A Small World around Her Feet

Her beautiful bluish eyes were sparking with reflections from swift torrents of the Ganges. Standing by the support posts of Ram Jhoola, the huge suspension bridge in Rishikesh, she took a deep view of the spiritual panorama like she had so many times since her arrival, believing the place to provide her spiritual succour, a food for her ruffled soul.

On the steps below an old Sadhu was washing brass image of Nag Deva in the sediment laden waters of the Ganges spiritually ebullient in the rainy season. She marvelled at the way his frail fingers, charged with devotional fervour for his beloved god, were busy in creating a shinier visage for the Godly metal. He seemed to be lost in a musical prayer; the rhythmic ripples in the holy mother chanting songs for him. His frail body, long locks of hair and beard all busy in devotional unison. Swiftly flew Ganga Maiya with the crop of its erosion work in the Himalayas.

With the enthusiasm of a spiritually spellbound foreigner she took a snap and the flash of light seemed to have disturbed his prayer. He stood erect holding the rag with the help of which he was using the abrasive power of the sediments to make his faith shinier and newer. The talisman of his faith was shining in the sun. The flashlight’s noisy whisper distracted his devotional work. In the distance a conch shell blared with devout urgency. He looked at her and a faint smile surfaced on his lips lost in rag tag beard. It then changed to laughter. The bearded laughter was a peculiar one and made her uneasy. People’s voice, music in the temples, dull vehicle sounds, incense and spiritual fervour sashaying over the breeze riding Ganges torrents all appeared to have stopped for a moment. She was clad in an Indian way, kameez and salwar, and looked resplendent with her curves and angelic features. For a fraction of a second he stood like a hypnotised soul.

Uneasily she moved onto the great bridge devotionally named Ram Jhoola. Vidhut followed her like a quadruped and taking a pity on the invalid she stopped. A local guide had translated the invalid’s story for 50 rupees. The invalid beggar was born with limbs that just allowed him to crawl on the four. He was born at ‘Pili Bheet’ she tried to recall the name but missed. He was 20 years of age now and had left home a good seven years back to sustain himself on all fours, while the more important bipeds scampered over him across the narrow swinging bridge that swayed over the majestic sprawl of the Ganges below. He spent his nights in the verandas of dharamshalas, making it a point to stick around as long as possible till he was kicked out along with the dogs. When his luck struck best, he even landed with 100 rupees at the end of the day. After hearing his translated story, she had given a nice blue 100 rupee bill as she took a snap, and he had taken it as the modelling fee. After all he was special. As she walked up to him he expected another modelling assignment. But she passed with the best smile ever possible that took him off all his fours.

The devotional world on both sides of the Ganges carried on among the bathing steps, temples, rest houses, dharamshalas, ashrams and bazaars buzzing with religious items.

For a whole month the rain Gods had been dripping in their pleasant fury. Even though it was not cold, still after so much of water and dampness it is desirable to have sunrays.

“For the last one month so much water has fallen over us that I feel like a fish permanently relishing the sea!” a saffron clad babaji, flaunting his English commented as he looked sideways while crossing her on the bridge.

She was tempted to look back but knew the risks a beautiful white woman carried in this part of the world, and quite contrary to her open nature she did not turn back. Such looks, simply born of curiosity, are misinterpreted very easily as green signal for a fling. She thus avoided the trouble.

The incense-drenched world on both sides of the great river appeared slowed down and subdued by the rains. Deep foggy clouds did endless rounds amidst the surrounding little vales and very easily found pretence to unburden themselves of whatever water they carried. From the surrounding ridges, water was perpetually slipping down to copiously feed even the tiniest sub-tributaries of small rivulets further feeding moderately big rainy drainage and the latter finding their way to the big river.

She needed this type of small place solace, far away from New York where the big world had piled up enough restlessness in her to go footloose. A chain smoker she had not smoked even once since she arrived here a week back. It was nothing sort of a miracle and she was looking forward to add many more such soothing miracles.

