Chapter 1
The flames tossed and licked the cold damp darkness. The silky ribbons of fire in dazzling yellow frilled with bluish orange flickered and danced rising from the blooming red core. The sizzling sound of the burning firewood conveyed a sense of urgency in the burning process. The insistence to reduce into a mound of ashes seemed to murmur in the swift stillness of the passing moments. The plumes of smoke rising from the fire, romancing with the distant silence of the Burning Ghat( Hindu crematorium on the bank of a river), gradually faded away into the extended haze of the river Ganga. The burbling murmur of the ripples and the sputtering of the firewood logs rustled through the noises of the emptiness of the night. The crackle in the fire, the smell of the smoke, the logs splitting and wrinkling along a certain indefinite line as if responding sensually to the caress of the kissing flames, everything whispered an unuttered oath of secrecy on the moments. They were as if taking a pledge, that remains unconditional and free of any liabilities, yet ties with a knot-free bond.
“Rup, do you know one thing? Your touch is immortal for me. You play a melody through my senses as the melody of the Lord’s flute touches even the heart of a stone with its infinite vibes and loses every bond of restrain into the eternal joy of surrender” Naina had said one evening while posing for her portrait in the light of the languidly setting sun.
“I don’t understand what is so special that you find in my touches, Naina. I only absorb the shades of your emotions and blooming expressions” I said softly in her ears, my lacing fingers and caressing lips playing on the strings of the lute of her sensuality. She was responding to my each and every touch so appealingly without any dramatic exaggeration that she appeared like a visual melody. “Rup, you leave a wonderful and detailed impression in my senses that I would carry like a secret till my last breath as fairy tales carry magic” she murmured. The golden pink rays streaming in through the window were playing charm on her radiant beauty. I took her instinctively into my arms, embracing her from her back, and lightly grazed my thirsty lips on her smooth buttery nape. Her parted lips were tracing out a smile of pleasure, the most appealing and soft smile I had ever seen. She was quivering like tiny ripples of a stream fondled by the gust of passing breeze and was gradually melting in a smooth tenderness as my hot breathing lips travelled down her spine up to the deep round cut of her red brocade blouse. Naina’s half-closed eyes were looking like the pink petals of a lotus bud that cannot take the burden of the radiant beauty of the proposing season anymore and gradually opens up its tightly shut petals for blooming slowly.
“Rup” she moaned in a whispering and appealing tone, ”Rup, please let me go now, don’t be so passionate, please go away from me, go very far away from me, I can’t bear the warmth of your caresses anymore, you are shattering my shell of oath to my own self. Please don’t be so cruel to me Rup. I can endure anything but the softness of love. Don’t kiss me so lovingly. It will weaken and ruin me from within. Do not spoil me with your love. You don’t know the ecstasy in the joy of suffering, Rup, you don’t know”.
An exaltation of sorrow possessed her as she wanted to be away from my loving embrace when she was actually binding me more and more close into her arms as the delicate creepers wind softly around a strong branch of a tree. She turned towards me and held up her face to me, her eyes still remaining half closed. As I held her clammy face and lingered over the nectar of her silky lips breathing warm and restless, my trembling hands tracing her nice curves along her waist gradually seeking the throb around her bust, transfiguring her sizzling passion into a thrill of exquisite sparkling pleasure, kissing her again and again, I was drowning into the whirlpool of Naina’s magnificence. The resonance of our silent music of joy melted into one luscious harmony.” I’ll hold you captive today, Naina. I’ll capture you with my endless touches in the mesh of my delight forever”.
But what is permanent here? It has always been my endeavour to sit face to face with life and dedicate my life to my art, giving a form and texture to the fleeting permanence of everything that you indulge in. I intend to pluck the flower of life at its full glory before it outgrows its essence and droops down, finally crumbling into a hollow shape of nothingness. The pain of detaching the flower from its stalk is like the liberty of the soul leaving the bond of attachment with the body it lived in; the body being its decorated prison with gold bars, which had held it so long for the entire lifetime.
It appeared as if sitting on the old stairs of the Manikarnika Ghat of Varanasi, I could hear the light jingling of the ornaments which I was taking off one by one slowly from Naina’s ears, wrists, neck, and from the parting of her hair at the crown of her head. When I had unhooked her anklets and kissed on her toes, first lightly and softly and then with a persistent urge, she laid down on the floor gradually losing the firmness of her upright position like a withered flower, surrendering to the joy of disintegrating. I finally detached her nose ring with a delicate touch. She was looking like a goddess, splendid and artful without any adornments, her loose snaky curls falling unbound on her sweaty temples and cheeks, as I had pulled out all the crooked clips and clutches that had held her hair in a messy chignon at the back of her head.
I had visited the Manikarnika cremation Ghat in Varanasi many years earlier for a live painting experience as a learner. It is said that this sacred Ghat in Varanasi bears the legacy of the most ancient funeral pyre, the ‘chita’ and it has been kept burning for many decades or more and will continue to be so throughout the age to come. The never-ending sacred flame of the pyres at Manikarnika Ghat burns the sleep into ashes; the dreams continue to smoulder.
