The old man, the critic, appeared to me in a dream. He said there were drops of blood present in the last poem written by the poet who died recently. “I saw death there,” he said. I had no objection to the old man appearing in my dreams. Except that he appeared without any clothes on. A pale pink body. His head and chest were all grey. The hair spreading above his male member was all grey too. His buttocks were shrunken, like a mouth without teeth which has fallen in. His genitalia hung down, aged. He struggled to sit down or to walk as if he held something tightly between his thighs. I don’t know why my subconscious had chosen to call up this man’s nakedness, when there were so many others whom I knew well, liked, loved, even desired.
He seated himself comfortably. Having delivered his opinion about the poet, he was silent. Then, after some time he began to talk slowly.
“I was travelling by electric train once. It was night. I was on the last train. The one-thirty train. There was only one light, in the corner of the compartment. It was dark where I was. It was only when the lights outside, along the route of the train, were reflected inside that some figures took shape, then dissolved. Occasionally the light from within the compartment spread in waves above the figures, unfolding like a carpet. Sometimes a sleeping head fell forward into the light and then pulled back into the darkness. As it pulled back, the Adam’s apple seemed to be thrusting forward from the base of the neck. Light rays fell upon a few heads alone. The hair then seemed to wave about on its own, seeking the body. In a sudden flood of light, a nose-ring suddenly came alive, and seemed to float in space.
“A man got up from the corner of the lighted section of the compartment. He came to the area where it was half light and half darkness. On both sides were the two exits. He stood in the middle. ‘I can’t,’ he shouted. ‘I can’t, any longer,’ he shrieked out. Then he took four strides to the left and went outside the train. The train kept on going. It was a fast train.”
A rocky mountain rose in front of my eyes. I said to the old man, “We were walking over huge rocks. Myself, Sudhir, and fifty-year-old P.C. Shah. The more we climbed, the more rocks there were. We passed a young couple and an old woman who were on their way down. The old woman’s legs were swollen. But she smiled cheerfully. “Nilakant maharaj ki jai,” she called out. The young man informed us that there was a tea-stall about a mile further along, and slightly lower than the mountain. We walked along, repeating to ourselves, the tea-stall, the tea-stall. When we grew tired, P.C. Shah urged us forward, calling out, “The tea-stall.” There seemed to be no consistency in the way the path was laid out over the stones. One step might be a mere inch in height. To reach the next you had to raise your leg as high as your thigh. Yet another could be reached only by crawling on all fours, like an animal. Water dripped under one of the rocks. A leaf had been rolled and pushed through the hole, forming a kind of a tap. When I had collected some water drop by drop in my cupped hand, and drunk it down, tongue pressing against my palm, I turned my head and saw it. A cow. Dead. Its belly was swollen. It had been in calf. Beneath its tail, the head of the calf could actually be seen. The moment of tightening. That instant when it was caught, even as it began to bump its way out into the world. Before I could reach out my wet hand to touch my cheek, a wintry fog spread over us with the speed of fire. It touched my nose with cold, a shiver reached my navel. I couldn’t see the rocks any more, only the cow. Its tongue was blue, and very near.”
We were silent.
I don’t know why, but my father’s legs suddenly came to mind.
All his strength was in his legs. He had a brisk way of walking. When he played badminton, he’d run up to the net in an instant, scoop up the falling ball and hit it back hard. They were legs that could run well, even though they weren’t particularly long. Quite sturdy, without any curves; rather like pillars. Feet like winnowing trays: broad, sweeping, outspread. When he walked he would press down on the entire sole of the foot. As I had scrutinized those legs ever since I reached his knees, I could remember clearly even the dark green veins that ran along them.
He used to link his legs and feet with many things. If he got angry, his usual chorus was, “I’ll kick out as hard as I can.” He’d go on emphatically about “the ability to stand on one’s own two feet.” Even in that last letter there had been a reference to them.
“You say that your mother and I need not come there for another two or three years. I don’t know whether I can hold out for another two or three years. I am now seventy. And I have trouble with hernia. I find it very difficult to walk about. You don’t have to put yourself out in any way. Just give me foothold in your home, that will be enough…” My mother told me that after he had written this letter, he placed it upon his chest, lay back on the easy chair where he normally stretched himself out, and wept, each dry sob coming out like a growl.
They had built the funeral pyre carefully. But my father was a tall man. One foot stretched out a little way beyond the pieces of wood. When the fire spread elsewhere, it still left the pale skin of the sole untouched. Then a small flame stroked it. A plume of black smoke spread over it. Slowly, slowly, the foot blackened.
The old critic sat there at his ease. To make himself even more comfortable, he lifted his legs and placed them on the stool. One foot stretched a little way beyond it.