The Fifth Man (12 page)

Esha said, ‘But it isn’t impossible that an ancient Aryan race would consider alcohol a necessity of life. They came from very cold areas, after all. What if they expressed the folk memory of this addiction as myth?’

Aritra said, ‘I think the myth of the churning of the oceans is a fertility myth. The sea is the vagina and Mandar hill is a symbol of the penis. Those who emerged— Lakshmi, Urvashi, Apsara, Dhanwantari—are the results of this sexual act.’

Bikram had been listening open-mouthed. ‘Bravo, Chowdhury-da, bravo!’ he said. ‘You’ve beaten even the latest American porn hollow.’

Mahanam asked in surprise, ‘Did you read this somewhere, Aritra? Or is it your own conclusion?’

Aritra said, ‘Someone else may have said it too. But I don’t recall reading it. It occurred to me right now.’

Bikram was about to toss away the cigarette he’d been smoking. Seema grabbed his elbow from the back, saying, ‘How can you pollute a temple?’

‘Where should I get rid of this then?’ asked Bikram irritably.

‘Give it to me.’ Seema stubbed it out on the handle of her umbrella, and then put it in a polythene packet which she took out of her bag.’

‘How resourceful you are,’ said Mahanam with a smile. ‘Do you always have packets like that?’

‘I have no choice,’ said Seema. ‘Given his habits, he could litter anywhere, who else but me will clean up after him?’

Mahanam exchanged glances of astonishment with Esha. ‘Really Seemachalam, you are fantastic,’ said Aritra.

They continued viewing the relief sculptures on the walls of the temple, eventually joining the other tourists. Carved in rock but delicate, frozen in stone forever but soaring. They had no wings like the angels in Christian images, and yet there could be no doubt from their postures that they were completely free of terrestrial gravity. The scientist’s way of converting solid matter to energy leads to explosions that can destroy the world, but the artist’s way results in explosions of pure joy. This flying, living stone had made humans feel lighter in their hearts for aeons.

The others had walked on ahead. Even after Esha had photographed the statue of the dancing Shiva, she remained standing before it. Bowing to it in her head. When she saw Bikram return, she started moving again. Almost like the figure of Nataraj.

When they came out of the Kailash temple, Neelam said, ‘I have no wish to see the Jain caves. I’m going to sit in the car.’

The guide said, ‘Come in December or January next time, Madam. Aurangabad is hot in any case because it is in the shadow of the monsoon, and moreover these regions are built on lava. The soil is not very deep here.’

They stood in the open expanse. Bikram and Aritra took group photographs. Esha said, ‘You took so many pictures of architecture and sculptures, Mahanam-da, but not a single one of people. So human memories have no value for you?’

When Mahanam pointed his camera like an embarrassed, obedient adolescent, even Bikram started laughing. Hiding her face with her hands, Esha said, smiling, ‘I won’t let you photograph me.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Ari. ‘All of you are in my photos. Neelam ran away, but I know a studio, you’ll see how I can include her too.’

‘Are you a very good photographer, Ari?’ asked Mahanam. ‘What camera do you use?’

‘A very old Roliflex.’

‘If some of my photographs don’t turn out well, will you give me some prints of yours?’

‘Of course,’ said Aritra. ‘I should give them anyway as fees for your services as a guide. To tell you the truth, Mahanam-da, it was this Kailash temple that appealed to me the most. Any idea why?’

Mahanam said, ‘When art reaches a great height, it acquires a new dimension. The statue of Bahubali at Shravanabelagola or the chariot at Mahabalipuram made me realize this. We consider the sky and the earth, mountains and oceans, the creation of god—but all these sculptures and architectural works approach them in greatness.’

‘Doesn’t talent count?’ said Esha. ‘The expressions, postures, hand movement. The Mukteshwar temple in Orissa might be a plaything compared to Konark or Lingaraja, but it’s exquisite.’

‘Of course it counts. If the sky and the sea and the mountain are the backdrop, trees and creatures and fruits and flowers are the details. The Kailash temple is a manifestation of this enormous global backdrop, and all the carvings, sculptures and figures on its walls are the details.’

Esha said, ‘Mahanam-da, all the art in the world, especially from the ancient world, are based on religion, and yet this same religion, the bearer of the magnificent, is now the most hostile to us.’

‘Actually, Esha, religion too is another expression for our desire for find excesses in our lives. I believe the same inspiration is at work behind religion and behind art. Wonder, reverence, our humble submission to vastness— all of these found one form of expression in religion, and another in art. Naturally, the two merged. But with the passage of time, the more religion acquired the weaknesses of institutionalization and of narrow rituals, along with flawed principles, the more its gulf with art widened.’

