ISSUE 39

Well, do you think there’s anything abnormal about two women having breakfast at a dhaba on a Sunday morning? If not, why do you think the waiter stared at them? The two women, not exactly young. Specs. Grey hair.  Frumpish. Thick-soled sandals. Cloth bags. They entered the dhaba on the last Sunday of a November. You could’ve easily have missed them in a crowd. But the waiter stared at them.  They were in the wrong place (a dhaba in Sarnath), at the wrong time (early Sunday morning).

The Dhaba

These two women walk in early, around 7.30, just after we opened. Both of them are carrying plants. Like babies in their arms. Are they bringing those plants in here? There’s no space here. This is not a nursery. Where are they going to keep them?

One of them said: Bhayia. Can we keep these plants here?

No, I said, because I knew the boss wouldn’t approve. I pointed out a spot outside the entrance. You can leave them there, I said.

Then, they wanted to know where they could wash their hands. I showed them the sink next to the puri-sabzi counter. They dropped their bags on the bench and went to the sink. When they returned, they placed their order. I kept wondering: Who are these women? We hardly get any women. Oh, women come. But always with their families.

One of them said: Are your puris fresh, bhayia?

Everything here is fresh, I said.

We believe you. Then give us two puri-sabzi.

Anything else?

I want jalebi-dahi.

Add one rajbhog for me, the other one said.

As I’m turning around, I hear them: It’s not the cleanest place. But they have a sink and soap and water. What more can you expect?

If they’re so fussy, why had they come here? They were schoolteachers for sure. Or may be some NGO, came to Sarnath for a Sunday outing. But so early? They were not family women. No. Family women would be in their homes making breakfast for their families.

I brought them their puri-sabzi, dahi-jalebi and rajbhog.  They could see the puris were just out of the kadhai. But one of them touched the puris to make sure, as if I’d serve them cold puris. What can I say? City women.  I returned to ask if they needed anything else. But they were so busy talking and eating they didn’t even look at me. They didn’t seem in need of anything, so I left them alone until they called for their bill. They left me a big tip. That was a surprise. I didn’t expect them to. They didn’t look like locals. Must be from Delhi or Mumbai.

At the Garden of Spiritual Wisdom

There are these two women ringing the bell and banging at the gate. What are they doing here so early? It’s only 7 am. Can’t they read the sign?

Bhayia, can you please let us in?

Read the sign, I say. What does the sign say?

Open 9.30 am to 5 pm, one of them reads.

Phir?

Arre bhayia, we’ve come a long way and we just want to walk through the garden in peace. Before all the tourists come.

Where have you come from, madam? I ask.

Allahabad.

Allahabad? We have visitors coming here from Japan and America.

I’m sure you do. But we can’t come here again. We are only here today. Can’t you ask your supervisor to let us in?

Madam, you’re two and a half hours early. How can I let people in two and a half hours before opening time?

But bhayia, we told you we’re just here for today.  Please. Can’t you ask your supervisor?

There’s no supervisor. I am in-charge here, I lie.

How else could I get rid of them? If I let them in so early, I’d be the one to get yelled at by Dubey ji. Shouldn’t they understand? They had been to school, they looked parha-likha.

They shook their heads and repeated that they were here from Allahabad just for today. Are they sanki?  Why should they come out so early? Didn’t they have anything better to do? The problem with parha-likha people is they always expect to be treated special, as if their education gives them some big right. They spoke like they had the right to come here early and it was my duty to let them in just because they were here.

At the Chaukhandi Stupa

We had been turned away from the Garden of Spiritual Wisdom. P had tried to beg, wheedle, sweet-talk the guard to find her way in. But the guard had attitude. Now if we had been two men, P said, maybe he wouldn’t have been so stiff with us.

Maybe he’d take us seriously, I said. Two women. We didn’t impress him enough. So now we have two and a half hours.  Let’s walk to the Chaukhandi Stupa.

