The late afternoon glow is fading towards darkness. A cart full of paddy plods across the desolate fields. Suddenly the train clatters over a bridge and I see, down below,women filling pots by a river's edge. A flock of wild geese wing homewards across the reddening sky. I lean out of the window and look at the world in its wholeness. I think of millions of stars and planets in the sky, revolving in grandeur and harmony, never losing the beat of their music,never slipping into derangement. Then why is my life like a song trailing off into silence, a poem incomplete, a story half told? "We are nearing Varanasi" says the man next to me. The woman sitting on the opposite seat combs her hair and wipes her face with a towel. Her husband holds the baby clumsily. All around people are sitting up, stretching their arms and legs, taking stock of their luggage. |
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Then the baby begins to cry, his face puckered up and eyes shut tight. There is a short argument between the parents. The woman turns to me and says,"Behenji, can I have a little water? Chotu is thirsty". She eyes my thermos flask hanging on a hook by the windows. I shake my head, "No, I do not have water". They exchange glances,the man and the wife. The man shrugs, lifts the baby and walks up and down the aisle. The woman looks at me doubtfully and averts her face. I take the flask offthe hook and hold it in my lap. How do I tell her that it contains my husband's ashes? Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. It is faith that has brought me to Varanasi, this temple city by the Ganges, to scatter Amar's ashes in its eternal waters and say my final farewell. Those deep set laughing eyes, the firm determined chin, a birthmark between the shoulder blades, that throbbing heart, the voice that brought joy flooding in my entire being were contained in the ashes that I clung to three months after he was gone. It had been a slow excruciating death. Day after day I had watched over him as chemotherapy racked his body. Day after day I watched his gaunt, suffering face, and tried to avoid the question in his eyes. Why me? And in some particularly bad moment when he was about to give up the fight, I had squeezed his hand and murmured in his ear.Do not give up. What will Shonali Biswas say? And at the mention of that magic name, that code word which only he and I knew, a ghost of a smile flitted across his wan face and lighted up the gloomy hospital room. Shonali Biswas. The other woman in my husband's life. Who was everything that I was not. The eternal woman with the softness of down on the throat of a pigeon and the hardness of a glittering diamond. Shonali, with an insatiable appetite for love. Shonali with her taut pear shaped breasts and deep navel, challenging eyes and undulating hips. I knew about her the first time I met Amar. He stood in the middle of the hall, signing autographs, talking to reporters, while all around him were his vibrant canvasses. I roamed wonderingly across his world of uprooted tree, sinuous serpents, angry skies, strange forms
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that were half men, half beasts. Then I came across that magnificent nude sprawled across a huge canvas. "That's Shonali Biswas" said a deep voice by my side. "Do you like it ?" "Well, yes .... " I had mumbled, "How about coffee in the cafeteria downstairs ?" he had asked. That had been the beginning-the threshold of a new world. Three months later Amar and I were married. Except for man everything is fresh, because it is only man who carries the load, the luggage of memory. That is what Amar told me one dreamy, contemplative evening. That is why man becomes dirty, unc1ean,burdened. Existence is new and fresh. It carries no past and imagines no future. It is simply here, totally here. When you are carrying the past, much of your being is involved in the past. There must be intensity, total intensity. Let your whole life energy be focussed on the here and now . "But you live in the past too ........ " I had cried out. "Who is this Shonali Biswas you talk about?" He had thrown back his head and laughed, the deep, full throated laughter of the truly alive. "Shonali Biswas ? I myself don't know where I came across the name - from a book, or a film, or in my own fancies. I have never met her and perhaps never wilL ... She is the phantom woman that lends colour to my dreams. She is present in every beautiful woman but she is none of them .... You mustn't be jealous of her, my dear sweet foolish wife, because she does not exist, except in my mind - an abstract idea, a vision." "That's what I am afraid .... " I said with mock sadness. "She has power over your mind." So Shonali existed, in our silences and conversations. The more I was full of interpretations, the less was the possibility to know that which was. I saw Amar's eyes move restlessly across a roomful of beautiful perfectly made-up women and then his small, cynical smile. Shonali was not among them. As the years passed, it became a kind of |
joke between the two of us. He had not found his Shonali and would never will. And I would tease him about it until we both laughed and drew closer. And with a small, fierce tug of triumph I realised that it was I who alone possessed Amar - I, short, mousy diffident was the mate of this brilliant, difficult, gorgeous man. Kites soar in the still air and men, women and children wash in the slowly moving waters of the Ganges. It is soon after sunrise and the great amphitheatre the of ghats bursts into life. Under umbrellas made of dried leaves the more important devotees take their pfaces. In the excited throng venerable Brahmins recite passages from the sacred books to attentive audiences while about them surge ashsmearedfakirs, sacred bulls and cows, beggars, goats, barbers, boat-men and the shrill-voiced sellers of sweet- meats.Priests dispense powders of many hues to pilgrims to mark their foreheads in veneration of the gods. Children sell yellow and orange marigolds, white jasmine and rose petals. I have been here for two days. I have watched the beggars flocking to the temples, the hippies to the bhang addas by the ghats, the painted whores at street comers. It is a city that offers both vice and salvation. I am strangely soothed by its perpetual din, its restless movement, No one knows me or the grief that hangs like frost around my heart. Bells peal, conchshells blow, coins jingle. At Manikamika, where they bum the dead, I see a group of children play cowrie-shells right next to a corpse. Like others I throw coins on the river and watch the small boys dive in and retrieve them. I hear the bhajans by the widows of V aranasi and watch them beg at street comers. At the sanctum sanctorium of Vishwanathji's temple I bow my head before the flower bedecked deity. Give me strength to bid farewell ..... Late at night, I walk to the quiet and empty Kedar Ghat and sit on the cool dark steps. The moonlight silvers the ripples on the river. A cool, slightly dank breeze blows from the south. I wait on the bank and watch as a boat floats past. Then I gingerly step into the water. I stand knee deep in the water and watch the moon, the star-studded sky, the lights of the city, the domes of the temples. It is as if! am waiting for something to happen. In my heart of hearts a voice cries out. This is not the end. Amar, tell me you are alive, give me a |
sign that you exist somewhere in this universe, that your soul has triumphed over these ashes .... give me a sign, my darling, before I Ie you go ..... There is a soft splash in the water near me. A girl is wading toward' me. She holds a small tray in her hand. On it is a lighted diya and a garland of marigolds. By the light of the diya I can make out her heavily lashed eyes, a thin sweet face almost hidden by a cascade of curly hair. She is dressed in a ragged frock which does not fail to reveal the promise of a body ripening into womanhood. She wades towards me with a shy smile. "Take these, Didi .... " she says. "I have no money with me now ..... " "Take them. They are free ..... " I had wanted to be alone in my farewell to Amar, but somehow the presence of the girl provides a strange feeling of comfort. I uncork the flask and scatter the ashes over the water. Silently the girl puts the garland and the diya on the water and we both watch them float further and further away. Overcome by the terrible finality of my action I grip the girl's hand. Hand in hand we reach the steps of the ghat. "I must go, "she says, drawing away. "Wait, "I call out. "What's your name?" There is a pause. "Shonali,"says the girl softly. "Shonali Biswas". Then, light footed as a deer, she runs and is soon lost in the shadows. I draw a deep breath. The lights dance before my brimming eyes. I have just received a message ..... from beyond. I can almost hear Amar's laughter. |