.” What hurt her even more was the occasion when he tossed aside the five pages of much rewritten material she had handed him, declaring there was nothing more he could do with it. He had then put pen and paper in her hands and told her what to say, without so much as leaving out a comma or a semicolon or a full stop. He had declared finally, “Now you have written it unassailably.”
Sometimes she asked herself whether her timidity was because she was a woman.
But that couldn’t be true.
Newly joined women students got to their feet without the least hesitancy in seminars of up to thirty people, asked the most ordinary questions, chewing gum the while, then turned to their neighbor to light a cigarette and casually blew out the smoke while awaiting the answer. Such self-confidence shocked her.
If she commented, “That professor is a genius,” they answered her with contempt, taking it all for granted, “Who, he? Not bad. Spoke a lot of rubbish yesterday.” She was envious of that kind of arrogance. She too would have liked to possess such hauteur.
But she could only tremble and bow low.
Had her father, an upper-division clerk, allowed the dog-like treatment he had received from his officer to pervade each rat-hole of a room of their tiny house off the Mavalli Circle in Bangalore, passing it on with his very looks, his breaths, his sighs, his words? Had she grown up breathing it in?
Deeply embedded in her mind was a picture of her father touching his officer’s feet and crying out, “I am a family man. I have children. I’ll never touch the money again.” She had felt as if she had been forcibly stripped naked. A sense of being disgraced and humiliated had been born in her then, as if spittle from the onlookers fell upon her naked and ugly body.
She wanted to hit back in her turn.
All she could manage was an attitude of deference, bowing and bending, begging to be given the blow. When her father’s officer picked her up in his car one rainy evening, and then asked her in Kannada, “What will you do now if I kiss you,” she could not rage with the fury of Kannagi. She could only stare ahead, tears streaming down her face, thinking with fear of all the pregnant heroines she had read about, and of the inevitable tragic fate approaching her. As soon as she reached home, she went into the two-foot-wide bathroom, felt herself all over, and wept silently for her lips which had been bitten and her breasts which had been kneaded in return for the money her father had stolen long ago. Had the simple food that she ate, the curry leaf chutney and the plain tamarind rasam taken the fight out of her? She knew that her individuality had become like a dulled knife, and she herself was deeply troubled and tossed, like a puff of smoke, like a shred of floating cotton.
A stray wind’s blowing that pushed her into her research on foreign policy.
Because she had a scholarship, her father was not put to any expense. Just once, he had said, “Why don’t you get a job, my dear? At least it would help the family.” She had looked at him with eyes full of longing, and pleaded, “Please, Appa, let me study. I don’t wish to marry.” He had never said anything after that.
It seemed that it was only her sort for whom everything was a huge mountain which made one either stagger with weariness, or press on with severity. When others skimmed through Toynbee and tossed him aside, she could only speak her opinion after thinking it over ten times. Even in her method of study there was some dogged quality which made her plod on until her back broke. Sometimes her programme of further study seemed to her not unlike the grades and promotions that a clerk seeks. Yet she hated with all her heart the thought of herself being such a clerk, a stenographer, a typist. She could only accept, to some extent, that somewhere in the depths of her mind there was this clerk-like quality.
The very thought of a life spent in going to work every day by electric train, reading either the Vikatan or Kumudam, gossiping about one’s aunt’s son or the clipped moustache next door, saving money each month for a foreign-made nylex sari, was bitter to her.
She wanted all her abilities to flower fully and completely, to take some god-like universal form, and for herself to be able to investigate and understand her innermost self. But there didn’t seem to be any way to achieve this.
Every example of her limited knowledge created a kind of fear mixed with shame within her. If she dared to take a single step beyond her natural timidity, she felt a weariness, a lassitude, a total helplessness worse than that experienced by a whipped slave.
That was why she was so deeply wounded by what she took to be an April Fool’s Day joke when Narasimha Rao said to her, “I love you.” One evening she had come out of the college library, and started off in the direction of the bus stop, wiping her face firmly with her handkerchief as she went. Narasimha Rao had stopped her.
“Shall we have some coffee?”
“Oh, but I have to go as far as the Mavalli Circle.”
“I’ll drop you off on my motorbike.”
“Did you want to talk about the term paper? I’m afraid I haven’t finished mine yet.”
“No, I didn’t want to talk about that.”
He ordered espresso coffees and then said quietly, “I love you very much.”