It was still early, and no tourist buses had arrived yet at the stupa. A few couples were strolling hand in hand in the green coolness on the last day of November. Some were sitting on the grass taking selfies. I read the inscription just inside the entrance. This is the place where the Buddha preached his first sermon to his five disciples post-enlightenment. He must have felt supremely confident to preach whatever insights he had gathered for ending human suffering. I have tried meditation but the ending of my suffering is not in sight.

If the Buddha did preach to just five disciples, I said to P, he must’ve felt totally sure of the truth of what he was preaching.

This stupa was built much after the Buddha during the Gupta period. And the octagonal tower above it was built even later by Raja Todimal’s son in honour of the Mughal emperor Humayun’s visit. There’s even an Arabic inscription above the north entrance, the sign said, but I couldn’t locate it. We found stretch of grass uninfested by selfie-taking couples and P lay down because she loves the feel of soft grass. I sat, uncomfortable about lying down in a public place.

I plucked a blade of grass and started chewing on its white succulent end.

Do you feel a void inside you? You know a kind of empty feeling? I asked P, staring at the gnarled tree trunks. It’s like a horrible, deep, gaping emptiness. I feel it somewhere in the womb.

The void? P said. Yes, sometimes. I thought it’s about our failures. You know how you waste your youth dreaming about a certain kind of relationship with a certain kind of person. And then you realise it’s just not going to happen. May be that’s when the void comes.

It’s not about failed relationships, I said.

Relationships, desires, anything, everything you ever wished for, P said. It takes us a long time to stop desiring. Hazaron khawishen aisi … you know.

May be the Buddha left home and wandered into the forest because he too felt the void? And it became unbearable? May be the Buddha was depressed? I speculated.

You know what … animals … don’t disappoint. And there are birds, gardens, plants, trees, rivers. And sometimes, a Sunday like this.

That’s it?

That’s a lot, don’t you think?

But still, it doesn’t get rid of the void, I insisted. You’re not getting me.

I get you. You’re stuck in the wrong play. What can you do? You can’t quit? You might as well play out your part. We keep feeling crappy because we think we deserve a better role. But in the end, it’s just a play.

Stuck in the wrong play? How could I convey the aching, the emptiness, the gnawing feeling of being stuck in the wrong play? The constant gnawing. Not like hunger, not pain. Not fear. It’s not anything you can name or express as a feeling. It’s just an emptiness.

You want to escape. But I think you need the void, P said after a few minutes.

Need it? Why the hell do I need to feel so crappy?

It keeps you discontented. Don’t you see? Restless. You keep looking for something. You don’t feel satisfied with the play you were stuck in. You search for another play, another story, another script, P said.

I looked towards the serene wide-trunked trees standing still in the November sun that was just climbing up above the treeline. I wish I felt as rooted, as steady, as unruffled.

It’s easy to say you need the void but it’s not easy to live with it, I said.

A tour guide was shouting instructions into a loudspeaker and a long line of Buddhist tourists filed past us, following him. Elderly ladies and men with white hats, water bottles and cameras. It was time to leave. That last day of November already seemed half over even though it had barely begun.

Lemon tree seller

Walking away from the Chaukhandi Stupa, P spotted a small general store, the kind of place that has a wooden stand out front for displaying its wares. The stand was full of plants for sale in plastic bags. P likes to stop at shops and buy little things. She spotted the narangi plant with its tiny bead-like oranges.

I’m going to buy this narangi plant, P said. It reminds me of the narangi tree in our house when I was a kid.

I always wanted to have a lemon tree but what if I kill it? Will it even grow into a lemon tree?  I said, looking at the lemon plant with a lone lemon dangling from it.

The shopkeeper was watching us from inside the darkness of the store. He limped towards us with a crutch under his arm.

Don’t think so much. Just get it. Let me get it for you, P said. A reminder of our Sarnath Sunday.

I eyed the lone lemon on the lemon plant. To imagine it could one day become a laden lemon tree was a leap of faith that lay beyond me.

Will it bear fruit? I asked the shopkeeper.

