The Way Things Were (62 page)

Skanda smiles. He thinks of Mahesh, a moment before, of his restlessness, but he says nothing. He will never know this fabled peace of Tripathi’s, this peace that passeth all understanding . . .

But they are not there that afternoon to dispute these things, and the shared awareness of this, of why they are together at all, seems to come to them at the same time.

Tripathi’s eyes rest on the urn, and he says, somewhat nervously, ‘Your father, Raja saab, was not a religious man.’

‘I know, Tripathi.’

‘Good. Because I wanted to tell you: I haven’t prepared anything. This gesture of yours – which I approve of wholeheartedly, as would have your revered father – it has a natural poetry, a natural logic. And, in keeping with that, with the poetry of it, we will not bring in anything religious. Your father’s interests, in any case, were always and ever literary. K
ā
vya was his religion,
The Birth of Kumara
his Bible, Kalidasa his prophet.’

‘I know, Tripathi.’

The road to the river is of a pinkish-black stone. The houses are old-fashioned, their balconies slim and delicate. They overhang deep drains whose steep sides are coated in rich wet algae. In the distance, its surface flat and oily, is the river. And, along its earth bank, there are several long boats.

Suddenly, it is all very real. Not now a romantic or poetic thing, but logistical and real, real as the funeral had been. Perhaps it is the boats that make it that way. The boatman, a sinewy sparrow of a man, who has to be negotiated with; the tipping boat, as he gets in, and the rapid steadying movement of the little boatman along its cross plank. The urn of ashes, Tripathi’s chapped palm in his, as he steps in after him. The poling out of the boat into the river, the endless drift. The cross-weave of the water disappearing into the placid and depleted expanse of the Tamas
ā
. It gives him an awful feeling of futility that has always made a mockery of his experience with Experience. He peeks under the lid of the urn, and sees the blue knot of the polythene bag, the government form that says the ashes are human remains.

Then he feels Tripathi’s gaze on him. He looks up and sees his long-toothed smile, his eyes bright with amusement.

‘You’re every bit your father’s son,’ he says. ‘Always intellectualizing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You look so worried. What is it? What is the matter?’

‘Tripathi, I feel so empty.’

‘Raja saab, it’s life – not a poem, not a work of literature – there is no tying together of knots at the end. We give it shape, but it has no shape; no plot, it is fluid as this river. Don’t be cast down by its absurdities. I’m here, your father’s old friend. He’s here, too, in some form. And you’re on a river whose name means darkness. But “whose waters are lucid as the mind of a good man”. A river you’ve grown up around, a town which you have an ancient connection to. These are threads enough. You are where you ought to be; you’re doing what is to be done, your kartavya. Feel easy about it.’

They have come halfway into the river. The darkening mass of the Shiv Niwas is visible. The great escarpment of stone steps. The outline of a temple’s summit, its pointed flag fluttering. The faint sound of bells. The evening light begins to fade, but the western horizon still bears a line of red – a rakta | lekham – ‘as with a bloodied sword,’ the poet writes, ‘left behind on the field of battle’.

He opens the blue polythene bag and sees the ashes – ashes once in the shape of a man, the ashes of Love’s demise – with shards of bone. He stands in the boat, causing it to rock, and the boatman to go scuttling, crab-like, from side to side. Then, loosening the polythene knot, and holding open the mouth of the bag, he lets its contents fall out with a crude thump into the river, some taken up by the flow of water, some carried away by the hot breeze. He lets the bag go too, drifting over the river’s surface, a lung filling slowly with liquid. Then, the government form and the urn, too, swallowed up by the river, with a pleasing gurgle and a great capping stone of a bubble.

It is done.

On the way back to the shore, Tripathi, the leathery mask of his face disappearing into the gloom, says, ‘You feel fine, Raja saab?’

‘I feel relieved, Tripathi. Is that a bad thing to say? When I think of the idea of the man my father was, I feel a great sadness. Enough even to bring me to tears. But when I think of the death of the physical man, of his body, I feel relief. I’m glad he’s gone, Tripathi. I feel cut free.’

