A Life Misspent Read online

  I returned to my village a name in Hindi poetry, the object of wonderment among literary critics. From my village I went to Dalmau. Kulli met me there. He read the papers and knew of my reputation. He treated me with respect, feeling pride at his friend’s making a name in the world. He did not speak of the poets of his region as before; they did not rate high in the newspapers he was now reading. Besides, they were court poets, not independents like me.

  ‘Haven’t you married again?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I didn’t feel the need for it,’ I answered.

  ‘How do you manage?’

  ‘The way a widow manages.’

  ‘Widows get into all kinds of immorality.’

  ‘I must be doing the same,’ I said.

  My answer pleased Kulli. ‘But you know it is a sin.’

  ‘So long as there is virtue, too, the sins don’t matter. A spark of fire can burn down a barn.’

  ‘What is your view of society?’ he asked.

  ‘The traditions that come down to us are not of equal merit.’

  ‘What is your view of Hindu-Muslim relations?’

  ‘A Hindu can become a Muslim but not the other way around.’

  Kulli seemed satisfied with my answers. I did not know it then, but he was comparing his own life experiences with my views and finding that they matched. ‘There is a Muslim woman in my life,’ he ventured. ‘I love her, and for her part, she is willing to sacrifice her life for me. She wants to move in with me, but I am afraid of our guardians of morality.’

  ‘All the guardians need is something to occupy themselves with.’

  ‘So you think I should let her live with me?’

  I had witnessed Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta. Newspapers devoted many columns to such questions. Over inflammatory articles, Munshi Navjadiklal11 had Mahadev Babu12 imprisoned for four months. I was one of those who garlanded Mahadev Babu when he came out of jail. The spirit of the times was in me. ‘You must bring her home,’ I said passionately.

  Kulli was electrified by my response. ‘These impotent guardians of Hinduism want to make the rest of us impotent too.’

  ‘Present an example to them of how courageous people live.’

  Kulli rushed away to his beloved’s house to bring her home and set a suitable example.

  Twelve

  I moved to Lucknow soon afterwards. The Civil Disobedience movement was over; attention had shifted to the problem of the untouchables. I paid a visit to Dalmau and saw a new Kulli. He was a major figure in politics. Rae Bareli was the centre of political activity; Kulli had participated in various protests there. Dalmau was chosen as the site for manufacturing salt in defiance of British law. Kulli telephoned to say the police were going to fire on protesters using real bullets. The protest site was moved from the town of Dalmau to the city of Rae Bareli so the police action would draw notice.

  Kulli had begun to hate lawyers, policemen, government employees, temple pandits, landlords. He felt outraged by many Brahmins, too.

  He greeted me as a political leader greets a colleague.

  ‘How is the work going in your district?’ he asked.

  ‘What work?’

  ‘The work we are engaged in,’ he said with perplexity.

  ‘Political?’

  ‘Yes, the revolution.’

  ‘That’s over,’ I said.

  ‘How can things go forward then?’

  ‘I don’t know which move leads to what outcome. I don’t go along with everything. I mix in what I’ve read and heard with what I think on my own.’

  Kulli was satisfied. When one becomes a lamb, the other becomes confident of being the wolf. That’s the real reason meekness is praised in the world. I showed Kulli I was ordinary. He began to feel himself extraordinary in comparison.

  ‘I brought her home,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Whom?’

  ‘The Muslim woman.’

  ‘You have followed my advice. Remember when I told you to jump in the Ganga and you stood undecided on the riverbank?’

  ‘How have I jumped into the Ganga?’

  ‘The ancient books speak of woman as a river. The Ganga is the most excellent among rivers. You have brought the most excellent woman into your house.’

  ‘But people here don’t acknowledge her properly.’

  I gazed at Kulli’s walking stick. ‘They will acknowledge her when they see what kind of person she is. Nobody doubts that what you have in your hand is a walking stick.’

  Kulli looked at his walking stick appreciatively. ‘People make things difficult for her. I sent her for a darshan of Pathvari13 Devi. She was not even permitted to reach the temple door.