She loved this seemingly ancient world and more so in this antique shop. It was fragrant with anciently aesthetic fragrance. There were old paintings, saucers, sculptures, brass tortoise, frogs flat on their bellies, dogs, puppies, candle stand, carved silver vessels, a huge cone (God knows for what purpose), lizards, scales, compasses, trays, tumblers, beautiful vases, lamps, chimers, the oldest gramophone she had ever seen, horse riders, Gods and Goddesses, soldiers, crockery, Victorian trinkets, copper bronze and silver coins, a big painting by a Britisher, a Harappa type of violinist sitting on a chair, lamps of various shades, a marble mermaid, horse bust, electroplated punch bowls, an old rusted gypsy pan, old time watches, and so forth. She tried to observe each and everything. It was a pleasant mess. It was more exotic than her city-cramped senses could afford to see, forget about buying. She started taking pictures.

The attendant chided in her broken English, “If all take photos who buy!?”

She was embarrassed and to avoid further embarrassment bought an old replica of a boat. She also wanted to buy the British period copper bugle but found it too big and abandoned the idea.   

As she came out she met the gaze of that very same Sadhu whom she had seen washing the bronze God in the sandy waters of the river. His face bore a strange look. She got the pin-prick of scare and lowered her eyes to sneak past into the jostling crowd in the narrow bazaar street. She was apprehensive. She knew the risks the foreigners faced in India. But possibly it was incidental and probably the woman in her was exaggerating the risk. She had many muddled thoughts in her mind as she again found herself lost and spread out in the unknown world of agonies and ecstasies.

****

Sitting by a small roadside tea stall the old man in ascetic robes—but real earthly self of worldly needs clearly visible through the charity-expectant look—was asking for a packet of biscuits. With a fistful of coins he had purchased himself tea and retrieved a bit of honour, but to carry his will further, i.e., tea and biscuit both, he still needed the favourite aid of asceticism, i.e., asking for alms.

“Can’t see, lost my specks, now who would take mercy on an old man like me?” he pleaded.

Oh thou holy place! So many disbanded, discarded, and obsolete human beings take shelter in your teeming streets laden with religious fervour. Incense, chanting, charities, soul-salvaging rituals, flying locks, saffron robes—it’s a world in itself catering to the needs of as many as they dump their poor selves here. In between mother Ganges washed away littler, muck, and sins without any complaints.

Somebody bought him a biscuit packet and the religioner opened his worldly identity. “I’m from Pushkar in Rajasthan.”

He was on a month’s tour to the orphanage here. However, arriving here he might have calculated his chances better at this place than home because it literally won’t even raise any issue in his family if he didn’t return at all.

“Let me see if there is a man of God who can get me specks!?” he quaked in pleading fervour, trying to pull the strings of devotee’s salvage-seeking spirits.

“You are asking too much maharaj! It’ll cost about 100 bucks, so you should ask in instalments, collect your money and then buy to see this beautiful world!” a fat gentleman mused.

“There is a place but from where you can get one in charity,” another person wrote hastily an address on a chit of paper and the old sanyasi proffered a blessing over his head. 

This world is a little merry-go-round thing. The very same person who had taken the pains to write the address of a charitable organisation found the old man trying to invoke kindness in devotion-smitten souls walking over Ram Jhoola. “O men and women of God, can’t you spare something for my stomach treatment. It pains...day in and out. They say an operation is required. Please-please I die daily of this pain. God will bless you with pleasures unimaginable if you help me relieve from this pain!” the sonorous notes of his pleading voice mixed into the cool breeze blowing over the waters of the kind, cleansing river.

The address giver moved towards him with a meaningful smile. The charity seeker but was unmoved and stood solid with his present version of need. “It’s not that I just survive for free. I work as well. I wash brass utensils of that big temple over their!” before the gentleman could start with some lesson in morality and ethics of charity, the old man put up his defence guard.

“You had told me that you’ll directly go to the charity shop, get your specks and leave for your home!” the gentleman seemed up for some jest with the old man.

“Yes I’m gathering fare to reach the spot you mentioned. And to get money here you have to have a good reason, so this stomach ailment,” the old beggar was trying to salvage some respect.

The gentleman gave him 20 rupees and asked him to take a shared auto to reach the place before it closed for the day. Possibly he wanted to accomplish one pious deed in the day at any cost! He literally shoved him to the auto stand and deliberately hid himself around some corner to see the old man’s chain of action.

The old sanyasi was suddenly spellbound and looked at her feminine majesty as she passed at a distance unmindful of the gaze that was anchored on her with particular interest. The hiding gentleman could not hold it anymore and came angrily chiding, “Tricky old man, befooling people with need of specks and here you have all eyes for that beautiful white woman!”

