Translated from Tamil by Saravanan Karmegam
I didn’t go to him that day, like the way I usually go to
meet him every morning. The sunlight was very harsh since dawn. Overcome with
an inexplicable weariness, I didn’t venture out of the house. As I thought of
meeting him in the evening, I, rather, preferred spending that sweltering day
at my home.
It happened the day before yesterday. At about half past four
in the evening, I reached his house. He was my childhood friend. As usual, he
was sitting on a chair in the front hall of his house when I went there. As I
thought that he was fully immersed in some deep thoughts sitting in front of
the open window, I hesitated to go inside unexpectedly and was standing in the
outer hall instead. When he called me to come inside without even turning his
face towards me, I was indeed surprised. His appearance was also looking quite
bizarre. There were only one chair and a table inside. At the opposite side,
the window was kept open, facing the street.
“Have you finished coffee?” I entered as I asked him.
“Not yet,” he told.
“Why?”
“Yes… I have been sitting here since morning. Mind full of
thoughts,” he told, smiling lightly.
I could understand that my friend had forgotten laughter, and
it was true to the best of my knowledge that he did not laugh at all in the
recent past. Even when he laughed that time, it rang like a sound of laughter
that had lost its life in it. The way he spoke and the way he looked outside
with an emptiness in his eyes made me uneasy. Before I started thinking about
it further, he himself started talking. He had changed as an unfathomable man
in recent times.
“Please come here… Come and sit here. Just have a look at the
opposite side.” He got up and sat on the table as he told this. I sat on the
chair.
“See what is visible there by sitting at the place where I
was sitting,” he told me.
A big tree that had shed its leaves, looking like a dead
tree, was standing in front of me. Other than that, nothing specific was
visible to me. It appeared to me that the tree was bemoaning silently in
loneliness with its dishevelled hair kept untidy. The birds flying across the
sky would perch on its branches in unison suddenly and merge with the tree as
if they had all become dead. The noise of those birds was coming out
intermittently like a sound of death. After a while, one after the other, all
flew away from the branches as if all of them became alive at once. I didn’t
think much about the appearance of the tree. I could not understand how far
those visuals seen with the half-closed eyes in the scorching sunlight and
empty stare outside since morning could have caused such an emotional upsurge
in my friend’s mind.
“What have you seen? His question sounded too heavy for me to
handle.
“That…that tree,” I told.
“What? Is it a tree? I see”. Sitting at his place, he bent
down a bit and looked outside to have a glance at it and continued talking.
“Yes… it is. Are you able to see how it is groping with its
hands spread up for an object that is not present in the sky? It moves, dances,
and then stops. It didn’t stop after its game was over. Did it? A breeze would
blow from the west sluggishly. The clouds sniffed by love would come in,
floating thickly and resting on it. Unable to bear them, it would start swaying
again. Is it a blown-out fly whisk that sweeps the streets of sky from the
clouds? Or is it yearning for raindrops in order to sprout? For what?”
“It seems that you have become a big poet. Haven’t you? Why
do you have this much fury and hatred? I asked him. I didn’t like his words and
talk.
“Please listen to me. Pushing back the time with so many
‘yesterdays,’ my mind had gone to an incident that occurred nine years ago.
After I remembered that incident, my mind has lost its balance. It is so
troubled that it can’t be expressed in words. That is all…” He stopped for a
moment. His eyes were shining with an unusual glitter as if they were trying to
find out some oracular phenomenon that can’t be seen with naked eyes. The way
he was talking showed that nothing more was in store for me.
“Right... Nine years ago I was a college student. I was
eighteen years old at that time. An incident that happened in those days keeps
appearing in different fantasies as the first thematic line of a song since
morning. You might be remembering how I looked in those days…”
“You…looked well-groomed…”
“It’s ok…it’s ok… My elongated nose stretched out ahead of
the face, curved enough to pull the persons back walking in front. The parted
thin lips just below it would show the shiny lining of teeth to people softly
to make their eyes glare. I trimmed my hair anew that time. I would keep
fondling my untidy frontal tuft very often with my hands just to make people
believe that I had lost my long, thickly grown tresses. With my sharp, naughty
eyes, I was so indulged with my physical appeal and had high regard for myself.
Many people might have seen me that time. I was not bothered about their
opinion about me. The look I have these days is nothing but a dry look. My eyes
are also dry anyway. Aren’t they? It seems that all my beauty was dead in my youth
itself. Doesn’t it? But my life has not ended in youth. Has it? It was probable
that she had also seen me.”
“Who was she? I asked him.