Tripathi lets the words vanish into the darkness, with that generosity we extend to the last words of a doomed man, regardless of what they are. Then, after some time, he says, ‘This is how the great poems end, no? In a description of sunset, of nightfall, of moonrise. This is the end of the Birth, too. And I’ve always thought it the strongest argument against those who challenge the integrity of the eight cantos. It may be
The Birth of Kumara
, but it is a poem about the love of Shiva and Parvati. And, in the end, it is their union, akin to that of word and meaning, that is all. Isn’t it? “A hundred or more seasons passing as one night, and the thirst yet unsated . . . a submarine fire in the depths.” But come, let me take you back to the Shiv Niwas. Your guests must be waiting.’

There are drinks on the terrace of the Shiv Niwas. And Narindar, as if out of a private act of remembrance, an ode to Sharada and Laban, has made a special effort. He is full of a sense of occasion and takes care with the details. He has brought out the wrought-iron fanooses in whose cut-glass cavity he has lit cheap smoky candles, their shadowy patterns shrinking and swelling against the whitewash of a pillar; mosquito coils smoke from under the potted plants and peg tables; a battery-operated torch lies on its side on the white cloth of the bar, under a cloud of insects.

Gauri, in a white kurti and shorts, is drinking a gin and tonic. Kartik, in what seems like a strategic alliance, the special need boys like him have for male approval, has befriended Narindar, and follows him about in each of his chores from kitchen to house.

‘You must bathe,’ Tripathi says, as he sees Skanda off, ‘I’ll pass by later to say goodnight.’

Gauri’s mood, in this hour before Kartik’s bedtime, is invariably an extension of her son’s. And she is calm. She knows how raw his nerves can be, and her face glows with the visible relief of seeing that the new place has not chaffed against them. He still has his hectic energy, but it is the last frazzled little burst before sleep.

‘Should I put him to bed and see you outside?’

‘Sure. I’m going to have a bath.’

‘Here,’ she says, and hands him a drink.

‘Oh! It’s not that kind of bath. Just an old-fashioned balti bath; hot water, if we’re lucky.’

‘Still.’

He takes the drink.

‘Has he eaten his dinner?’

‘Yes,’ she says unthinkingly, and then something long and meaning and grateful enters her eyes. He knows that gratitude: it is the limitless thanks we feel when our concerns become those of another.

‘See you back in a minute.’

•

They reconvene after what could not be more than fifteen minutes – and yet, there is something quieter and stiller and darker about the night. The tiredness of the journey has merged with the magical refreshment of a drink, a bath, the new and cleaner air. The almost inaudible presence of the river, which, as with the involuntary effect of architecture upon us, deepens the night, lends it gravitas, endows their words with weight. She says nothing of the rite, but, like a writer writing around her theme, says, ‘You never talk of the intervening time, of the time in between.’

‘In between what?’

‘In between . . . Well, I mean how old was your father in 1992, when he left India?’

‘Oh! I see. He was born in 1940, so fifty-two.’

‘And so when he . . . ?’

‘Seventy-four, on 1 November.’

‘Right! So, a long time then. Did you see him much in those years, I mean, in the time between his leaving India and . . .?’

‘Yes. A lot, in fact. I went to college in England soon after, so, I saw him a lot, yes. And then we would meet on family holidays, too. The India-by-the-back-door-holidays, Rudrani used to call them.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, because they were always in places that were part of the spread of ancient Indic culture – Angkor, Pollonaruwa, Borabadur – but were not in India, the modern country. He needed those places very badly in the end. To be near India, but not in India.’

‘The immigrant syndrome, no?’

‘Yes, I suppose, except Baba . . . He was like an emigrant from the past into the present. And he took it all so personally.’

‘What?’

‘The changes, you know. The rise of what he saw as “the Hindu element”. His reasons for leaving India became the defining feature of his life. And it skewed his perspective. He was pretty unbalanced in the end, a crank almost. It was difficult to be around him. Even Rudrani found it hard. Because . . .’

His voice trails off.

‘Because . . . ?’