I had imprisoned such delicate textures of intermingling flames in my canvas while making the portrait of an old beggar woman cooking a handful of rice in a blackened utensil on the crude flames of raw firewood sitting beside a footpath along a posh street. Kolkata, the city of joy, has always been a promising destination for artists from every form of art and culture. As an evolving painter, I too had tried my luck in Kolkata for several years. It is not that I had been an utter failure there. But my vagabond and wayward mind always finds a beautiful turn or bend on the straight easy flowing certainty of life where it tends to divert in search of the fascinating and unexplored creeks of the river of life.
The wrinkles and shades of poverty of the old woman were illuminated in the mysterious dazzle of the smoky fire. The beauty of sorrow and despair that framed her aged face, the lines of prolonged absence of happiness creeping through her coarse skin texture, appealed to my pure artistic mind. As a painter, I looked at the contrast of roaring colours of the flames set against the heaviness of the indifferent night. The wisps of smoke that were curling upwards, increased the mysterious intensity of the portrait. I was so engrossed in exhibiting the fanciful illustration of her lines of worries and grimaces of pain on her face which got vivified absorbing the flares and flickers of the fire that I missed out on her bare suffering of poverty and lack of a proper shelter, staying under a roofless sky. My eyes saw the thin wreaths of smoke gradually fading away into the blue conscience of the night. My heart forgot to notice the torment of her glowing anguish in the depth of her old eyes as she was gazing intently at the evaporating depth of the boiling water which was juggling with merely a handful of rice in it.
Now, the surrounding darkness around the funeral pyre was gradually getting dizzy and clumsy like a drunkard who tries to locate his home, unstable, and unsure of his own steps, while returning through the deserted lane at night. While I was sitting on the steps of the cremation Ghat waiting patiently with an empty mind for the last stroke of flames to get fainter and die out quietly in the rustle of the chirruping morning birds, I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. As I turned my neck to see who it was, a calm and peaceful voice said “the world is a vast cremation ground or a graveyard that keeps blooming in a charming colourful way to fascinate and trap fleeting lives for its pollination. Don’t feel sad about the death of your dear ones. Don’t take away the charm of the soul that is passing through the marvelous layers of forgetfulness, growing fainter and fainter to merge into oblivion. Don’t you see how ornamental are the smokes of the dying out pyre, how like garlands they are greeting the distant immortality!”
She stepped one stair down. Sitting beside me she handed me a small paper cup of hot fuming tea. I looked at her wide, calm eyes and wanted to ask frowning,” may I know your identity? It’s quite strange, the ease and confidence with which you are speaking with a stranger like me”. But instead of asking anything I simply said, “thanks for the tea.” Perhaps I was feeling too tired to speak or inquire. Feeling insipid and disconnected from the present concerns, I was seeking the vague and the oblivion.
“Neither a friend nor an enemy I am. Maybe I am a mere acquaintance, a brief story without a beginning or an end. I like to meet with people who won’t try to understand me or but would know me as birds know the sky” she replied to my unuttered words looking at the distant ripples of the Ganga. The flowing rhythm of the water current reflected the bunch of flames from the funeral pyres. But the flames were losing their sharpness of colours. The whispering city lights from high-rise buildings, so long dazzling on the far-off opposite banks of the river in the smooth darkness of the night were disappearing into the sparkles of the flakes of the morning.
“Let’s go home now uncle. I am feeling sleepy” little Mohini cuddled into my lap and fell asleep. I patted her back and tucked the bunch of loose hairs at the back of her ear that was falling on her cheeks. I couldn’t leave the place till the whole body of Naina burns into ashes. The Dom (a Hindu caste who performs the duty of burning the dead and looking after the crematorium; these sects are also considered to be untouchables) poked and stirred up the fire of the pyre from time to time for better burning. If left unattended by the family members of the corpse till the end when the whole body is being turned into ashes, some of the body parts of the abandoned half-burned corpses are seen to be exhumed and dragged away by the dogs.
Dawn was beginning to wash away the darkness of the eastern corner of the sky. New corpses arrived on bamboo stretchers carried by men chanting “Ram naam satya hai” (Lord Ram is the ultimate truth). The stairs to the bank of the river were looking like the creases of a dirty and untidy bed. Garlands and wreaths of flowers, sheets of discarded cloths, earthen pots used in the funeral rites, and many such trivial things lay scattered on the wet stairs.
I was watching at the unaffected expression of the Dom who might have spent the most beautiful phases of his life doing this work of burning dead bodies breathing in the frustrating smoke and tackling the fire. I wondered if he would be able to stay so mechanical when he might have to watch the burning corpse of someone who is very close to his heart till it melts in the fire, the hands and legs dangling loosely like that of a broken doll, the entire face slowly getting out of shape and reducing into a hollow shapeless mound of futile flesh filling the air with an infuriating smoke, finally the entire existence turning into ashes.