It already is bearing fruit, see? The shopkeeper pointed to the lemon. It’ll start giving you lemons by next year.

Really? I said full of doubt.

There’s no way to tell if a lemon plant will grow lemons one day. What if it didn’t? What if? What if? What if?

The shopkeeper said we’d need to put the plant into soil. For now, he could transplant them into clay pots for thirty rupees each.

He moved back and forth, smoothly using his crutch and carrying things in his free hand. Suddenly I wanted to ask him about the void. Watching him move so deftly despite his misaligned legs made me think there must inevitably have been times when he must have suffered the void.

Do you ever … feel some sort of emptiness, a khali-pun inside you? I framed my question bravely.

He was tearing off the black plastic bag from the lemon plant to lower it into the soil he had prepared in the clay pot. He didn’t look at me. He pretended as if he hadn’t heard. Then he frowned and shook his head.

You don’t ever feel a sort of Khali-pun?  I repeated.

He continued looking down and patting the soil around the transplanted lemon plant. Had I entered forbidden territory? P was also looking at me, puzzled as to what had come over me.

Finally he spoke.

There’s so much to do from morning till evening, he sighed. Do I have time to think of such things? Are you a doctor?

Why a doctor?

You sound like one.

And then he was back to his briskness. Add 100 gram neem ki chali to it when you put it in the ground, he added, handing me the pot with the transplanted plant.

Neem ki chali? I asked. What’s that? Where will I get it?

Now he felt he was out of murky waters and on familiar turf and I was the befuddled one. Neem ki chali … don’t you know what neem ki chali is? Arre? nahi jaanti kya?

Nahi. I said.

Come back day after tomorrow and I’ll give you some.

I can’t come back day after tomorrow.

I knew I couldn’t. Standing outside a little shop in Sarnath on the last Sunday in November, watching a man with a crutch transplant a little lemon plant into a pot, risking a recklessly asked question, which he either didn’t know how to answer or didn’t want to answer, that I had no right to ask him anyway. Or maybe he did keep himself busy from morning till night and never experienced the void. Now if I could keep that busy, maybe I could also avoid the void?

I clutched the clay pot with the lemon plant that may or may not become a fruit-bearing lemon tree. As for the neem ki chali I asked if I could get it in a nursery in town.

You can try, he said, handing over P’s narangi plant to her, and taking the money P handed him.

I googled neem ki chali later: Organic manure, by-product of pressed neem tree bark and neem kernels. Why wouldn’t I get it at a nursery?

P and I walked on, cradling our little saplings. We came upon a dhaba and felt relieved as we could finally sit down and have a hot breakfast until it was time to return to the Garden of Spiritual Wisdom.

Inside the Dhaba

We were about to step in when the waiter came towards us and told us we couldn’t bring the plants in. I was struck by the undertone of rudeness. He pointed to a spot outside the entrance where we could leave the plants.

We asked him if we could wash our hands. It wasn’t a very clean place, but they had a sink, running water and soap.

I commented in a low voice: It’s not the cleanest. And P said something like at least they have a sink and soap and water. What more could we expect from a dhaba?

I said: Does this place even have a name?

I had seen no signboard outside. I went up and asked the pot-bellied man in greasy vest behind the sweets counter. Ganga Sagar, he answered dourly. He looked like the owner. A skinny worker in a very dirty vest emerged from the back, carrying a tray of fresh malpuas. The edges of the malpuas were browned and there was a fine dusting of nuts on them. My decision was made: I bought half a dozen malpuas. P said she’ll also take home half a dozen since she had to take something for her husband. He was from eastern Bihar and malpuas are a specialty in those parts.

Do you know they even speak a different language in Eastern Bihar, P said.

What’s the name of the language?

Angika, she said.

Isn’t it amazing how many languages are spoken in this country?

Our puri-sabzi arrived and P touched one of them to make sure they were hot. It was most comforting to dip the hot puris into the chana sabzi on a coldish morning. Somehow the fact that it was the last Sunday and the last day of the month and the next day P would leave and return to her regular life was at the back of my mind. It added a tinge of sadness to this outing. The tangy dahi-jalebi and a melt-in-the mouth, plump-looking rajbhog made life seem a little less melancholy.