“Nothing to talk about her. Please listen to me. How many
years has it been since I had gone to the temple? After that day, I have never
gone to the temple till yesterday. Before that, I used to go to the temple very
often. You also accompanied me most of the time. Didn’t you? During that night
about which I am talking now, you were with me. Weren’t you?”
“It was not a festival day. She had also come. I was not
aware that she would come. When we were going out of the temple, we met her at
the entrance of the temple while she was entering. She might have been thirteen
years old then. She turned suddenly and looked at me. I might have been the one
who had turned her eyes. After turning…what was the force that pulled me along
with you to follow her inside? I didn’t know. It could have been a childhood
fantasy of that age. Please don’t give excuses of infatuation, etc., like that.
Even though it is void of reason, it is true that the heart gets depressed. You
may consider it vanity.”
“I followed her. On many occasions, there were instances
where I was so close to her that I could even touch her. I was mumbling
something frequently too. But I knew that it didn’t have anything to do with
conveying something. Because there was, indeed, nothing to convey.”
Standing in close proximity to the deity, she was in
meditation with her head bent down. I was standing just behind her very closely.
I was able to see the hanging lamps of the sanctum sanctorum, shining in dim
light at a distance, through the gap of her folded hands.
It seemed that his eyes went behind the idols, triumphed over
all the beginnings and ends of life, and immersed in the world of divine
bliss!
“I didn’t know how long I stayed in that state. Without
marching ahead, the ‘time’ in her form remained there in the close proximity of
God.”
“When she turned towards me after releasing herself from the
meditation, I was so ecstatic that I uttered out of my control, ‘I am waiting
to do anything for you. I can do anything’. You and others who had accompanied
her were standing at a distance. Those words couldn’t have fallen into your
ears. But it was certain that she heard those words. She smiled”.
“I had suspected even at that time as to whether it was she
alone who heard those words. I thought that the idol inside the sanctum and the
statue of the lion standing attached to the wall also heard those words. When I
looked at the Lingam on the opposite side, the idol of the deity
smeared with sandalwood vermillion and vibhoothi visible above the
knit coconut leaves became alive and angry, twisting its eyebrows. The
statue of the lion standing along the wall also got terribly frightened,
scared, and angry, contorting its face. It stood on its hind legs and
threatened. I saw her. She had turned towards the other side. With her coiffed
plait hanging behind, she was walking slowly along with the people who had
accompanied her. I followed her for a short distance, looked at her, and stood
there. It appeared to me that the sound her anklets were making were required
to disturb the tranquility of this world, which had gone into deep slumber. She
was happily talking with them, playing with words, and finally left with her
anklets making sounds majestically. The silence of the shrine got perturbed by
the resonance of the sound of her anklets. The bats flew crisscross with
clicks”.
When my friend was narrating, my mind started visualizing it.
Without any fetters, it started drawing pictures—temple, sanctum sanctorum—yes.
The bats flying across inside the temple during daytime were actually flying
without knowing that it was day.
“The half of the day’s light would hesitate to enter. In the
dim light of the night, the idols were standing there with the signs of life in
them. The temple is a place where one could nurture the feel of divine bliss,
which could be attained in silence with deeper experience and privacy. Isn’t
it? The bunch of lamps would be burning. It would cause a shock of not being
able to identify the difference between the devotees roaming in the brightness
of lights and their shadows. ‘For teaching which truth, the sanctum sanctorum
has been created? Are we mere shadows? Whose moving shadows are we?”—when such
queries were raised by my mind, the whole of my body shuddered for once.”
The eyes of my friend were looking splendid. His speech, with
an awareness of having realized a secret one way or the other, was ringing in
my ears sublimely. He would stop talking whenever he realised that the words
wouldn’t be enough to express himself. That time, his eyes would shine
brightly.
“She left for taking a round of sanctum’s periphery. Her
tresses neatly made as plait were hanging, moving elegantly. Her self-effacing
walk carried her grace ahead. An unquestionable thought of following her came
over my mind. I didn’t articulate it to make it known. At the start of the
sanctum’s periphery, there was a bael tree. The moon light was seen, speckled
through the leaves, like white patches. I kept telling myself, “O! My dear
lady! Please look at me”. She turned and looked at me. I could understand from
her eyes that she also conveyed the message ‘follow me.’ A sound was heard from
somewhere. It was the sound of a bat hanging with its head down. A sound that
gives a fear of death while laughing into the ears! Standing under the bael
tree, I kept looking at her. After that, I was walking ahead to follow her.”