It was the first of April that day. Her face tightened. “Can’t you play your April Fool jokes on someone else? Here I am, minding my own…”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “I’m telling you this in complete seriousness.” When he took hold of her hand she got up quietly. She was wearing a brown handloom sari with a narrow yellow border, most inappropriate in that sophisticated restaurant. In the deliberately dimmed light her brow and cheekbones and chin glistened with an outbreak of sweat. Piteously she said, “I want to be somebody.” Her throat choked.
He couldn’t understand.
She sat down suddenly and did something that women do not usually do when they know they are loved. She dropped her head upon the table and wept, the deep sobs almost stopping her from breathing.
That was the end of such matters as love.
As soon as she finished her M.A. as an accredited student of Bangalore University, she registered herself to research into Hoysala art.
Although he had no connection whatsoever with her chosen subject, she had to register under Professor Basavayya, and the research proceeded under the supervision of one of the other lecturers. It struck her that Professor Basavayya suffered from an extreme sense of inferiority. It was said that when he was in America, they treated him as a black among the other blacks. It was also said that when he was a poor student living in a Harijan hostel, he had been forced to marry the hostel warden’s daughter because of his indiscreet behavior on some occasion. His wife was seven years older than he was. This was another black mark against him for people to point out. When American professors visited the university, he behaved towards them like a dog with its tongue hanging out. And they, too, treated him like their black slave, patting him and hectoring him by turns. He could never utter a single word in public without having to stop because of the onrush of spittle in his mouth. And before he could struggle through his stammering to explain himself, the other professors would have attacked him with their words and ripped him apart. At those times, there seemed to be no difference between the Harijan who was prevented from touching the well water in a narrow-minded village and this man here. In those educated surroundings, they attacked him with great finesse, but also with a mad rage, secretly declaring, “See, you have been uplifted indeed!” She sometimes thought that that face with its swollen cheeks would one day become distorted with tears.
Professor Basavayya had one means of escape. He liked young women. Anjana had not known this.
Once he had asked her to come on a Sunday, to collect an important book that she needed. His room was above the library, and had to be reached by going up a spiral staircase. She went. The professor told her that the book was in the cupboard. While she was looking for it, he came up from behind and pressed her hands against the wall. For an instant she had the terrible feeling that she would faint. But pulling herself together, she began running down the spiral staircase. The professor’s steps followed.
Downstairs the library was locked. She attempted to raise a howl of distress. Frightened by this, he flung open the door saying, “Hogu, go away.” She fled.
The trees, the grass, everything seemed gigantic, rising up high to attack her. Her breath came in long broken sighs.
After this she began to hate Hoysala art with a deep hatred. She might have informed the other students, torn away Basavayya’s disguises, and sought protection for herself. She didn’t do it. She assisted in short research projects lasting from six to eight months, spending the rest of her time staring at the yellowing walls of her home.
Then she read in the papers about a research institute in the north, which had been set up for work on international relations. She was invited for the selection examination and interview.
Her mind was an empty blank. A complete and utter blank. A stagnant pool in which no memory would appear. Even so, she went.
The general knowledge paper.
Who or what are the following:
Liaqat Ali Khan
Angola
Bhagat Singh
Tej Bahadur Sapru
Martin Luther King
Phnom Penh
Chile
What is your opinion about Gandhi’s part in the Independence struggle?
What are the underlying precepts in the foreign policy adopted by the US towards the Arab states?
Some historians consider that the Russian revolution is an unfinished revolution. Why?
The letters flew about in front of her eyes like so many flies. Who was Liaqat Ali Khan? A sitar player, like Vilayat Khan? Couldn’t be. This is an institute for international relations. Bhagat Singh was a name that rang a bell. A hockey player? All Singhs were certainly brilliant at games. She couldn’t attempt a single one of the essay questions. All she could remember about Gandhi was his loincloth and his toothless smile. She calmed herself. She said to herself, “Anjana, you have passed your M.A. in the first class. You have studied about all this in some fashion. Think. Think.” Her brain swirled in confusion.
She came out.
“Gandhi was a bourgeois. The people that he trained to take over at Independence were capitalistic aristocrats with half-baked humanitarian values.”
“I wrote that American Jews were an important factor in the consideration of American relations with the Arab States and Israel.”
“Oh, I wrote of all that as a part of Soviet and American relations.”
There were others discussing their answers in faultless, fluent English. She began to feel as if her legs were sagging weakly from the knees, like torn off pieces of cloth.
A peon summoned her to one of the lecturers from the department in which she had requested a place.
“Well, how was the general knowledge paper?”