  ‘The goddess was instructing you. She is more the goddess of those who wish to approach her than of those who think her power works only in the temple.’

  ‘Ah, yes. She is goddess of the path, not of the temple. You are wise as Lord Ganesha,’ Kulli said, and drew an elephant trunk in the air.

  ‘Lord Ganesha…’ I began with half a mind to confound Kulli, ‘Lord Ganesha is as stupid as he is wise. In Bengali they call a person “foolish as an elephant”. A friend of mine went on a tiger hunt. He shot a tiger and covered it over with leaves. Then he climbed back onto the bamboo platform from which he had been hunting. He wanted to shoot a deer for his supper before heading home. But instead of deer, a herd of wild elephants came his way. You know no animal is more dangerous than a wild elephant. The elephant can shake a man down from a tree as we shake down plums. It can also reach with its trunk and tear the branch on which the man stands. My friend was a seasoned hunter. Luckily the platform he was hunting from was high. As soon as he saw the lead elephant smelling him out on the platform, he dropped his gun over the pile of leaves covering the tiger. The elephant broke the gun into two. By then my friend had a found a high branch to climb onto. The elephant grew curious about the mound and brushed some leaves aside. As soon as it saw the tiger, it broke into a run and the other elephants followed. My friend was saved, though that may just be a matter of chance. There is a lesson to be learned nonetheless. Where elephants oppress you the skin of a tiger offers protection. Brains are superior to brawn.’

  Kulli understood that the person who addressed him was not lacking in brains.

  ‘I have started a school for untouchables. About forty students attend. They are children of tanners, street sweepers, washermen and toddy gatherers. I am the principal teacher. I get no help from the worthies of our town. I went to the chairman of the municipality. He said nothing to encourage me in my endeavours. The riverside colony of mixed-caste Brahmins is indifferent to my project. Government officials keep plotting against me. I may have to return to the donkey work I was doing before I joined the Non-Cooperation movement.’

  Kulli will find a way to sustain his endeavour, I thought to myself, but I can be allowed some fun. I am descended from the Aryans who offered the soma elixir to the gods and whose progeny, as Kaka Kalelkar reminds us, are permitted the use of toddy.

  I said excitedly, ‘Write to Mahatma Gandhi.’

  ‘At what address shall I write to him?’ Kulli spoke with relief as if I had shown him the way. He took out his notebook and jotted down the address. ‘Is there anyone else I should write to?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Write to Jawaharlal Nehru.’

  ‘Is the address Anand Bhavan, Allahabad?’

  ‘Or you could just write, Freedom House,14 Allahabad,’ I responded.

  He noted this down too.

  ‘Please come visit us,’ he added. ‘I can show you our work and you can meet my wife.’

  ‘What colour is her skin? Light or dark?’

  Kulli smiled. ‘Judge for yourself.’

  ‘Does she have any talents?’ I asked like a fashionably modern person.

  ‘She recites the Ramayana well,’ Kulli answered gravely. ‘She was just over at the Raja of Shivgarh’s, who was pleased at her recitation.’ I was tempted to ask whether the Raja had merely expres
sed pleasure or made a monetary gift as well, but I thought the question might seem rude.

  ‘When will you visit the school?’

  I wished to respond directly where untouchables were concerned. ‘Tell me which day would be convenient for you. Shall we say the day after tomorrow? You could get word out and I could meet the full assembly of children.’

  Kulli agreed. He said namaste and took his leave.

  I went to Mrs Mukhopadhyay’s house. She was a government doctor specializing in women’s health and prenatal care. At the time I am speaking of, her husband had come from Bengal to be with her. I believe Mrs Mukhopadhyay was his second or third wife. They were blessed with one son and seven or eight daughters. A person seeing Mrs Mukhopadhyay and her daughters going for a bath in the Ganga would be reminded of ‘Boys to Lilliput’. Mr Mukhopadhyay was the doubting sort. His suspicions lighted on any government official who came to visit the government lady doctor. The couple quarrelled frequently; old Mr Mukhopadhyay seldom got a full night’s rest. The people with nothing better to do took sadistic pleasure in dropping in to visit them early in the morning.

