Nine Lives (44 page)

Kanai shook his long grey locks. ‘There is no jealousy in this life,’ he said. ‘No Brahmin or Dalit, no Hindu or Muslim. Wherever I am, that is my home.

‘For many years now I have wandered the roads of Bengal, spending the rains with my guru, and after he died, in the cremation ground at Tarapith. Sometimes when I have tired of walking, I would work the trains between Calcutta and Shantiniketan. That was how I first met Debdas.’

‘In a train?’

‘He was only sixteen,’ said Kanai, ‘and had just run away from home. He was from the family of a Pundit, and had a childhood in which he needed to ask for nothing. But then he was thrown out for mixing with Muslims and Bauls, and he was innocent of the ways of the world. He had an
ektara
, but at that stage he knew hardly any songs. Though I was blind, and he could see, it was I who taught him how to survive, and the words of the songs of the Bauls. Although we are from very different worlds, the road brought us together, and we have become inseparable friends.’

Kanai smiled. ‘But I shouldn’t be telling you his story,’ he said. ‘You must ask him yourself.’

So saying, without moving, Kanai went back to humming his songs to himself, remembering and repeating the words:

You and I are bound together,

In the six-petalled lotus of the heart.

There is honey in this flower, the nectar of the moon,

As sweet as Kama’s dart.

Through the garden of emotion,

A raging river flows.

On its banks we’re bound together,

In the six-petalled lotus of the heart.

It was nearly midnight when Debdas rejoined us.

He and Paban came back from their concert in high spirits, and as glasses of Old Monk rum and chillums of ganja were passed around the room, the music began again, and it was some time before I was able to get Debdas on his own and ask him about how he came to join up with Kanai. Eventually, when Paban left for another late-night concert at the
akhara
of a friend of his, Debdas settled back and told the story of how he and Kanai had first met. As he talked, Kanai occasionally interrupted, or corrected Debdas’s version of events.

‘For many years, I have been Kanai’s eyes, and he my voice,’ said Debdas, puffing at a chillum and exhaling a great cloud of strongly scented ganja smoke. ‘He taught me everything: how to reject the outer garb of religion and to dive deep into the ocean of the heart. He is a friend, a teacher, a brother, a guru. He is my memory. He is everything to me.’

‘And Debdas is my eyes, my helper, my student, my co-traveller and my friend,’ said Kanai, tapping his heart.

‘We have travelled the road together for many years now,’ said Debdas.

‘Pushkar, Varanasi, Pondicherry .  .  .’

‘Allahabad, Hardwar, Gangotri .  .  .’

‘Always holding each other’s hands. Over the years we have become very close’ – he held up two fingers – ‘like this.
Chelo
, Kanai!’

‘We are connected at the navel,’ said Kanai, gesturing towards his belly button. ‘When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Madman of Madmen, went to Keshava Bharati, who had initiated him as a
sanyasi
, he said to his friend, “Give me the world.” Keshava Bharati asked, “What worlds can I give you?” Chaitanya replied, “The very same that I gave to you.” We are like that, Debdas and I .  .  .’

‘At times, I am Kanai’s guru,’ said Debdas. ‘And at times, Kanai is my guru. He reminds me even of my own songs.’

I asked Debdas to tell me about his childhood, and how he first came to meet his friend, and taking another puff of his chillum, he began his story.

‘
I was born in a village about fifteen miles from that of Kanai, not very far from Tarapith,’ he said, exhaling another great cloud of smoke, and passing the chillum to Kanai’s waiting fingers, and helping his friend lift it to his mouth. ‘But we were from very different backgrounds. My father was a
purohit
, the Brahmin of the village Kali temple. My father and I always had very different values. He was obsessed with his idols and his round of
pujas
. I was also pious, but I never embraced that sort of ritualistic religion. I didn’t know what was in, or not in, the piece of stone in the sanctuary of my father’s temple: how could I? How can anyone? For me, from the time I was very young, the company I kept was always more important to me than idols or rituals, status or material comforts.

‘My best friend was a little Muslim boy, Anwar. His father made
beedi
cigarettes at the other end of the village. My father would smoke the
beedis
, but before he lit them he would always touch them against cow dung to purify them. He would pressure me not to mix so widely, and if I drank water in a Muslim house, he would make me have a bath before he let me inside our home. There was a house of some Bairagi sadhus in the village who sang wonderful Baul songs, and Krishna
bhajans
, and my father didn’t like me going there either. I even shared cigarettes with the [untouchable] Doms who ran the village cremation ground. Even when I was very young, my mind was full of doubts about all these boundaries and restrictions my father thought were so important.

‘It was the songs of the Bauls that lured me towards their path. In our locality lived the great singer, Sudhir Das Baul. One day, the schoolmaster invited him to come and sing to us on the feast of Saraswati Puja. I was thirteen or fourteen, and then and there I lost my heart to his music! He had such a voice, and such spirit: he could take a
rasa
to its very essence.’