“I could not answer a single question.”
“You are an M.A. first class, aren’t you?”
“Mm.”
“What have you been doing, this past year?”
“I have been assisting in various research projects.”
“Oh, well, never mind. Make sure you do well in the interview. The professor will be there.”
“I’ll try.”
The personal interview. There were ten people there. One of them had her general knowledge paper in his hand.
“You have a good sense of humour,” he said, looking at the other professors who were there, and winking.
She went red in the face.
“You say you want to do some research on Jews. Why?”
“They have suffered a great deal. They have been oppressed.”
“More than the Tamil people?”
“Sorry. What was that?”
“Oh, come on Dr. Tripathi, don’t confuse her.”
He laughed.
“What were the changes in the political divisions of Europe after the Second World War?”
“One part came under Russian influence.”
“Were there no other changes in these parts?”
“No.”
“Not even in Yugoslavia?”
“No.”
At this point another professor agreed about her good sense of humour.
“What journals of international relations have you read?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Any relevant books?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Please take your time. Tell us slowly, without getting nervous.”
“No. I really cannot remember.”
The professors looked at each other.
“Very well, you may go.”
The professor of the department she had applied to accepted her, saying that she possessed a basic intelligence. (Or it may be doggedness.)
She started on her research. Here too, there was a fierce, animal-like competition. It was considered that a true intellectual would publish ten research papers in five years. The research students were caught up in the rat race, working with the haste of rats making for their holes, sometimes to the extent of sacrificing their integrity. Haste…haste…haste…There was no place for her there.
Ten years of hard work, disappointment, yearning, discouragement, lack of confidence, unemployment, lack of money, longing for love, bitter realization of her own limited knowledge. After that, her doctorate.
Even to this day she continued to be fearful, fearful, fearful of everything. Had she been an Egyptian slave in an earlier era, one who had been flogged? A black slave who had been too frightened to open her mouth and sing in cotton plantations? Had she been one of those Jewish women standing in front of the gun, eyes in a trance of fear? How was it that she was overwhelmed by such fear? It chased her like a serpent determined on revenge. As soon as the professor walked into the room and said, “What news,” her tongue would cleave to her palate with fear. When she read out her research paper in seminars, fear made her voice tremble. Her uncertainty was such that her professor had to help her out if there were outsiders asking difficult questions.
She had been away from town for a few months, and had just returned for the beginning of the new academic year. She went into the professor’s room. One of the lecturers from the department was also there.
“Professor, after hearing you speak yesterday, students from other departments have been speaking very highly of our seminars,” the lecturer was saying.
“We’ll ask Anjana to read a paper. Those illusions will soon disappear.
They both laughed.
The professor had spoken in jest. All the same, she felt attacked. But she laughed, too, as if in agreement.
There was another seminar being held on that day. An overseas visitor was to speak at it. She determined that on that day she would speak out.
As soon as he had finished, she said in a ringing voice, “Professor, I don’t agree with you.”
Silence.
…She pointed out the cracks in the professor’s middle-of-the-road exposition. She ripped apart his argument by referring to a couple of examples from recently published articles. She sensed the words pouring out of her without hesitancy or confusion, like a great flood that tears down a dam; words spreading all over the room, hanging everywhere. Her mouth burst open like a cave, and like animals coming out in a rage, the words sprang forth furiously to assault the ears with the speed and swish of whiplashes.
The overseas professor was totally taken aback. In a low voice he asked, “Who is this woman?”
“My student,” said her professor…
When, still dripping and floating about in that joyous pride, she lifted up her head with a smile, there were voices, questions, replies, and laughter all about her.
“Since there are no further questions, the discussion is at an end,” said the professor.
Yet another seminar was over. She rose to her feet, leaving her words to hang about like dead snakes filling the room with their stench.
The professor looked at her, twisting his lips in a grimace.
She thought that while she sat in the open fields with heavy eyelids, back bared to all passers-by, it was impossible to reveal anything freely, without fear or shame. Not even tears.
Trisanku is the King of the Ikshvaku clan who wished to perform a sacrifice which would enable him to ascend bodily into heaven. The celebrated sage Vasishta refused, declaring it to be impossible, and Vasishta’s sons condemned him to become a chandala for his presumption. The sage Viswamitra, to whom he next applied, made it possible, and Trisanku finally rose into heaven. Here, his entry was opposed by Indra and the other gods, until it was finally agreed that Trisanku should hang with his head downwards, and shine among some stars newly called into being by Viswamitra.