  I got to know them through a common friend who was a high-ranking Brahmin. He gave Mr Mukhopadhyay from Bengal the kind of regard that citizens of Bombay and Calcutta offer to non-metropolitan Indians. Mr Mukhopadhyay complained frequently about his domestic situation. On one such occasion, I asked him if he wanted to come to my house for a change and share a meal with me. Mr Mukhopadhyay accepted my invitation gladly. I was now counted among the regular visitors to his house. The government veterinarian, who was also Bengali, was another regular visitor. The Muslim Assistant Revenue Officer would also drop in. None of these people seemed impressed by Kulli. ‘Kulli is doing such good work. Why don’t you show some support for him?’ I would ask.

  ‘He is educating untouchable children for his own reasons,’ they said. ‘What he is looking for is a political base for himself. How much can he teach anyway? He is not too bright. All these Congress Party people are not too bright. And don’t forget Kulli has gone ahead and brought a Muslim woman to live with him. He has had the purification rituals done in Ayodhya, he says. He even found a guru who breathed the initiation mantra into her ear. But a person doesn’t become a scholar or teacher or reformer because someone breathes something into an ear. A person remains who he or she is. His woman wears tulsi beads around her neck. What hypocrisy!’

  Kulli came two days later and escorted me to his school. There was a stretch of level ground in front of Kulli’s house. Bamboo mats were laid out on the dirt. Eager students sat cross-legged on the mats. Trees grew in a hollow to one side, their leaves fluttering in the morning air. Kulli had the serene look of an ancient yogi in the forest. Some parents had heard I would be visiting the school. They came bearing small bouquets of flowers wrapped in leaves.

  No one had treated these untouchables as equals for centuries. They had passed on to the other side, generation after generation, heads bowed low. There was no record of them in the world’s history books. They could not say with pride that their ancestors composed the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. They could not say they were descended from King Ashoka or King Vikramaditya or King Harshavardhan or King Prithviraj. My mind clouded. I felt that what I had studied was worth nothing. What I had done was worth nothing. What I had dreamt of was worth nothing. Kulli was the true doer, the one lion among jackals. He was not well educated, but he transmitted sincerely everything he knew. The light of his sincerity shone in the faces of his pupils. My eyes held back tears.

  Before I knew it, without hymn or ceremony, the unkempt tanners, street sweepers, washermen and toddy gatherers moved towards me. They laid their leaf-wrapped bouquets in front of me, afraid that if they touched me I would be defiled and would have to bathe again to become clean. My own civilization had made them lowly. They kept their heads bowed.

  Kulli urged them forward. He told them I was one of them, that I sought their welfare, that I knew them to be equals. A current of happiness passed through them. Without cynicism they took me to be who Kulli said I was. I flushed from the purity of their intention. There was no room for cleverness here. My being a poet of God and beauty and splendour was worth nothing. My being a revolutionary was worth even less.

  I composed myself. ‘Please lay the bouquets in my hands the way brothers offer flowers to one another.’ They smiled and came forward. The differences of bodies melted away. We were one spirit.

  I did not stay long that day. After asking students a few questions about their exercises, I returned to the house of my in-laws.

  Thirteen

  Kulli visited me the following morning. ‘I lost whatever social sympathy I enjoyed once I opened the school for untouchables. People seem keen on furthering their own advantage and not the least bit interested in allowing their neighbour a little opportunity. I understand well why India is a slave nation.’

  ‘I ran into some government officials,’ I told him. ‘They were unhappy with your activities. Perhaps your work shows them up. Although they are servants of the government, they think they are the real power. Your activities remind them that human power vests in people like you.’

