Out of India (2 page)

Of course there are other Europeans more or less in the same situation as myself. For instance, other women married to Indians. But I hesitate to seek them out. People suffering from the same disease do not usually make good company for one another. Who is to listen to whose complaints? On the other hand, with what enthusiasm I welcome visitors from abroad. Their physical presence alone is a pleasure to me. I love to see their fresh complexions, their red cheeks that speak of wind and rain; and I like to see their clothes and their shoes, to admire the texture of these solid European materials and the industrial skills that have gone into making them. I also like to hear the way in which these people speak. In some strange way their accents, their intonations are redolent to me of the places from which they have come, so that as voices rise and fall I hear in them the wind stirring in English trees or a mild brook murmuring through a summer wood. And apart from these sensuous pleasures, there is also the pleasure of hearing what they have to say. I listen avidly to what is said about people I know or have heard of and about new plays and restaurants and changes and fashions. However, neither the subject nor my interest in it is inexhaustible; and after that, it is my turn. What about India? Now they want to hear, but I don't want to say. I feel myself growing sullen. I don't want to talk about India. There is nothing I can tell them. There is nothing
they would understand. However, I do begin to talk, and after a time even to talk with passion. But everything I say is wrong. I listen to myself with horror; they too listen with horror. I want to stop and reverse, but I can't. I want to cry out, this is not what I mean! You are listening to me in entirely the wrong context! But there is no way of explaining the context. It would take too long, and anyway what is the point? It's such a small, personal thing. I fall silent. I have nothing more to say. I turn my face and want them to go away.

So I am back again alone in my room with the blinds drawn and the air-conditioner on. Sometimes, when I think of my life, it seems to have contracted to this one point and to be concentrated in this one room, and it is always a very hot, very long afternoon when the air-conditioner has failed. I cannot describe the
oppression
of such afternoons. It is a physical oppression—heat pressing down on me and pressing in the walls and the ceiling and congealing together with time that has stood still and will never move again. And it is not only those two—heat and time—that are laying their weight on me but behind them, or held within them, there is something more, which I can only describe as the whole of India. This is hyperbole, but I need hyperbole to express my feelings about those countless afternoons spent over what now seem to me countless years in a country for which I was not born. India swallows me up and now it seems to me that I am no longer in my room but in the white-hot city streets under a white-hot sky; people cannot live in such heat, so everything is deserted—no, not quite, for here comes a smiling leper in a cart being pushed by another leper; there is also the carcass of a dog and vultures have swooped down on it. The river has dried up and stretches in miles of flat cracked earth; it is not possible to make out where the river ceases and the land begins, for this too is as flat, as cracked, as dry as the riverbed and stretches on forever. Until we come to a jungle in which wild beasts live, and then there are ravines and here live outlaws with the hearts of wild beasts. Sometimes they make raids into the villages and they rob and burn and mutilate and kill for sport. More mountains and these are very, very high, and now it is no longer hot but terribly cold, we are in snow and ice and here is Mount Kailash on which sits Siva the Destroyer wearing a necklace of human skulls. Down in the plains they are worshiping him. I can see them from here—they are doing something strange—what is it? I draw nearer. Now I can see. They are killing a boy. They hack him to pieces and now they bury the pieces into the
foundations dug for a new bridge. There is a priest with them who is quite naked except for ash smeared all over him; he is reciting some holy verses over the foundations, to bless and propitiate.

I am using these exaggerated images in order to give some idea of how intolerable India—the idea, the sensation of it—can become. A point is reached where one must escape, and if one can't do so physically, then some other way must be found. And I think it is not only Europeans but Indians too who feel themselves compelled to seek refuge from their often unbearable environment. Here perhaps less than anywhere else is it possible to believe that this world, this life, is all there is for us, and the temptation to write it off and substitute something more satisfying becomes overwhelming. This brings up the question whether religion is such a potent force in India because life is so terrible, or is it the other way around—is life so terrible because, with the eyes of the spirit turned elsewhere, there is no incentive to improve its quality? Whichever it is, the fact remains that the eyes of the spirit
are
turned elsewhere, and it really is true that God seems more present in India than in other places. Every morning I wake up at 3
A.M.
to the sound of someone pouring out his spirit in devotional song; and then at dawn the temple bells ring, and again at dusk, and conch shells are blown, and there is the smell of incense and of the slightly overblown flowers that are placed at the feet of smiling, pink-cheeked idols. I read in the papers that the Lord Krishna has been reborn as the son of a weaver woman in a village somewhere in Madhya Pradesh. On the banks of the river there are figures in meditation and one of them may turn out to be the teller in your bank who cashed your check just a few days ago; now he is in the lotus pose and his eyes are turned up and he is in ecstasy. There are ashrams full of little old half-starved widows who skip and dance about, they giggle and play hide-and-seek because they are Krishna's milkmaids. And over all this there is a sky of enormous proportions—so much larger than the earth on which you live, and often so incredibly beautiful, an unflawed unearthly blue by day, all shining with stars at night, that it is difficult to believe that something grand and wonderful beyond the bounds of human comprehension does not emanate from there.