****

Vidhut, the invalid from birth, had a sort of office on the Ram Jhoola, crawling on all fours, wearing chappals in his hands and another pair tied on both knees of his malformed little stumps of legs. As the devotees came gazing into the majestic torrents of the holy river, he pulled at the strings of their conscience, coming as a means of their salvage, a means of drawing God’s blessings by being kind to him. Crawling like this in the spiritual path of the pilgrims he daily earned 80 to 100 rupees. These days he visited his family very rarely.

Pili Bheet in Uttar Pradesh was a totally different place and his parents almost satisfied with God’s verdict to have him at the holy site as an instrument of Godly blessings for the luckier chunk of humanity. Yesterday he had a strong sense of purpose in life and rented a room for rupees 400 a month. He felt like respecting himself more, and draw more respect from the dharamshala caretaker who had kicked him out the previous day.

Once again her angelic face was gathering all these interesting tit-bits from him through another paid translator, a local street urchin who had picked up smatterings of English to get some pocket money in the bargain. The Ganges was creating stormy ripples below the mighty suspension bridge drawn from corporeal to the incorporeal. A man with puckered face watched with jealousy and interest.

“I have helped him many times, saved him from the policeman who try to drag him off the bridge. They in turn hit me with batons. I still carry the mark!” desperately he tugged at the local interpreter’s shirt to translate it for the Madam and get some attention on him for being good to somebody whom she liked to talked to.

“It’s a fracture. You must have got it while stealing something,” the translating boy just snubbed him in rough Hindi and shoved him away.

Surely, Vidhut was in news among the beggar group on the Jhoola.

“These white people are so strange that she might even adopt you and take you as far as America, the heaven!” one of his fellow beggars was creating the celestial world of luck beyond imagination.

And of course Vidhut hated the particularly interested stare of the old beggar from Rajasthan whenever she passed along. Had he approached her like any other beggar then it would have been normal. But the old Rajasthani was particularly drawn to her persona and still did not go for what is expected, i.e., alms or charity, but simply looked from a distance. It convinced him that the old man was drawn to her in a hateful way. And he cursed him for that. 

****

If you are a foreigner and happen to be at some pilgrimage place, you are then supposed to enjoy the devotional and spiritual fervour of the place, however tedious the exercise might come to you. The experience is, however, recommended.

After the Satsang organised by Swami Ramsukhdev ji Maharaj, in which innumerable chants and hymns and preaching interventions passed over her bent head, she was wearing her shoes crouching on the ground. A truly, we mean really religious persona decked in religiosity for the visual delight of it, priestly hand moved and was placed on her head with all the showers of this and the other world. She was awestruck looking up at his religious make up. It was amazing and impressive from all corners of this world.

“Are you from England?”

“No Maharaj I’m from America,” she had learnt to address the people attired as such with this word.

“Need a place to stay? You can stay here at the ashram. A very nice room!” he pinched slightly at her arm, straightway driving a strange intimacy.

She got to the immediate fringe of some vaguely lurking danger. The Ashrams vied with each other in having more and more white skins staying there for more impression and more gains in more than one form. It was a big industry to cater to money and carnal desires. She was shocked beyond apprehension and found herself going along with him. Now he was becoming more and more direct.

“This Godman is a ruffian...bastard...Has fun with girls staying at the ashram,” again he pinched at her arm mischievously, his voice now shaking with some fearful, natural passion.

She was scared beyond all her limits, even scared to scream loudly, after all these people are revered even more than God. She had seen hundreds falling at their feet since her arrival.

“You know we as humans should love each other. Oh, you don’t know how much I have liked you since I saw you. I’m blessed to have your company,” he was becoming more direct taking her shell-shocked state to be her consent. Or had she been drawn into some trick of hypnotism?

By now she could feel the pangs of lust effulging from his holy robes. But she was scared even to say something, forget about shouting. Vidhut just lunged forward in his dusted world, straying around like a puppy among the stampede of the bigger world above.

“Maharaj, maharaj...this life is wretched...I won’t let you go of your holy feet, bless me...I’m a worm and die every minute, please, oh please...” he was squirming like in fits and howling so piteously that even dozens stood around to have a look.

She regained her senses and just took the fraction of a moment to sneak out of the place, but not before looking into those dull dark eyes of the invalid, knowing fully well that he had done it deliberately to help her sneak out of the difficulty.