  Kulli laughed. ‘There’s another problem. I live here. I am privy to what is going on. I know the inside stories and I share them with other people. The lady doctor in town is on the government payroll, but she charges a fee for attending to deliveries. I suggested to a pregnant washerwoman that she should call the doctor when she was in labour and not offer money. The washerwoman followed my counsel. The lady doctor was unhappy. The government veterinarian charges a fee for services that should be free. He is Muslim, and particularly unhappy that I have brought a Muslim woman to live with me. Doesn’t he sing Ghalib’s ghazal, ‘Dil hi to hai na sango-khisht dard se bhar na aye kyon?’ (It’s a heart, not a stone; why shouldn’t it fill with pain?’) Is it only Muslims who can feel for others? Are all Hindus faint of heart, mere traders who understand nothing beyond sacks of grain and monies receivable? I don’t know what to do. I want to be accepted by others.’

  ‘The Ganga that flows through you,’ I responded, ‘is the real Ganga. Literal-minded people think the Ganga is the river they see with their eyes. The untouchables will be purified in the Ganga you are directing towards them. But you should ask for some donations. How else will you manage?’

  ‘They are very poor. I used to be a landlord. People still call me headman and think of me as a man of means. I can’t ask my pupils for fees. I do ask them to bring me oil for the lamps at night. Night time is the only time older boys are free to come for lessons.’

  ‘I have heard you performed ritual purification for your wife.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kulli admitted with a smile. ‘I took her to Ayodhya and had her receive mantra from a guru. But Hindus aren’t the accommodating sort. They said I had hung tulsi beads around a cat’s neck and was now declaring the cat Hindu. The Maheshgiri ashram has promised a monthly contribution to the school. I approached Kunvar Sahib, who is chairman of the trust. He said I would receive money from them soon. But, in general, people are not favourably disposed to me.’

  ‘Who are the people who stand in your way? I can talk to them.’

  ‘It won’t help,’ Kulli said.

  I repeated my request and Kulli named a few of those who were opposed.

  ‘What do they have against you?’

  ‘When I came back after my wife’s purification, one of these worthies asked me which guru had breathed the sacred initiation in my wife’s ear. I told them who the guru was. They sent a messenger to Ayodhya. He asked at the guru’s ashram whether they knew what caste Kulli’s wife was before initiating her. The guru’s disciple made inquiries and answered they knew only that the woman was Kulli’s wife. The messenger from Dalmau told them in Ayodhya that they had been deceived. The woman was Muslim. The news caused a sensation in the ashram. What would happen to donations if word of the initiation got around? The Babri Masjid matter had shar
pened tension between Hindus and Muslims. Hindus claimed the Muslim mosque had been built on top of the birthplace of Lord Ram. Things could get out of control at any time. “You can go back to your town,” the disciple told the messenger. “We will take care of the man who deceived us.” The messenger came back to Dalmau. I received a letter in the mail. “You deceived us. Return the sacred beads and mantra to us. Otherwise, we will reverse the effect of the initiation through our spiritual powers. You may come to harm.”’

  ‘So you don’t have any rights in the matter?’

  ‘I have all the rights any living person has, and in any case I don’t believe in these rituals, but those who do believe must abide by the guru’s instructions. I did as they said.’

  ‘Did you express your view on the subject?’

  ‘I did, and the guru had nothing to say. You are a hypocrite if you can’t accept a Muslim woman who asks for the mantra. There is no spirituality in your work, only commerce. You can reverse the initiation as much as you like. Your threats are useless. Hindus have tricked society for a long time, but they will not prevail against this woman. She is made of the same stuff as Kabir. She has faith in the God in her heart. This is how sage Ramanand spoke as he accepted the Muslim Kabir as his disciple. And because of that initiation, a thousand gurus like you became Kabir’s disciples. He led Hindus round in a circle. He led Muslims round in a circle. He was a first class idiot.’ Kulli said vehemently.

  ‘Did you write to Mahatma Gandhi?’ I asked.

  ‘He must be a hypocrite like the others,’ Kulli said.

  ‘Maybe not,’ I replied. ‘He has committed an entire year to untouchability reform. He is planning a reform tour from one corner of the country to the other.’