I’ve never come across malpuas in any mithai shop in Allahabad, I said.

It’s a very Bihari-Bengali thing, P said. Do you know what a traditional breakfast in Eastern Bihar is? Pressed rice with jaggery and yoghurt, sprouts and nuts.

Isn’t it amazing, I said. You travel less than a hundred kilometers and everything from language to food to customs changes. It might not always be like this. Globalisation will bulldoze differences. All this could be gone very soon.

Our breakfast cost only 75 rupees. We were surprised. We paid the pot-bellied man behind the mithai counter a hundred and tipped the remaining 25 rupees to the waiter who seemed happy. We stuffed our mouths with saunf from the counter. The day was passing too quickly for my liking. By this time  tomorrow morning P would be gone. The void would rush back with a vengeance in all its harrowing emptiness.

The Garden of Spiritual Wisdom, Again

We were back, knocking at the black, high gate, holding our plants. The guard peeped out through the little opening in the gate, and said: There’s still half an hour left before opening time.

Arre, bhaiya,what is half an hour? You’ve already made us wait two hours.

I think he saw how desperate we were, two old ladies with nothing better to do on a Sunday morning. So, he let us in. We asked if we could leave the plants near his cabin.

Yes, but don’t take any photos in the garden, he said sternly. And enter your name and address here, he said, opening a thick ledger. And put down your entry time as 9.30.

Of course, we’ll put down our entry time as 9.30, we said like grateful schoolgirls. We don’t want you to get into trouble.

We walked down the stone path towards the garden. The grass was immaculately mown and the hedges meticulously trimmed. This alone made the place feel alien and forbidding. Spotless stone paths and no carelessly thrown chips or gutka wrappers on the grass. The sanitised serenity seemed too foreign, as if achieved with supernatural effort. We sat on one stone bench, under a leafy peepal tree and wondered how the management managed to keep it so un-Indianly clean. P stood for a long time by each one of the eight stone sculptures, each symbolizing the eight-fold path to spiritual liberation.

By then a guard we hadn’t seen walked up to us.

Where are you from, madam?

Allahabad, I said.

Allahabad? I’m also from there. Then you must give me some bohni-bhatta.

When you come to Allahabad, I will, I said.

How will I come to Allahabad? I work here. You should come and fill out the visitor’s book. Do you want to do it now?

I’m sitting here now. I’ll do it when my friend comes back.

Don’t forget. And leave me whatever you want to leave inside the book, he said, looking over his shoulder. Don’t let them see it. Or the other guards will also ask you for money.

I got up and walked over to P where she was reading the inscription next to the Right Concentration sculpture. I told her about the guard.

Don’t give him anything. P said.

There was a stone carving of Benares’s Kashi Vishwanath temple.

What does Vishwanath temple have to do with Buddhist teachings? I asked.

Nothing, P said.

We sat on a stone bench further away from the guard. I could see him watching us as if he didn’t want to let us escape without his bohni-bhatta. The day was warming up, but the sunshine wasn’t cruel.

A woman was weeding flower beds nearby, squatting with her scythe. She smiled and said namaste.

How long do you work every day? I asked.

Eight to five. On days when I can’t come, they cut my pay.

It should be called the Garden of Corporate Wisdom, P said.

The gardener woman disappeared as soon as she saw the guard approach us again as if she didn’t want him to see her talking to us. I didn’t leave any money for him inside the visitor’s book. But when I went to look for the gardener lady to give her something, she had disappeared.

Back in My Room

Later that evening, after we returned from Sarnath, P said it had been such a lovely day, such a rich day. She was very tired and after a cup of ginger tea, she lay down on my bed and dozed off. I sat in the armchair next to the bed and worked on my cross-stitch pattern. Again, the thought that I  would be alone in a few hours when P left resurfaced. The respite had been too short. The void was hinting of its return.

