The rain and gale had abated by morning. The sun had come out and the sky was clear. That was not the only change—Ramchander was no longer seated under a coconut tree but beneath a large umbrella fixed on a platform on the bank of the river. And the river was different as well: it was not the Periyar but the mighty Ganga!
A group of Pandas rushed in, jostled him out of the shade of the umbrella and pushed him down. He had a hard time trying to avoid being trampled by the pilgrims who were going down the steps for a dip in the sacred river. Scrambling up, he managed to weave through the crowd that swelled as the day advanced and make his way to the burning ghat.
The men who worked at the burning ghat were as busy as the pilgrims, but they did not drive him away. He realized that they did not have the time to even turn around and look at him, that they had simply taken him for one among them. One of them handed him pieces of firewood to stack on a pyre. Another entrusted to him the long pole he had been using to push back pieces of firewood which had fallen away from the pyre, and went away to attend to something else.
Someone touched Ramchander on his shoulder at that moment. He turned and saw that it was a woman.
‘Come, masterji, let us leave.’ she said, ‘Neither the path of the seeker of knowledge nor that of the ascetic is yours.’
Ramchander did not know her and said nothing in reply. He followed her obediently.
They walked past the bathing ghats and entered the narrow galis that criss-crossed the town. There were rows of houses on both sides. Human beings and cows passed them in both directions. He caught up with the woman, who was walking ahead of him, and asked: ‘Where are you taking me, devi?’
‘I saw you struggling for your life at the bathing ghats, masterji, while the pandas rained blows on you and the pilgrims kicked you around. After all that, why did you accept the pieces of firewood and the pole that the domes at the burning ghat, those people of the lowest caste whose profession is to cremate bodies, handed you, to help burn the bodies of people you did not know? I could not understand that.’
‘Where are you leading me?’ Ramchander asked again.
‘As if all the roads in the world are spread out before you! Didn’t the ashram of wisdom shut its doors in your face? The wise guard their knowledge as a secret, masterji, they never divulge it to others. Mine is the path of pleasure, one that is open to all people at all times.’
She gave Ramchander food to eat. While he devoured it hungrily, she said: ‘Do you know why my path always lies open? No one ever stones a prostitute to death. Nor is she ever burned on a pyre with a man, or locked up in a harem. A prostitiute is beyond all laws. She is free to offer pleasure untainted by emotion to every man.’
Ramchander, however, felt that the purity of that pleasure was too bizarre.
‘Your ashram too does not allow me beyond its gate,’ he said.
‘Masterji!’ She sounded despondent.
‘That is not your fault.’ He caressed her as she lay in his arms, her face pressed to his chest. ‘Your mansion has only a gatehouse and it is there that we are making love.’
‘We women of pleasure do not carry happiness into the hearts of men, masterji.’ She ran her fingers lightly over his lips. The arrogance he had heard in her voice as they walked through the galis had drained out completely.
‘And pain?’ he asked.
She did not answer.
‘Not only you but I too am outside the gate. You, me, a number of people like us. Only knowledge shuts itself up inside the inner courtyards of mansions. I too was in an ashram like that once—until a man burst in one night and dragged me out. Ever since, I have been wandering around in search of that man. You are right, our knowledge does not have a life beyond our experiences. Tortured cruelly by our senses, we have to find our pleasure in the weird ecstasy of these gatehouses.’
He drew her closer to him and let his lips run down the length of her body. They forgot themselves completely for a while. When they came to, he saw the glow of tears on her wet face.
‘You did not tell me about your sorrows,’ he said.
Once again, she did not answer.
‘Is not this pleasure a beautiful layer of passion wrapped around our sorrows?’ he asked again.
‘I do not know whether sorrow or happiness is the real essence of a human being. Perhaps ashrams which are the storehouses of knowledge should debate and determine whether happiness is a layer that collects over sorrow or sorrow a layer that collects over happiness. Those ashrams, however, are out of bounds for us.’
Ramchander wiped the tears on her face. ‘Tell me about your sorrow,’ he said again.
‘Masterji, what layers, what coatings, does a prostitute have? Her sorrows are as naked as her pleasures.’
When Ramchander was leaving in the morning, she asked, ‘Masterji, may I come with you?’
‘You told me that prostitutes live outside the rules of society,’ he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. ‘That means that women who are burned along with their husbands’ bodies or stoned to death in the courtyards of mosques or locked up for life in harems are dealt with by the jurisdiction of the law. But do you think it is the body of law that is applied to them—rather, is it not lawlessness? Once again, you were speaking like the wise men who live behind closed doors in their muths. Those women are just as much outside the law as you, devi. There is no need for you to come with me. You are already with me.’
Although his form was dissolving into the vast expanse of the world outside the gate, she did not feel that she had lost him.