Aritra said, ‘The number of religions keeps multiplying too. The Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Sikh faiths are not enough anymore. Shakta, Shaiva, Vaishnav, Orthodox Greek, Church of England, Unitarian— hundreds of branches. Now there’s a new faith named Ba’hai. Today’s Iskcon doesn’t seem to be the old Vaishnav sect either.’

‘These things are not as much a part of religious studies as they are of sociology, Aritra,’ said Mahanam. ‘The sects you mention are mostly the result of reforms in existing religions. Christianity was born to reform Judaism. The Brahmo and Sikh faiths were both revolutions aimed at reforming Hinduism. I believe even the Ba’hai faith is an attempt to reform Islam.’

Esha went for a bath after finishing her letter to Piku. Four multiplied by two: eight pages. Piku must have been expecting a letter much earlier. But Esha had not been in touch since sending a telegram after her arrival in Pune. The phase of her life with which she had been reconnected in Pune had no relationship with Piku. My friend and his wife are taking very good care of me, I like their daughter very much—she could have written a non-committal letter to this effect, but Piku wouldn’t have been satisfied. And yet, if she were to write, many other things would have crept in—how Priyalkarnagar had peeled layers of skin off her mind like an onion, the drama of unravelling the knots of memory, sadness, enjoyment and complexity, the joy and fear of being reunited with people she had known. Today’s experience had been much more impersonal in comparison. So she had no hesitation writing tonight. During her bath she had realized that even fatigue could be enjoyable. She had paused to explore all the important places in Aurangabad—Bibi ka Maqbara, Aurangzeb’s grave, everything—and collected scenes and information for Piku’s benefit. Roasted in the sun, their hair unkempt, half a dozen humans returned to the rest house. Bikram and Seema had sung songs all evening, their energy was inexhaustible. Fatigue had wrapped her in its arms. A luxurious idleness.

Esha entered the room she was sharing with Seema and Neelam, filling it with the lovely fragrance of soap and talcum powder. In her pink nightdress Seema looked like a nylon doll lying on the bed and cleaning the cream off her face. Neelam lay on her stomach, letting the fan cool her back. Taking in the scene with a single glance, Esha began to comb her hair. Watching others rest made her own body feel restful.

Sitting up, Seema suddenly asked, ‘Why didn’t you get married, Esha-di?’

Braiding her hair, Esha said, ‘Just didn’t get round to it.’

Seema said, ‘Women like you shouldn’t stay unmarried.’

‘But why?’ smiled Esha. ‘Do you want everyone’s wings to be clipped because you’ve chosen to clip yours?’

‘That’s not it,’ said Seema. ‘How else will you protect yourself in a male-dominated world?’

‘I’m doing it. Have been doing it all this while.’

‘You know,’ said Seema, ‘when an attractive object is unclaimed people assume it’s public property.’

Esha stopped smiling. ‘Do you consider yourself an object, Seema? As property? Still?’

‘Whether I do or not, Esha-di, it doesn’t stop people from thinking that way.’

Esha said sadly, ‘I cannot think of myself that way, so I don’t think about what people think either. I’m mortified to know you do. Please Seema, don’t think of yourself or me as an object.’

‘What choice do I have?’ said Seema. ‘That’s what the men in our society think. Perhaps because they have to take the responsibility for protecting us.’

‘Maybe men don’t think that way, Seema, maybe we force them. You shouldn’t be too dependent on anyone. The police and the military for instance are there to protect us. Does that mean they should consider people objects or their own property? Society will always have a division of labour, according to each one’s strengths. Why not prepare yourself in a way that lets some people depend on you too?’

‘The person who’s supposed to depend on me, Tito, is learning to depend on other people in Dehradun, Esha-di. And Tito’s father? He is completely independent.’

‘If Tito’s father is independent, you should be, too. By not depending on you he’s ensuring you’re not a prisoner. What’s coming in the way of your independence, then?’

Seema began to laugh. ‘You don’t know, Esha-di, some people’s independence comes from the dependence of others.’

Esha said, ‘No Seema, I’ve noticed that women feel a certain glory in considering themselves beholden to their husbands or to other men. “Let me ask him, he doesn’t want to, he was saying . . .” you will often hear such statements from women who are well-educated, possibly financially independent too. I don’t know if this is a psychological explanation, but I think you too feel proud to think of yourself as your husband’s property, you consider yourself far superior to independent women like me, isn’t that so?’

‘Are you angry with me, Esha-di?’