The moon was throwing its light like a day. Just like her
elongated shadow that followed her, I too followed her behind. Just before the
turn at the corner, she turned to look at me. Her eyes seemed to be begging me
to withdraw the words I had spoken. She was looking beautiful even in her
distress. As I approached her closely, I was about to say, “I will do anything
for you.” But I could not complete the sentence. I returned hurriedly. She also
went to the sanctum periphery down. Then I reached you when you were standing
under the bael tree. Both of us reached home without talking about anything.”
When he stopped talking for some time, I asked him, “Who was
that girl? I couldn’t recollect who she was.” My question didn’t get into his
mind. He continued talking. I got angry.
“From that day onwards, I stopped going to temples. I don’t
know why I had stopped going. As a matter of temperament, I stopped going, I
thought.
“My mind couldn’t stay peaceful last night. It just started
wandering from nowhere. I left for the temple to have a “darshan” of God. I
started late anyway as I thought that there shouldn’t be much crowd in the
temple. While passing the big temple entrance, you could see the sanctum
sanctorum of the God.”
“A big lamp was burning near the Shiva Lingam for
a long time in a lonely silence as if it was glittering with the flame.
Suddenly, it disappeared for a while, came alive like before, and was seen
again in silence. Some unknown devotee went inside to worship the God. I was
walking slowly. The disappearance and appearance of the flame bore the
semblance of an imperishable light of the world left behind amidst the
indestructibility by the last man of the world who had completed his worship.
It all happened yesterday just to make the unignited flame burning inside me
burn with a magnificent glitter”.
“Now, she might be twenty-two years old. She was looking
cosmopolitan in her outlook. I saw her in the temple now, and it has caused a
pain in my heart. I have developed an inexplicable distaste towards her due to
this unexpected meeting. I thought that she had not understood me. Since my
thoughts pertaining to cosmopolitanism were not well rooted and I was also on
the verge of changing my mind, all her docility and cultured niceties had given
me a sort of solace. When I thought about the words I spoke to her earlier, it
was only her new appearance that gave me succour from hating myself. I hated
her with all my might. But when she was standing in front of God, she had got
all her cosmetics removed. Only at that time was I able to understand how
people could carry exquisiteness and make it possible to yield to their
impulses in front of The God.”
“The splendour of her meditation drove me mad. It made me
stand with an empty stare. Just a lasting presence of bliss! An ecstasy! As she
had turned, she saw me. She looked at the pillar on the opposite side intently.
Even I could see the statue of the lion, which stood as imperishable evidence
of my words springing to its feet, dance. I just looked up. Oh! My God! One
more statue of a lion was staring at me angrily, bending its head and looking
down. I got shocked when I saw her looking at the place where I was seeing. She
appeared like a woman giving me orders. Her eyes were piercing through me. Her
eyes moved out of me like a man disappearing after conveying half of his inner
secret to a madman in his daydream. Before my emotions became thoughts and
before my mind could understand what she had told, she had left me. When I
raised my bent head up, I saw that she turned towards me again. Two drops of
tears rolled down from her eyes like two diamonds shining in the deep, dark
tunnel.”
“I am the shadow of destiny. You are going to witness the
brutishness of the allurement of love in its fullness.”
“What did she say? What did she ask me to do? What else is
there for me to do? Isn’t it? Was everything just a dream? She didn’t speak.
Nothing is there in the sound. Is it there? In speech? In her body…cheee…cheee…
All are just meaningless. None of them could reveal the truth. Everything seems
to be so invisible. They elude like smoke even from the tight grip. These
pointing fingers are with us not only to make us realise that all are illusions
but also to make us disappear before we learn to go ahead through the way they
points at. What is left with us is nothing but a hope of reaching the right
path even by jumping out inadvertently amidst our confused efforts to find out
the way in darkness.”
“See that tree? Aren’t you able to see its stretched-out
branches and each of its atoms filled with life trying to merge with the azure
sky? When it dances, it searches for something in the space of the sky. It
searches for something blindly. Doesn’t it?”
It was fully dark. When he was looking at the space emptily,
I left him without informing him.
Once I stepped onto the street, I looked upwards. There, I
saw a countless number of stars in the curved sky of the night like dots drawn
by children on a blackboard. Despite pouring out all their brightness with
their intermittent sparkling, they remained there permanently, shining like
immortals without fear of getting melted. I heaved a sigh, exasperated not
being able to understand what was happening up there. I reached home, walking
nonchalantly.
He was not found at his home. I didn’t know where he had gone
and what for he had gone out. I didn’t know whether he knew about it either. It
was just a realization that “He” knew everything—if at all, he existed.
***End***
