The Smile of the Forsaken

 

He is sitting on the bench by the tea stall. The white woman, her face tanned by the tropical sun, sits near him and nudges his ribs with her elbow. She smiles and he cackles with childlike laughter. 

‘Ganja?’ he mumbles very naughtily leaning over her. She laughs and offers him a cup of tea. He looks like an elderly father who has something in his kitty that would make his little daughter happy. She is excited like a girl turns all smiles at the prospect of receiving her favourite candy.

‘It’s all gone, not even an ant’s worth to be found anywhere on my body,’ he chuckles.

‘Babaji you promised to give it today. My friends are here. They will jump into Ma Ganga and get mukti if it’s not arranged today,’ she keeps her smile.

A smile is the anchor of all hopes in difficult situations. A cicada unleashes its jarring jaw-harping notes that go buzzing through the air.

‘See, this cicada is so happy without ganja! Why do you need ganja to keep smiling?’ it seems the sadhu isn’t in favour of free-wheeling consumption of the substance.

‘It’s not for our smile Babaji. It’s to tame our shame, our pain, our loneliness,’ she is serious now and looks at the swift torrents of Ma Ganga.

‘Ma Ganga is here to absorb our sins, shame, pain, everything. Bathe in her like a baby rolls in her cradle. You will forget all pains,’ the kindly old sadhu puts a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. 

The touch of care seems to revive her spirits a bit. She smiles a bit and bends down to caresses his dog sitting under the rickety wooden bench. He keeps it chained.

‘Why do you keep him chained?’ she asks after a gentle reflection on the subject.

‘We are both chained, not just he. I am chained by having a liking for him and he is chained by his loyalty to me. I know this is bondage, even if a fragile one. But he is as happy with the real chain as I am with my emotional one for him. We have agreed to be chained to each other and walk slowly on our journey till almighty allows us to travel together. After that he goes his way, I will go mine. But till then it has to be a beautiful journey,’ the old mendicant is fondly looking at his dog.

‘Take it gudiya rani,’ her offers her a tiny paper pudiya wrapped around the tiny grains much in demand at the pilgrimage town, especially among a section of foreign travellers. ‘Feed your smile instead of drowning your pain in this,’ he tells her.  

He jumped into mendicancy 50 years back. The old sadhu has shifting, empathically rolling eyes. There is a glint of empathy as well.

He prepares a beedi with the substance of forgetfulness, takes a long, long draught of smoke.

‘Sab sunya hai. Sab gol-gol!’ he cackles with a mischievous laughter.

He offers the next draught to her. She happily takes her turn at the beedi and impresses him with her lung power as she inhales copiously for many seconds.

‘You can be a famous Babaji if you decide to organize your sermons,’ she sees a grand spiritual set-up for him and she as the head disciple.

He thinks he is not educated enough to speak out all that he has realized. He has this propensity of rhyming his speech. Sometimes he succeeds also.

‘The other shore has everything, roads, connectivity to the outside world, hospitals, offices, schools, everything. But here we have swarga. Nothing is left in those ashrams,’ he points to the busy business-like built up on the other side of the holy river.

‘This dog is my last worldly possession. I won’t have any more. It’s blissful to be dispossessed altogether!’ he inhales at his turn.

The beedi is spent. She pays for their tea. She wants to pay for the pudiya also but he says no.

‘Learn to live by adding to your smile instead of subduing your pain,’ he tells her as he takes off the chain from the wooden bench’s leg and starts moving to the solitary alley leading to the forest away from the ashrams and shops by the side of the holy river.

A beautiful, buxom night is building up over the rapid torrents of the holy river. The time is moving towards its mid-night mark. There is silence, serenity, cool breeze, yellowish mercury lights in the street. His dog walks behind him, looking happier than it would be even without the chain. If we are destined to have chains at all, let these be the chains of love. It adds to one’s smiles. Then there is no need to clamp down one’s pain by force. All turns well by itself.

She stands and looks at the retreating figures into the darker folds away from the river bank. She looks at the pudiya. A smile comes on her face. The easy merriment in his eyes still flashes in her vision. The little orphan girl who works as a helper at the tea shop is asleep behind the counter. Her smile further brightens up. She knows the story of this girl as she is a frequent visitor to the tea stall. She recalls the bright smile of this girl when she hands over the tea glass to her. Ironically, it’s the smile of the forsaken that comes as the brightest.

She walks down the steps to Ma Ganga, stands in knee deep waters and respectfully bows down to flow the pudiya among the all-receiving currents of the holy river.

She comes back and sits by the tired sleeping girl on the rickety bench, her feet on a chair and her hand clutching a wooden post nearby to prevent a fall. She caresses her head. The girl is too tired to be awakened by such a soft touch. She then holds her hand, replacing her wooden support by a real flesh and blood motherly hand. The woman smiles. She has added to her smiles. She would no longer need to drown her sorrows to survive. She has decided to get tied to a chain of love. She is going to adopt this little homeless girl and give her the best of life and living.