Gauri does not see – she has her back to him – but Tripathi has appeared on the balcony. He stands at a distance, not wishing to disturb the conversation. His hand rests lightly on the rough rounded lip of the ramparts.

‘Just wanted to see if everything was OK,’ he says, when he sees he has their attention.

‘All OK, Tripathi saab,’ Skanda says, and gets up to greet him.

‘The boy’ – he still calls Narindar that – ‘has made all the necessary preparations?’

‘Yes, yes, all fine,’ Skanda says. ‘Tripathi saab, this is Gauri, my friend from Delhi. Gauri, this is Tripathi saab, a very dear and old friend of my father’s. One of the few unbroken threads in our lives, no?’

‘Tripathi saab!’ Gauri says brightly, rising to meet him.

The old man bows his head slightly in greeting and places one hand on his breast.

Gauri, out of that concern city people express in rural places for the vagaries of weather, says, ‘How long before the rains, Tripathi saab?’

‘Oh, any minute now, madam,’ he replies, ‘tonight perhaps even. It’s very still.’

Skanda veers off in the direction of the bar. The relief from the completion of the rite is sinking in. His father is dead a year; his remains are now part of the air of Kalasuryaketu, part of the water of the Tamas
ā
. Skanda feels suddenly bold. And, half from genuine curiosity, half from the recklessness of his mood, he says, ‘Tripathi, why don’t you shed some light on this? Gauri was just asking me why it was difficult to be around Baba in the end?’

He turns around and sees Tripathi standing almost at attention. His hands folded, his face closed. He is afraid he has offended him. But Tripathi is simply waiting for his full attention. Then considering his reply, he says, addressing Gauri directly, ‘The reason I would give is simple. Raja saab’s revered father was impatient of life. He was a man with mum
ū
r
ṣ
ā
. And there are few things, I’m sure you will agree, that make us more uneasy than someone eager for death?’

‘Mum
ū
r
ṣ
ā
?’ Gauri says with wonder, and looks to Skanda, who, after a pause, says, ‘It is the desiderative of our root for death –
m
ṛ
. Which is shared by the Latin
mors
, the German
Mord
, in English, murder.’

‘But it didn’t make you uneasy, Tripathi saab? This desire of his for death.’

‘No, madam,’ Tripathi says; and then, as if he has said too much, makes to leave.

‘But why?’ she presses him.

‘I had better be going, madam. I don’t want to disturb your evening with philosophical speculations.’

‘No, please,’ she says, oblivious of this little bit of theatre. ‘Why?’

Tripathi smiles his sage and knowing smile and, taking a few steps back, giving a little bow, he says, ‘I saw it as part of his great capacity for love. Now, really, I must say good night. Raja saab, I’m sure, will explain more . . .’

With this, he goes.

When they are alone again, Gauri looks to Skanda.

‘What did he mean?’ she says. ‘Why did he say your father’s wish to die was an extension of his capacity for Love?’

‘Oh, it’s rubbish, Gauri. It is something from theory, and so abstract and meaningless that it’s not worth discussing. Really!’

But she can see that under his irritation his eyes have grown moist with emotion. Something in what Tripathi said has moved him deeply.

‘Still . . .’ she urges him softly.

The night is dense; it has an immense and oppressive weight. Skanda turns to face the river, in expectation, almost, of the moment when its surface will be pricked with rain. And, gazing out over the parapet, he says, with difficulty, as if the pressure of the night has allied itself with that of Gauri’s question, ‘It’s from the k
ā
ma
ś
ā
stra. According to the ancient Indian theory of Erotics . . .’ he says, and breaks off, his voice lost in the night air.

‘Go on,’ she says, after a long wait, ‘According to the ancient Indian theory of Erotics . . . ?’

The returning words seem almost to startle him. He looks at her confusedly before emitting the little breath of a sigh.

‘According to the k
ā
ma
ś
ā
stra,’ he says, turning away again to face the unqualified darkness, liquid and still, ‘Death is the tenth and last stage of love.’

Also by Aatish Taseer

Fiction

The Temple-goers
Noon

Nonfiction

Stranger to History

Translation

Manto: Selected Stories