Neelam had been listening quietly all this while. Now she said, ‘Expressions like “unclaimed” or “public property” are not at all respectful, Seema. I don’t know why you used them.’

Esha intervened quickly, ‘That’s not exactly what Seema meant, Neelam, I understand the points she’s making. I’m not angry, merely a little worked up. But my experience shows that women are very complex characters. They don’t know what they want. They’re caught up in doubts about everything. Wanting and not wanting at the same time. I don’t know why this is so.’

Neelam sat up. ‘You’re absolutely right, Esha. Wanting and not wanting at the same time. Why? Why are we so bizarre?’

Seema said, ‘So you too suffer from wanting and not wanting at the same time, Esha-di? What if this is a general characteristic of all women?’

‘No Seema, I don’t suffer from it,’ said Esha. ‘Perhaps I’m not entirely a woman in that case. When I want something it’s never by mistake. If there’s a valid reason, such as this tremendous urge to visit Ajanta and Ellora, I do whatever possible to make it happen. And I certainly do not feel afterwards that I didn’t want to, that I was wrong. But I suffer from a different illness, though you have to think about whether to call it an illness or not, which is to have something and yet not have it at the same time.’

‘What on earth is that?’ asked Seema curiously.

‘You’re a child, you won’t understand,’ Neelam told her.

Seema said in a small voice, ‘No Neelam-di, my son is thirteen, I’ve been married fifteen years. I understand very well what it is to have and yet not have something. I understand mine. I was only trying to understand what it means for others, for Esha-di, for you.’

The chirping of crickets had begun. The bright light in the lawn was switched off, leaving only a dim glow. Night meant peace. Daylight never seemed to wane here. The sleeping buses were visible at a distance through the window. They would stretch and start moving again tomorrow morning. How deep their repose was. But every time Aritra closed his eyes he could see ugly scenes. Only if he was secure about Neelam could he turn his attention fully to Esha. But Neelam wasn’t offering him that certainty. She had summoned Bikram, and Mahanam had floated up from some distant past. She had informed Mahanam that she was the mother of his child. Mahanam hadn’t even known. She had invited him home and given him lunch. And it was primarily she who had brought him on this trip. Mahanam would have come anyway, but getting him to accompany Aritra and Esha was a tactical move on Neelam’s part. Aritra Chowdhury was about to be checkmated by a pawn. Bikram Seal was blocking his way on one side, and Mahanam Roy on the other. Neelam herself was positioned in a third direction, holding the scales of blindfolded justice in to weigh his achievements and failures. But a river long forgotten had roared back into his bloodstream. Esha was like the legendary magnet in the Sun Temple at Konark. And Aritra, a Portuguese ship. Even if he could not arrive in one piece, all the iron in his body would be shattered and deposited on Esha’s shore.

Mahanam was performing the shavasana with his eyes closed, lying flat on his back. He was in the habit of exercising every evening, but he hadn’t been up to it today because of the exertion. The evening session of music had been a pleasant one. Every time he tried to unknot his legs and sink into detachment through his shavasana, what appeared before his eyes indistinctly was the figure of the goddess Kali sitting on a corpse. What a strange delusion. What he had seen today was Parvati as Gauri, but this fresh memory had easily been supplanted by another image— was this some Tantric tradition flowing in his blood? The pervasive darkness of the figure gradually occupied his mental world. He felt overcome by a wondrous drowsiness. If this rhythm grew more insistent, what would Mahanam fill the pages of his book with? He began to fight it with all the power at his disposal. He would have to keep the force of his conscience alive. He did not wish to drown himself now in the pleasures of emptiness and blackness. Little by little, his willpower took him to the land of conscious slumber. Mahanam sighed deeply.

Suddenly he heard a faint sound. Mahanam went from willed sleep to willed wakefulness. He saw the door closing slowly. Startled, he realized that both the other beds were empty. Neither of his two companions was in the room. There was plenty of money in here. An unknown land. Dead of night. Mahanam sat up in his bed. Let the door remain shut, but he would stay awake till they returned and locked the door. There were two large windows on the left. Suddenly Mahanam saw Bikram walking across the lawn in the dim light. And, following him at a distance, Aritra. Were they strolling outside because they couldn’t sleep? At this hour of the night! In the ghostly glow on the lawn they looked like wild animals, Bikram for his enormous, outsized form and Aritra for his wary, catlike movements. Mahanam was surprised to see Bikram step off the path and walk towards their rooms. The three women were in the next room, he was standing next to its large window, at first glance the garden looked like a jungle with a gorilla-like humanoid creature in it. Going up to the window, Mahanam cleared his throat, whereupon Bikram whirled round and found himself face to face with Aritra.