I love listening to Indian devotional songs. They seem pure like water drawn from a well; and the emotions they express are both beautiful and easy to understand because the imagery employed is so human. The soul crying out for God is always shown as the beloved
yearning for the lover in an easily recognizable way (“I wait for Him. Do you hear His step? He has come”). I feel soothed when I hear such songs and all my discontentment falls away. I see that everything I have been fretting about is of no importance at all because all that matters is this promise of eternal bliss in the Lover's arms. I become patient and good and feel that everything is good. Unfortunately this tranquil state does not last for long, and after a time it again seems to me that nothing is good and neither am I. Once somebody said to me: “Just see, how sweet is the Indian soul that can see God in a cow!” But when I try to assume this sweetness, it turns sour: for, however much I may try to fool myself, whatever veils I may try, for the sake of peace of mind, to draw over my eyes, it is soon enough clear to me that the cow
is
a cow, and a very scrawny, underfed, diseased one at that. And then I feel that I want to keep this knowledge, however painful it is, and not exchange it for some other that may be true for an Indian but can never quite become that for me.

And here, it seems to me, I come to the heart of my problem. To live in India and be at peace, one must to a very considerable extent become Indian and adopt Indian attitudes, habits, beliefs, assume if possible an Indian personality. But how is this possible? And even if it were possible—without cheating oneself—would it be desirable? Should one want to try to become something other than what one is? I don't always say no to this question. Sometimes it seems to me how pleasant it would be to say yes and give in and wear a sari and be meek and accepting and see God in a cow. Other times it seems worthwhile to be defiant and European and—all right, be crushed by one's environment, but all the same have made some attempt to remain standing. Of course, this can't go on indefinitely and in the end I'm bound to lose—if only at the point where my ashes are immersed in the Ganges to the accompaniment of Vedic hymns, and then who will say that I have not truly merged with India?

I do sometimes go back to Europe. But after a time I get bored there and want to come back here. I also find it hard now to stand the European climate. I have got used to intense heat and seem to need it.

MY FIRST MARRIAGE

L
ast week Rahul went on a hunger strike. He didn't have to suffer long—his family got very frightened (he is the only son) and by the second day they were ready to do anything he wanted, even to let him marry me. So he had a big meal, and then he came to tell me of his achievement. He was so proud and happy that I too pretended to be happy. Now his father and Daddy are friends again, and they sit downstairs in the study and talk together about their university days in England. His mother too comes to the house, and yesterday his married sister Kamla paid me a visit. The last time I had met Kamla was when she told me all those things on their veranda, but neither of us seemed to have any recollection of that. Instead we had a very nice conversation about her husband's promotion and the annual flower show for which she had been asked to organize a raffle. Mama walks around the house looking pleased with herself and humming snatches of the national anthem (out of tune—she is completely unmusical). No one ever mentions M. any more.

It is two years now since he went away. I don't know where he is or what he is doing. Perhaps he is meditating somewhere in the Himalayas, or wandering by the banks of the Ganges with an orange robe and a begging bowl; or perhaps he is just living in another town, trying to start a newspaper or a school. Sometimes I ask myself: can there really have been such a man? But it is not a question to which I require any answer.

The first time I saw M., I was just going out to tennis with Rahul. I hardly glanced at him—he was just one of the people who came to see Daddy. But he returned many times, and I heard Daddy say: “That young man is a nuisance.” “Of course,” said Mama in a
sarcastic way, “you can never say no to anyone.” Daddy looked shy: it was true, he found it difficult to refuse people. He is the Director of Education, and because it is an important position, people are always coming, both to the house and to his office, to ask him to do something for them. Mostly there is nothing he can do, but because he is so nice and polite to them, they keep coming again. Then often Mama steps in.