Siddhartha Gautama perhaps set out on his journey because, like me, he was a victim of the void? But my void was not making me go anywhere. There was no forest or cave I had in mind. If I decided to leave the familiar, where would I head to? Siddhartha lived at a time when it wasn’t considered crazy to a go off into the woods to think things out in solitude. My void wasn’t motivating me to go anywhere. The best I could do was live a solitary life in a room. And I wasn’t at peace with that either. I was a camel hoping to fill the big empty pouch inside me provided an oasis walked up to me. Rather than go in search of an oasis first. The void was due to failed relationships, may be, or the kids growing up and leaving home. Or me not doing purposeful work? Not writing enough, not making much of a difference to the world? Not having a career, nor following a monk’s life. Even monks have goals. They try to attain something in the spiritual realm.

May be, just may be, I thought, sitting on the armchair across from P who snored softly, the void had always been there. But it had been veiled by the chores of daily life that needed doing.  And now the void was unveiled as I was getting older and lonelier and had fewer chores to keep me busy?

On that last day of November, while P napped, and dusk crept into the room, I stopped my needlework. It was getting dark. The void was creeping up on me, and I could tell there was nowhere for it to go but sit tight in my insides.

On another winter morning, some years back, P and I were walking on the old Phapamau bridge in Allahabad. The old bridge stands to the right of the new bridge. The old bridge is closed to traffic, and is used by walkers and joggers by the day, and drug peddlers by night. I remember the big orange button-like sun on the eastern horizon when P said something like: Everyone who is making you feel lonely is also liberating you.

Really? I wish that was true, I said.

What would P know about loneliness, surrounded as she was by friends, co-workers, siblings?

But on that Sunday evening after our Sarnath outing, listening to P’s steady, soft snoring, I thought there might be some truth to what she’d said very casually.

I switched on the lamp, waking up P. Sorry!

P sat up. Arre, I overslept! Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?

You seemed tired. Can’t you stay another day? Don’t leave me. Don’t go tomorrow, I pleaded.

No, no. I’d better go. I have to get back to work. I’ll need to catch an early morning bus.

I want to tell you something. Remember you said everyone who’s making me lonely is liberating me? I think you were right. It’s just hard to believe it when it’s happening. I don’t want to be lonely. But if I could just sit through the loneliness, liberation must be around the corner.

P looked at me. I think she felt sympathetic. I must have appeared ghostly in the light of the lamp. She could sense my desperation. But she couldn’t offer me a solution. Staying another day was not a solution. After she left my room that night to go to hers, I returned to my armchair. The cross stitch wasn’t resembling the paper pattern. I had messed up some stitches. I stared at the slight depression in the mattress and the crumpledness of the sheet where P had lain, and like a soldier resigned to live under siege, put away my embroidery.

P would text me next morning to thank me for such a refreshing Sunday outing, sitting on the bus that was taking her back to her life, house, family, job. She had stopped by my room and waved goodbye in the early morning greyness. I could feel the assault of the void rushing at me like floodwaters as soon as she left. After she left, I returned to the verandah and sat by little lemon plant. I watered it, and spoke to it silently.

I sat on the verandah till the first morning of December was a few hours old, sipping my coffee. If P had stayed another day, this feathery agitation would have been pushed back by a day. But that’s it. Just by a day. By a day I would’ve delayed its return. But then? Why couldn’t I just accept it, embrace it, befriend it? Sitting on the verandah, wondering if life was ever going to be different, wondering if the void would stop torturing me, if the lemon plant would grow up to be a lemon-bearing tree … if I could stop resisting the void, most of my misery would be over. Life would just roll on.

Hadn’t a Sunday morphed into a Monday? November into December? And the December would soon morph into January? This year into another year? Two women had been out to Sarnath. Two plants had been bought. Two breakfasts had been ordered at a dhaba. Two women had taken a walk in the Garden of Spiritual Wisdom. A rich day had arisen and was spent with a friend.

So there!