****

As per the norms of the society set up according to the appearances, we have to call him a lunatic. Her attention was drawn by the oddity of his forlorn situation. He was sitting on a heap of stones and a rimmed paramilitary hat perched safely on a towel wrapped around his ‘lost somewhere’ brain. To add more to his otherworldly attractiveness, he had wrapped a polythene sheet around him as if to guard his identity about which the bigger world wasn’t concerned anymore. Much to her surprise he somewhat positively responded to her accost. Saggy beard around the jaw-line moved to faint vestiges of smile on his face which appeared that of a Sikh. The smile seemed like an iota of appreciation for the swathes of sympathy on her beautiful features. He was eating soybean seeds from a packet. Sandals picket out from somewhere; a little school-boy’s tie; a sweater; a bag full of empty bottles and packets—it was all that remained to him in this world. In his pockets he had a torn diary and a pen.

“What is your name...name, name!” she treated him like a fellow human being, emphasising on ‘name’.

It was like talking to a stone, to something, to some empty bottle in the garbage pit stinking with all the muck in the world. We are sure he had not been called so particularly for long with such specific attention. He even got scared, getting into that evasive action to avoid a hit on the face. But then the beauty on her face was too assuring. His petrified eyes groped into the depths of her blue eyes. Sanity lurked deep from the unfathomable well of his miseries.

“M...M...Meer Singh!” his eyes closed under the impact of the push he gave to his crippled mind to draw sense for this beautiful creature from the outer world.

The way he had responded he seemed a case of somebody who had lost human sympathy rather than his mind.

She could recall Vibhut so particularly emphasising the place he was born to the translator. People carry the place of their birth even more importantly than even their names.

“Where are you from?” she was trying to make him understand the question more through gestures.

He kept on muttering some name again. Perhaps he was telling the name of the place. Since she was not aware of the local names any guesswork in that direction was of no use. He was trying to say the same word with a huge effort of his salivating mouth. Having failed to go any more, he gestured with his finger towards his head and finally like the dreamy world of an opium-fed man, he circled his finger over his hand to indicate he was mentally crippled. He had conveyed his identity.

“Education, education, studies, studies, books, school, school...” she held onto the iota of sanity that the anchorage of her sympathy had caught onto from across the unknown dark gloomy sea of his oblivion.

“Matric!” the effort found spittle dandling across the tufts of beard on his chin.

Again he circled his finger over the hat. Well, that was his identity now.

Possibly, drinking had something to do with his mental disorder for he picked up an empty cold drink bottle and muttered, “Bad, bad, hicc!!”

His eyes contorted with fear and he was looking now at something behind her back. Scared herself she looked back and was terrified beyond imagination. So it was not incidental. That smile by the riverside when he was washing that idol and that appearance by the trinkets shop, it wasn’t just simple coincidence. He but seemed even more scared than she herself was. Realising this, her fear turned more of a curiosity. The man stood there with folded hands. Before she could even react she saw Vidhut crawling up from behind and he straightway lunged into the old Sadhu’s legs, misbalancing him and toppling him on all fours. He was shouting like anything, raising a scare, drawing people’s attention, trying to save the princess from the danger that this old bad man, more beggary than anyone else in the semblance of saffron religiosity, presented. Vidhut was crying as he hit the man and clawed his face. The lunatic man also got up and unnerved by a strange sense started stomping the ground like an angry ape. He too started beating the old man with his hat. It was a real melee and before the people got together to disentangle the three of them, Vidhut had shown enough crawling clawing heroism to thoroughly roughen up the old man who was shaking and crying with convulsive sobs.

“All I wanted was a photo with her, hai hai send this rascal to jail, this crawling villain has shaken up my bones, police-police, is there any...is there a God-fearing man to take side of this old Sadhu who has been unjustifiably beaten up, hai hai, look at this worm who wriggles around the firangi woman!” he pointed to Vidhut.

She had already left the scene. People saw them going together. She was walking at a moderate pace and he crawling as fast as he could manage. Many tourists clicked a picture of this beautiful moment. There was mud across the narrow path. She put all her strength to lift his mud-smeared body, getting herself soiled in the effort, and put him to the other side. People applauded.

Somebody cheered, “She might have even fallen in love with him, these are crazy people, white people, expect the most daring from them!”