One day, just as I was going out to Rahul's house, I heard her shouting outside the door of the study. “The Director is a busy man!” she was shouting. She had her back against the door and held her arms stretched out; M. stood in front of her, and his head was lowered. “Day after day you come and eat his life up!” she said.

I feel very embarrassed when I hear Mama shouting at people, so I went away quickly. But when I was walking down the road, he suddenly came behind me. He said, “Why are you walking so fast?”

I said nothing. I thought it was very rude of him to speak to me at all.

“You are running away,” he said.

Then in spite of myself I had to laugh: “From what?”

“From the Real,” he said, and he spoke so seriously that I was impressed and stood still in the middle of the road and looked at him.

He was not really young—not young like I am, or like Rahul. His hair was already going gray and he had lines around his eyes. But what eyes they were, how full of wisdom and experience! And he was looking at me with them. I can't describe how I felt suddenly.

He said he wanted Daddy to open a new department in the university. A department for moral training. He explained the scheme to me and we both stood still in the road. His eyes glowed. I understood at once; of course, not everything—I am not a brilliant person such as he—but I understood it was important and even grand. Here were many new ideas, which made life seem quite different. I began to see that I had been living wrongly because I had been brought up to think wrongly. Everything I thought important, and Daddy and Mama and Rahul and everyone, was not important: these were the frivolities of life we were caught up in. For the first time someone was explaining to me the nature of reality. I promised to help him and to speak to Daddy. I was excited and couldn't stop thinking of everything he had said and the way he had said it.

He often telephoned. I waited for his calls and was impatient
and restless till they came. But I was also a little ashamed to talk to him because I could not tell him that I had succeeded. I spoke to Daddy many times. I said, “Education is no use without a firm moral basis.”

“How philosophical my little girl is getting,” Daddy said and smiled and was pleased that I was taking an interest in higher things.

Mama said, “Don't talk so much; it's not nice in a young girl.”

When M. telephoned I could only say, “I'm trying.”

“You are not trying!” he said; he spoke sternly to me. “You are thinking of your own pleasures only, of your tennis and games.”

He was right—I often played tennis, and now that my examinations were finished, I spent a lot of time at the Club and went to the cinema and read novels. When he spoke to me, I realized all that was wrong; so that every time he telephoned I was thoughtful for many hours afterward and when Rahul came to fetch me for tennis, I said I had a headache.

But I tried to explain to Rahul. He listened carefully; Rahul listens carefully to everything I say. He becomes very serious, and his eyes, which are already very large, become even larger. He looks so sweet then, just as he did when he was a little boy. I remember Rahul as a little boy, for we always played together. His father and Daddy were great friends, almost like brothers. So Rahul and I grew up together, and later it was decided we would be married. Everyone was happy: I also, and Rahul. We were to be married quite soon, for we had both finished our college and Rahul's father had already got him a good job in a business firm, with very fine prospects.

“You see, Rahul, we live in nice houses and have nice clothes and good education and everything, and all the time we don't know what reality is.”

Rahul frowned a bit, the way he used to do over his sums when they were difficult; but he nodded and looked at me with his big sweet eyes and was ready to listen to everything else I would tell him. Rahul has very smooth cheeks and they are a little bit pink because he is so healthy.

One day when M. telephoned he asked me to go and meet him. At first I tried to say no, but I knew I really wanted to go. He called me to a coffeehouse I had never been to before, and I felt shy when going in—there were many men and no girls at all. Everyone looked at me; some of them may have been students from the university
and perhaps they knew me. It was noisy in there and full of smoke and smelled of fritters and chutney. The tablecloths were dirty and so were the bearers' uniforms. But he was there, waiting for me. I had often tried to recall his face but I never could: now I saw it and—of course, of course, I cried to myself, that was how it was, how could I forget.

Then I began to meet him every day. Sometimes we met in that coffeehouse, at other times in a little park where there was a broken swing and an old tomb and clerks came to eat their lunch out of tiffin carriers. It was the end of winter and the sky was pale blue with little white lines on it and the sun was just beginning to get hot again and there were scarlet creepers all over the tomb and green parrots flew about. When I went home, I would lie on the bed in my room and think. Rahul came and I said I had a headache. I hardly knew anything anyone was saying. I ate very little. Mama often came into my room and asked, “Where did you go today?” She was very sweet and gentle, the way she always is when she wants to find out something from you. I would tell her anything that came into my head—an old college friend had come from Poona, we had been to the cinema together—“Which cinema?” Mama said, still sweet and gentle and tidying the handkerchiefs in my drawer. I would even tell her the story of the film I had not seen. “Tomorrow I'm meeting her again.” “No, tomorrow I want you to come with me to Meena auntie—”

It began to be difficult to get out of the house. Mama watched me every minute, and when she saw me ready to leave, she stood in the doorway: “Today you are coming with me.”