‘What are you doing?’ said Aritra in a muffled, angry voice.

‘What are YOU doing?’ Bikram countered belligerently.

‘You want to know? Waiting to nab you red-handed.’

‘Have I stolen something?’

‘Do it if you dare.’

‘Careful, Chowdhury-da. There’s a limit to insults, I won’t tolerate it, there will be violence.’

Mahanam was amused. Everyone wanted to fight a duel with Aritra. Aritra had been born a valorous man. Always at loggerheads with other men. There was no way to settle things except through frontal combat. Who knew what kind of man this Bikram Seal was. If Aritra was mythical, Bikram was prehistoric.

‘What’s the matter, Aritra, Bikram?’ he asked from the window.

Both of them turned towards him in surprise. Possibly someone had appeared at the window of the next room too. There was a faint sound of the shutters being closed. Aritra strode away. Bikram went in the opposite direction. Aritra entered the room, Mahanam was back in bed, he could hear Aritra’s agitated breathing. Aritra was saying in a low voice, ‘Bastard, scoundrel!’ Bikram entered about ten minutes later, locking the door loudly. His bed creaked. Within five minutes Mahanam could hear him snoring.

When the women got ready in the morning and gathered in the dining room, Aritra said, ‘We’re taking the bus today. I’ve booked four seats. It’s too much of a squeeze in the car.’

‘No problem,’ said Bikram.

‘Oh no,’ said Seema, ‘I’ll have to go alone with you in the car.’

‘You can take the bus too, who’s stopping you? I love driving by myself.’

‘Yes, and while I take the bus, you’ll have an accident,’ said Seema.

‘How many cars on this road to have a collision with? I might run into the tourism bus though. Just imagine how fast I can drive on these empty roads.’ Bikram’s expression revealed the animal pleasure of speed. He always found some form of pleasure or the other.

‘Have you seen auto races?’ said Seema. ‘Some of the cars just turn upside down. Going up in flames. The burnt bodies of the drivers have to be pulled out. For this reason alone I’m travelling in your car today. And you will let me drive too.’ Seema walked across the room to the other side as she spoke. ‘I know why Ari-da booked seats on the bus. What were you arguing about last night? Must you fight even on a holiday?’

Winking, Bikram said, ‘I really wound him up last night. He was livid. As it is the man has a filthy mind.’

‘Did you expect to just reach in through the window and pull one of us out like a rag doll?’ asked Seema without smiling.

Bikram burst out laughing. ‘Why would I have to pull anyone out? Wouldn’t you have come if I’d asked you? Who wants to be alone on such a lovely, thrilling night?’

Seema said, ‘Big mistake. Don’t imagine I will come whenever you ask me to.’

Quickly lighting a cigarette to hide his discomfiture, Bikram said, ‘All right, enough. Enough nonsense. Let’s go now.’

Mahanam and Neelam were seated in the very first row. Aritra sat with Esha five rows behind them. The seats had high backs. Mahanam was unusually tall. Sometimes it is the length of their legs that leads to a difference in height. But Mahanam was also taller than most from the waist upwards. Which was why his light blue collar and a head full of wavy hair were visible from the back. Whenever he looked sideways, his nose, the flow of his eyes and the lines of his beard could be seen. Neelam was out of sight. But still Aritra was reassured today. Bikram wasn’t next to her. The ugly sight of Bikram’s picking Neelam up in his arms to deposit her on the terrace of the Kailash temple would not be repeated. Of course, he had had to leave the seat next to hers to Mahanam. But Mahanam wasn’t Bikram. If sitting next to him brought some of Neelam’s college romance back to her, so be it. Aritra had got a seat next to Esha’s. Aritra was next to Esha. Aritra and Esha.

Aritra was looking at his favourite sight, Esha, in different ways—directly, from the corner of his eyes, turning towards her. A glittering necklace around her neck, a few wisps of hair, curled and small, behind her hair. Her blue sari was reflected on her forehead. Esha was looking darker than usual. The sun had been overhead most of the previous day. How his heart, his joy, brimmed over at the sight of this dark complexion. The bus was redolent with its glow, Aritra’s mind too.

‘What trees are those, Ari, do you know?’ asked Esha. ‘There were many of them outside the Daulatabad fort too.’

‘Which trees? Oh those! Those are silkcotton trees. Semul.’

‘They have such shiny silvery bark. Just look at them in the sunlight. Like silver trees. Standing there with their branches. No flowers or anything. So beautiful. See how many there are. They’re like trees of light. Gardens of heaven.’