“What are you watching so intently? We are so habituated with such scenes day and night that death appears to us as simple and unnoticeable as breathing. Nothing seems horrible or awful to us in these numerous burning corpses. My son sells different types of flavoured tea, coffee, and roasted peanuts here at this Manikarnika Ghat. Hot fuming tea or coffee and a handful of peanuts assert and approve the desire to continue with life, though the dead person’s process of vanishing into the sphere of the unknown proclaims all emotional control of his dear ones.” said the woman sitting beside me.
“People still insist on their choice of tea flavours, be it lemon tea, masala tea, milk tea with ginger, cardamom, sugar or without sugar, black coffee or coffee with milk, etc. The options somehow provide them temporary relief and distraction from the overbearing dedication to the sense of loss” she continued throwing away the empty paper cup of tea into a waste heap of decaying garlands.
In the candid brightness of her large black eyes, I could see a charming spirit that triumphs over all monotonous emotions with the secret of a subtle sentiment.
As I could see she was wearing a borderless plain white sari like a conventional Hindu widow, I asked “what else do you do to earn your living? Does your son earn enough by selling tea at this cremation Ghat?”
“I sell garlands, flowers, incense sticks, earthen funeral urns, and all the other essential items required for the funeral rites. This cremation Ghat remains so crowded with dead bodies day and night that none of my days go without any earning. Our living thrives on the ceremony of death. The more the dead bodies, the more our earning” she said simply. As breathing, the prime necessity of life goes on unnoticed, so also the deep effect of her words kept my thoughts alive remaining unimportant but poignant.
“Please keep this token amount from me for the nice tea, “I said offering her a small amount of money taking it out of my wallet.
“I will take it when I need it; keep it with you for now. I offered the tea as a well-wisher only to melt away your intense sorrow a bit, that’s all” she said casually with a dry smile on her lips. Then gazing at the distant fringes of trees on the other bank of the Ganga she continued “No one lives in this house forever; many smiles and laughter, quarrels and disputes, unfinished works, scratches and wounds, carefree days, responsibilities, everything remains insoluble, floating like spilled oil on the flow of water. Our forms dissolve into the haze of oblivious eternity. Our body leaves this rented house, our essence of lifelong presence remains in the oily patches on the walls, door handles, thrown away bookmarks, unused or empty strips of daily medicines, old calendars, quick pencil strokes of childhood art on the walls and so many trivial things. Have you ever noticed a thousand hues of swarming colours that shine on a patch of spilt oil floating on water? “
“You speak like a philosopher as if you have a vast knowledge about the ways of life and the obscurity of death,” I said looking at the mound of flickering ashes of Naina gradually reducing into a pile of creased silvery wakefulness. Her dreamy eyes, sensuous lips, cascading curls of tresses, smooth neck, nicely shaped breasts, her sweet smile, her warm fragrance like that of sylvan promises, everything has now nourished the fire and the hollow flames. The tossing and turning wakeful fire have consumed her all as sleep remains awake while swallowing and absorbing the dreams.
Little Mohini was fast asleep in my lap. I laced my fingers lovingly into her untidy locks. A dull smoky voice appeared to whisper in my mind “See Rup, how beautiful is the unfolding morning shivering on the Ganga. Will you take me once to the Kashi Vishwanath temple any day? I have dreamt of going there”.
“O, by the way, I have not asked your name yet. You don’t look like the local people here. Are you from some distant Himalayan village?” I asked getting up, preparing to leave the place.
“I am from a small village in Lahaul in Northern India among the Himalayas” she replied and added “I had lost my husband in an accident. At Lahaul, we had small farms on the mountainsides at a high altitude. The harsh mountain winter made the planting season very tough and difficult. We used to work very hard through the seasons of rough winters, our palms and fingers getting coarse tilling soil. We hardly had any time for entertainment”.
“So you came here in search of a living and a comparatively easy life?” I said in a concluding tone in response to her story.
“My mother always used to say ‘Rajo, I don’t want you to stay here at Lahaul; this remote and isolated pocket of the mountains, remaining cut off from the rest of the world by six months of heavy snowfall, will always keep you static throughout your entire life. Find some way out of this shrinking handful of people and live your life. Don’t live the life of a living ghost like me Rajo, chained to the centuries-old persistent practice of multiple brothers marrying one wife. It’s miserable, insulting, and painful to live as a breeding machine, producing six or seven children at least’ ‘’ saying this she stopped for a while.
In the golden early morning light, I noticed for the first time the captivating yet simple and rustic beauty of the hilly girl Rajo.
“My husband got the job of a driver when proper roads snaked into the solitary slopes of the steep mountains, letting in the tourists from the outside world. Things started changing with education, prospects of various jobs, communication with the outer world, internet and medical facilities” continued Rajo.
“Time has changed a lot. My husband saved up some money to buy a plot of land here at Varanasi as he got a job and made a small brick house”, Rajo stopped telling that much of her story and seemed lost in her own thoughts. ting here…