“I told you, I have to meet—”

“You are coming with me!”

We were both angry and shouted. Daddy came out of the study. He told Mama, “She is not a child. . . .”

Then Mama started to shout at him and I ran out of the house and did not look back, though I could hear her calling me.

When I told M., he said, “You had better come with me.” I also saw there was no other way. On Friday afternoons Mama goes to a committee meeting of the All-India Ladies' Council, so that was the best time. I bundled up all my clothes and jewels in a sheet and I walked out of the house. Faqir Chand, our butler, saw me, but he said nothing—probably he thought I was sending my clothes to the washerman. M. was waiting for me in a tonga by the post office and
he helped me climb up and sit beside him; the tonga was a very old and shaky one, and the driver was also old and so was the horse. We went very slowly, first by the river, past the Fort and through all the bazaars, he and I sitting side by side at the back of the tonga with my bundle between us.

We had such a strange wedding. I laugh even now when I think of it. He had a friend who was a sign painter and had a workshop on the other side of the river. The workshop was really only a shed, but they made it very nice—they turned all the signboards to the wall and they hung my saris over them and over the saris they hung flower garlands. It looked really artistic. They also bought sweetmeats and nuts and put them on a long table that they had borrowed from a carpenter. Several friends of his came and quite a lot of people who lived in sheds and huts nearby. There was a priest and a fire was lit and we sat in front of it and the priest chanted the holy verses. I was feeling very hot because of the fire and of course my face was completely covered by the sari. It wasn't a proper wedding sari, but my own old red sari that I had last worn when Mama gave a tea party for the professors' wives in our drawing room, with cakes from Wenger's.

M. got very impatient, he kept telling the priest, “Now hurry hurry, we have heard all that before.”

The priest was offended and said, “These are all holy words.”

I couldn't help laughing under my sari, even though I was crying at the same time because I was thinking of Daddy and Rahul and Mama.

There was a quarrel—his friends also told him to keep quiet and let the priest say his verses in the proper manner, and he got angry and shouted, “Is it my marriage or yours?”

At last it was finished and we were married and everyone ate sweetmeats and nuts, even people who just wandered in from the road and whom no one knew.

We stayed a few days with his friend. There was a little room built out of planks just off the workshop and in that we all slept at night, rolled up in blankets. In the day, when the friend painted signs, we stayed in the room by ourselves, M. and I, and no one came in to disturb us. When he slept, I would look at him and look; I studied all the lines on his face. After I had looked my fill, I would shut my eyes and try and see his face in my mind, and when I opened
them again, there he was really, his real face, and I cried out loud with joy.

After some days we went on a bus to Niripat. The journey was four hours long and the bus was crowded with farmers and laborers and many old women carrying little bundles. There was a strong smell of poor people who can't afford to change their clothes very often and of the food that the old women ate out of their bundles and the petrol from the bus. I began to feel a little sick. I often get carsick: when we used to drive up to Naini Tal for the summer holidays, Daddy always had to stop the car several times so that I could go out and take fresh air; and Mama would give me lemon drops to suck and rub my temples with eau de cologne.

In Niripat we stayed with M.'s cousin, who had a little brick house just outside the town. They were a big family, and the women lived in one side of the house, in a little set of dark rooms with only metal trunks and beds in them, and the men on the other side. But I ran all over the house; I was singing and laughing all the time. In the evenings I sat with the men and listened to them talking about religion and philosophy and their business (they had a grinding mill); and during the day I helped the women with their household work. M. and I went out for walks and sometimes we went swimming in a pond. The women of the house teased me a lot because I liked M. so much. “But look at him,” they said, “he is so dark; and see! his hair is going gray like an old man's.” Or, “He is just a loafer—it is only talking with him and never any work.” I pretended to be annoyed with them (of course, I knew they were only joking) and that made them laugh more than ever. One of them said, “Now it is very fine, but just wait, in the end her state will be the same as Savitri's.”