- 3 -
It was Somanath’s good fortune that the winds weren’t too heavy and the branch that he held on to wasn’t swaying too much. The leaves rustling in the gentle breeze filtered the sun’s rays from the west and there was a beautiful play of light and shade on the picture in front. The smooth granite was inviting and Krishnaswamy, galvanised into changing positions, now lay back, relaxing.
Somanath stopped talking. He stroked his long beard with his left hand, snapped his knuckles by pressing them against his temple, and pulled out a pack of beedis from his kurta pocket. He extracted a single beedi, threw it into his mouth and held it between his teeth. Thrusting the pack back into his pocket, he took out a matchbox carefully and drew one single matchstick from it. He then transferred the matchbox to his right hand, the one that was holding on to the branch, rubbed the stick against it and lit his beedi. Somanath was now before his canvas, calm and in deep contemplation.
’Without having to hide, without having to steal, I don’t think we can protect anything that’s sacred. I’m certain that there must be a secret spot on this earth that has never been sighted.’
Having said this, Somanath crushed his beedi and threw it away. When Krishnaswamy turned back to the picture, he gazed straight into the chameleon’s bulging, gem-like eyes. There was no expression in them. As it breathed, its neck, which looked like a vein in the rock, throbbed with life.
Suddenly Krishnaswamy caught sight of a flash of movement, someone or something was gesturing to him. There was a gleam at the bottom of the picture. Krishnaswamy could be tickled easily, so easily that even if someone moved their fingers as if to tickle him, he would roll in laughter. He felt that the movement, the gesture was intended just for him; he felt as if he was being tickled and a thrilled quiver ran up his entire body.
If Somanath sat before the picture in silence like an ancient sage, open and receptive to its signals, Krishnaswamy too, in his striped shirt and jeans, felt he was being signalled to by the primeval rock. He rubbed his eyes with their long eyelashes. Even at fifty, he admired himself in the mirror. He ran his hands over his face with its rather long, but sharp nose. Raising himself, he stood up as if to open the door for an unexpected arrival, an apparition that was to appear. He flicked back the hair on his forehead. He glanced at the corner that sparkled and beckoned. As his eagerness for a manifestation of a spectacle heightened, he wondered if it was the rascal Somanath’s company that was affecting him.
The preparedness of the hunter, his entire energy infused into his spear, the alertness of the deer which had compacted its body to escape the hunter’s weapon, Somanath’s absorption with trying to grapple with the meaning behind this passionate vitality of life … in the midst of all this could it be that he, Krishnaswamy, was humouring his bloated ego by telling himself that he too was receiving signals from nowhere.
If he hadn’t been in the company of Somanath, if he hadn’t scaled such difficult terrain with fear in every step, if he hadn’t been exposed to the experience of the difference between sight and perception, this picture of the hunter and the deer would have appeared insipid. For so long now, in order safeguard his social dignity, he had kept his inner self carefully locked in. Now, he could feel the latches beginning to give.
He suddenly felt that something gleam and gesticulate again, he felt his fingers delicately stroking the secret lock, and the prospect of feeling tickled, left him rapturous. One bunch of leaves among the thousands on that tree – the one which at that very moment was shielding the rays of the sun – swayed slightly in the gentle breeze, and allowed a beam of light to filter through. It touched the black rock at the bottom of which was a crevice where something shone. Somanath, who had been standing quietly, began to speak. ’This evening you will meet Jyoti. She knows the secrets of all the spirits in this area. They talk to her. The day this picture will talk to her is not too far away. I’m just waiting for her to get a bit more competent.’
’Or you can say that you are waiting for the day her stepfather will own this picture?’
’Listen fool. That deer, which the hunter is trying to hunt, dates back to a time before Dushyanta chased Shakuntala. Stupid fellow, look, look, hasn’t it remained unattainable for so many thousand years? That’s the truth of art.’
Krishnaswamy wondered at Somanath speaking with such reckless arrogance. Once again the corner of the rock, shone as if it was beckoning to him. What was surprising, however, was that Somanath, who could see metaphysical details of light and shade, failed to see this sparkle. Perhaps it wasn’t visible from where he stood. Could it be that what was shining was just something ordinary and not a spirit or an ethereal object?
His thoughts ran on: these narrow fissures were probably filled with rock structures painted on by primordial man that had collapsed when the land collapsed and were now covered in huge forests. This single rock must have survived by some chance, and it was chance that made it accessible to a man, a lizard and the birds flying above. Soon, the whole structure, the whole area would become the subject of research for the Frenchman’s giant company. The picture would be inscribed on the company’s main door. They would device a catch line ’from prehistoric times to modernity’ and boast of the company’s achievements.
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