- 8 -
It was a lovely, clear morning, and the hills covered in dew looked greener than ever. Wondering for how long the place would remain so pristine and cursing the multinational company for his own moral consolation, Krishnaswamy got into the jeep to visit Jyoti.
Jyoti was waiting at the gate. She had lush, black tresses that covered her back. She wore a bindi on her forehead, a conch shell necklace and glass bangles on her long, slender arms. She did look like the goddess Durga.
She walked up to him and gave him a hug. ’Do you remember this itchy little girl whom you would shout at for scribbling on your walls?’ She clasped her necklace in her teeth, just like her mother used to, a sensuous doll.
Krishnaswamy didn’t have to say a word. In English, with a smattering of Kannada and the occasional French word, she blurted out her political stances, aesthetic theories, what she liked and disliked in Somanath, and all the stories she had heard from her mother. She laughed. She laughed so much that she wept. ’Here, this is for you. I brought it from Paris,’ she gave him a bottle of Cognac. Beginning from learning how to drink, Jyoti told him of all that her mother had learnt from him. “From this Krishna.” She pointed her fingers at him. Her mother was the only one who called him Krishna. It was from Krishna that she’d learnt to despise the caste system, “from this abject lover Krishna”. She’d married a man she loved, and stayed in touch even after separating from him and died in the car when travelling with him. The thought must have reminded Jyoti of Hindu-Muslim hostility, of Ayodhya.
’Mosques, temples, and churches everything must be destroyed. If we have to experience God like the gurus of the Vedic times did, then all these claustrophobic memories of the past that are heaped on us must be completely destroyed. It was you – with the name of the Lord, the eternal lover – it was this very you who was responsible for such strength in my mother.’
As Jyoti spoke with a French accent to her English, the mild tinkling of her glass bangles mingled with her words. He thought of Somanath’s endless chatter, his own stale ideas, and the intoxicated night they had spent talking. From deep inside him, a note of cynicism surged unsuppressed: Hey cutie, what is this French multinational doing here, in this back of the beyond place? Aren’t they adept at using your passion and mine, and the divine art of that wise scoundrel Soma? It can only lead to the destruction of the age-old indicators that have their sources in caste and religion?
’I like the spirits here. I feel they speak to me. I feel that their anger, distress, deception, revenge, grace, everything is true. Come and see.’
She led him to his room. The walls were covered with huge poster-like pictures of the spirits in predominantly red and yellow. There was a picture of a peacock under them, as if it were her signature.
’Are you remembering those peacock drawings that left your walls untidy?’ It seemed it was impossible to hide anything from Jyoti. Krishnaswamy felt disconcerted.
’Come I’ll show you what you’ve lost,’ Jyoti said holding him close and looking at him with great affection. She stroked his cheeks, ’Why don’t you have a beard like my guru?’ she asked.
’Now that you ask, I’ll grow one,’ he said.
‘I know you won’t. You’re Krishna only by name.’ Jyoti quickly changed the topic. ’You’re planning to write on Somanath, isn’t it? It was my idea. My stepfather is a stupid philistine!’ He was staggered that she was using words that Haseena had learnt from him. ‘But he takes my advice, listens to whatever I say.’
’He paid Rs five lakhs and bought a picture from Somanath recently. Of course, he may be a philistine, but he’s astute too. He will auction the painting in Paris and make an extra five lakhs on it. Why am I saying all this … I forget … you’ve left me very excited. Wasn’t my mother an enigma to you? You are a stupid fool. You never realised how much she loved you and she continued to, till her last breath. You were fated to be a lonely ghost she would always say.’
As I listened to her with wide-eyed wonder, Jyoti got bashful. She looked like a little girl when she covered her face and laughed. I was immediately reminded of Haseena, sitting on the class bench. Haseena too, like her, would be brazen one moment, and then the next minute she would be all shy and naïve like a little girl.
’Look at my arrogance. I’m just blabbering as if what I say is the ultimate truth. What I wanted to discuss with you is the hidden philosophical brilliance of Somanath’s works. You both go a long way, don’t you? He laughs when I ask him about it. “You find your own secret dear”, is his stock reply. I’ll show you a picture of Somanath. But not today … this day is dedicated to my mother.’
Within seconds, however, she had forgotten what she’d said and already begun to describe the picture that she wanted to show him.
’It’s a picture that glows with a weird and wonderful light. It looks extremely simple, barely anything in it. Just a huge rock. It looks as if it is controlled by gravity, but actually is not. It stands without the support of the earth, like a transient object, something that despite its massive appearance has lost its density. What is startling is the chameleon that sits at the edge of the seemingly weightless but solid piece of rock. The beady, bulging, eyes that can be seen because of its raised head, eyes that stare into nothingness – really stunning! A realistic chameleon on a symbolic rock. The two blend to become a gesture. There’s no trace of the erotic in the picture. It’s so spare with the absence of the erotic, that its absence itself seems like an implicit presence to me.’
Krishnaswamy was speechless, he listened to her open-mouthed. In jealousy, appreciation and wonder he said ’bastard’.
He was relieved when Jyoti changed the topic. Now she started speaking about her mother. Her mother might have become an expert in striking business deals between India and France. But in intimate conversations with her daughter, she had spoken about Krishnaswamy. And about Jyoti’s father. As soon as she learnt he was ill, she rushed to Mumbai, brought him to her flat and nursed him. She died in a blast that occurred when she was taking him to the hospital. Her exquisite body had been blown to bits and scattered ... Jyoti broke down. She embraced Krishnaswamy, her head on his chest, and wept. Krishnaswamy was overcome by affection. He patted her back, kissed and consoled her. ‘Come,’ she said, holding his hand and took him to her bedroom.
On the wall opposite Jyoti’s bed was a life-size picture of Haseena. A clay lamp had been lit underneath. Krishnaswamy sank to his knees and closed his eyes. Jyoti rested her forehead on the ground as if she was in namaaz. When she arose, she said, ‘Even when Amma became rich she would listen to her favourite Raj Kapoor’s songs on this tape recorder she stole from you. She had it repaired and even brought it to Paris. All the parts are new but it is still a reminder of you. So is the sewing machine you gave her. They are things that my mother bequeathed to me.’
She opened the cupboard next to the bed. She rummaged through the clothes and carefully pulled out the old two-in-one tape recorder. Krishnaswamy ran his hands over it gently.
’Do you know Amma’s favourite song?’ she asked pressing the button.
The song from the film ’Awaara’ began to play. There were tears in Krishnaswamy’s eyes.
’Amma never told me how I used to address you when I was little. Those days … when I had rashes all over … now I don’t know how to call you … Be here with Amma. If you are ready, I will show my guru’s picture today itself. Alright?’
As he struggled to say ‘yes’ he looked at Jyoti with affection. Jyoti quickly went in to make coffee.
Krishnaswamy pulled out the piece of bangle from the pocket of his jeans. It glistened, green. He placed it under Haseena’s picture in which she was draped in a silk sari, her hair adorned with jasmine. She wore a mischievous smile…
He waited for another gesture, from beyond the silence of death.
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