‘Oh, he was marvellous!’ interjected Kanai, leaning forward, sightless eyes gazing upwards, with folded hands. ‘What a voice!’

‘It was after hearing him,’ said Debdas, ‘that I made up my mind to become a Baul and sing the songs of Krishna. After some time, I went and visited him at his home, and told him I wanted to learn music. So Sudhir said, “If you want to become a Baul you must attend the great festival at Kenduli.” He called it “The great festival of the Enlightened”. He told me the date – it’s always at the middle or towards the end of January – and promised to take me along.

‘I knew that my family would never allow it, so when the day came, I climbed the walls of the house and slipped out without telling anyone where I was going. I had agreed to meet Sudhir at the station in time to catch the 4 a.m. train to Shantiniketan. From the station there we walked on foot to the
mela
.

‘The
mela
was beyond my dreams: you can see for yourself what it is like. The atmosphere was wonderful – the music-making, the dancing, the rapture, the
matajis
putting hair oil on the
babajis
, the intoxication of the madmen, the joy, the freedom . . . I drank in the pure life of those Bauls, and understood for the first time the real pleasure of living. It made me yearn to roam through the world and escape from my village life.’

‘And you never told your parents where you were?’

Kanai giggled.

‘Wait,’ said Debdas, smiling. ‘We’ll come to that.’

‘For four days I walked the lanes of the festival, happier than I had ever been, meeting the Bauls and learning their songs. On the fourth day, as everyone began to pack up, I asked Sudhir Das, “What do I do now?” I hadn’t left my parents a note – nothing. He advised me to go back home quietly, and he took me back on the train, holding my hand to give me courage. We parted at the station, and I headed home. But I was frightened of what my father would say, so I doubled back and went to the home of my Muslim friend, Anwar, and ate there.

‘By now it was dusk, and it was only after dark that I finally headed back home. Nobody said a word as I walked in. In silence I washed at the pump, but just as I was entering the house, my father stopped me and asked me to sit in the courtyard. My mother understood what was about to happen, and called me to join her in the kitchen, but just then my elder brother, who was the village police chief, blocked my way. He shouted at me that I had dishonoured the family, and that I was a good-for-nothing who only mixed with Muslims and vagrants. He said that he would teach me a lesson that I would never forget.

‘He had his
lathi
with him, and he began beating me with it. My father joined in, using his wooden slippers. For nearly an hour they both beat me – it seemed like much longer, at that age things hurt more – until eventually the neighbours had to come and separate us. Then they kicked me out of the courtyard into the street. I sat there shuddering with tears, hurting both inside and out. There were welts all over my back, my shorts were torn and my shirt was covered in blood.’

‘Your father really gave it to you,’ said Kanai, shaking his head.

‘For a while I just lay there, and then eventually I got up and went to the train station. I washed in the pump on the platform. I knew I would get into trouble, but I never thought it would be so bad. I now had to think what to do. I didn’t have a rupee in my pocket, my clothes were torn, it was November and there was a chill in the air. So I thought very deep and hard. As I was thinking a train puffed in, heading for Howrah, and I jumped on, without any particular plan, and eventually got off at Burdwan Junction. I sat for a long time on the platform in the dark. I knew I wanted to become a Baul, but how to get there? How could I feed myself?

‘As I was sitting there another train came in, the Toofan Express, coming from Vrindavan, the home of Lord Krishna. It was now 11.30 p.m. As I sat there in the half-light of the platform, a small group of Bauls and sadhus got off the train, carrying musical instruments, and they settled down close to where I was sitting. One was a very old man – he must have been at least ninety. He saw me sitting there with blood on my clothes, and a black eye coming up, so he walked over, and said, “You’ve run away from home, haven’t you?” He asked me to bring him some water, which I did. He then said, “You must be hungry.” So he gave me a
chapatti
from his tiffin, and shared his dal with me, and as we ate, I told him the whole story.

‘He listened very carefully, and then told me I should catch the Toofan Express back to Vrindavan, and that if I went there, Lord Krishna would help me. At 2 a.m., the Express hooted that it was about to leave. He helped me on, and gave me a blanket, and handed me his most precious possession, his
ektara
. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just play the
ektara
, and sing the name of Krishna, and you’ll be looked after.”

‘So with that
ektara
in my hand, and still wearing my torn vest and shorts, I got on, and we headed off, away from Bengal. I didn’t eat again for four days – I didn’t know how to beg, couldn’t speak Hindi, couldn’t play the
ektara
. I only knew the two songs I had learned at Kenduli, and of those I only knew a couple of verses. But when I reached Vrindavan, I heard there was food available to poor pilgrims at the Govind Mandir: they were giving out rice pudding as
lungar
[alms]. So I ate bowl after bowl, until I was no longer hungry. Then I went down to the banks of the Yamuna River and said a prayer, asking for the strength to become a Baul and never to give up and go back home and submit to my father. With that prayer on my lips, I threw my sacred thread into the river.