A River Sutra Page 3

  I had once dared to ask, “How can you worry about a dead insect more than you care about a human being?”

  My father had raised his voice at my impertinence. “What about our trusts? Are they for insects? Do you know how many people are assisted by me every day who would otherwise die of neglect? Fed and clothed, their hospital bills paid, their dead cremated. We cannot solve the problems of the world. We can only help those within our reach.”

  For the first time I had recognized that wealth had excised my father’s emotions, freeing him to examine people as if they were abstractions. His benevolence had a cold mathematics that left him unmoved and without curiosity about those he helped.

  The inhuman nature of his philanthropy had frightened me. Part of me still wished to become like him. On the rare occasions when he had allowed me to conduct a minor negotiation, I had been gratified by his congratulations, and yet all through that year I had felt an undercurrent of fear that in inheriting my father’s business acumen I might also inherit his inhumanity.

  Now I see the fear in my father’s eyes as fists smash against the sides of our silver chariot.

  My father does not comprehend poverty. He does not know why people might kill each other for the chance to escape their lives with a handful of gems thrown by his son or why, at the very moment of his greatest charitable act, he has unleashed what he hates most, violence.

  The elephants are becoming agitated by the riot. The elephant keepers try to control them, striking the heads of the great beasts with ironpronged prods until blood rolls down their ears. The elephants trumpet in rage and the mobs fall back in terror of being trampled under their immense gray feet. Ahead of us the horsemen spur their mounts into a gallop, clearing the street to allow the procession to move out of the bazaar.

  There is a more sedate atmosphere as we enter the main avenue of the city. Lines of policemen are patrolling the tree-shaded pavements to prevent the spectators from climbing over the steel barriers at the side of the road.

  We halt briefly. One of the elephants has twisted its foot in the rope, throwing the other elephants into confusion. The mahout dismounts to free the rope, and the animal moves sideways. I suddenly see a painting of myself embracing a featureless woman.

  She does not need features. It is enough for the spectators that she is haloed in clouds of blond hair. Catcalls and wolf whistles fill the air. Even the policemen are laughing. The mahout remounts the freed elephant. I watch the blond hair melting back into the panorama of my life.

  MY BROTHER IS enjoying the reaction of the crowds. He leans back on his elephant seat to wave at me, and I know he is remembering my father’s rage when I told him I wished to renounce the world.

  My brother had been present in the room as I tried to convince my father that my decision was not a passing whim.

  “It is!” my father had shouted, refusing to believe me. “I should never have allowed you to live abroad. The West has destroyed your peace of mind!”

  I suppose there was some truth in my father’s accusations. We had a tacit understanding that he would indulge my youth with all the wealth at his disposal until I assumed the responsibilities of the family empire. Then I would revert to the traditions of the Jains, even consenting to an arranged marriage if I had not already formed an appropriate attachment.

  In doing this my father was gambling my youth and his wealth against my doubts. Over the years I had often insisted that although we did not perpetrate physical cruelty ourselves, our wealth was sustained by violence. I think my father recognized that I shared his implacable nature and feared my doubts might lead me to renounce his world.

  For a while it seemed my father had calculated accurately. Knowing my years of pleasure in Europe were limited, I had seized on my irresponsible life with hectic delight. Beautiful women were lured by my fast sports cars, the wealth I squandered in fashionable discotheques, and by myself—for I was thought to be handsome with my aquiline features and my slender, muscular body. Then too, the family maintained luxurious holiday homes, and I was generous with my invitations.

  If the indolent starlets from the film studios of Bombay, the ambitious secretaries from the European diamond companies, the bored girls who haunted the discotheques, sometimes felt I used a little too much force in our lovemaking, they soon laughed it off when they received my lavish presents, even boasting to their friends that I suffered from an excess of virility.

  Gradually my life of unremitting pleasure ceased to satisfy me, leaving me exhausted from the last indulgence while anticipating the next. At the age of twenty-six I had already become fatigued by the world, knowing that even at the moment of gratification, the seed of new desire was being sown.

  When my father suggested that it was time for me to marry, I raised no objections to sharing my life with a total stranger. The prospect of ceasing to find new means to amuse myself came as a relief.

  It proved easy to control my restlessness after my return to India. My wife was a gentle creature who could not discard her formality, even in our marital bed. I treated her with corresponding courtesy, seeking only to make her comfortable with our intimacies, knowing she had neither the imagination nor the appetite for pleasure. For myself, I did not miss the sexual excesses of my earlier life, and once the birth of our daughter was followed by a son, my wife became so preoccupied with her maternal duties I no longer needed to play the husband.

  In truth, I did not care what happened next. My life was like a dreamless sleep, office routine following domestic routine without a tremor.

  My wife adhered to the practice of fasting twice a week, and in an idle sort of way I began to fast myself, if only because I was dismayed at the weight I was gaining with my inactive life.

  Convinced he had won the battle against my doubts, my father sent me an elderly Jain monk to sustain the efficacy of my fasts by discoursing on our traditions.

  The old monk’s air of contentment was so beguiling I became quite attached to him although I paid no attention to his discourses.

  Every morning before I left for work I listened to his soft voice behind the muslin mask that covered his mouth, as one listens to a piece of music that is neither too loud nor too soft, too fast nor too slow.

  “Do not trust the tranquility of your present mood,” the old priest warned me one day. “Some upheaval most certainly awaits you.”

  I teased him for making astrological predictions like a Hindu. He silenced me with unexpected severity.

  “You think I am only an old man reading the scriptures aloud. But I can see you are suppressing something. And what is suppressed will erupt.”

  I was astonished. We had never spoken of personal matters. “Why do you think so?”

  “I see you withdrawing from your life, your possessions. You have even ceased eating.”

  I started laughing. “You came to these conclusions because I think I am too fat?”

  The monk ignored my sarcasm. “You have traveled the world and think you have seen everything. Perhaps you have. But you have not yet learned the secrets of the human heart.”

  “How can you speak of secrets, with your blameless life?”

  “My life is neither blameless nor unique. I have learned this from Mahavira’s teachings.”

  “Ah, of course, the Great Teacher. What could he possibly know about mere mortals?”

  “That they long to be free. Many men die before they learn the desire for freedom lies deep within them, like a dammed river waiting to be released. But once a man has had that momentary glimpse of freedom, he needs to be instructed further.”

  I sneered but at the same time I found myself intrigued by the possibility that this old monk, with his limited knowledge of the world, might know some secret of the heart that could shatter the shell of numbness that enclosed me.

  As if reading my mind, the monk said slyly, “What do you lose by hearing Mahavira’s description of the skepticism and nihilism that disturb a man when he finds he is not free, a
lthough he continues to perform the role that society requires of him?”

  I was taken aback. “Mahavira spoke about these things?”

  The monk was amused by my reaction and offered to instruct me further.

  Over the months the monk’s teachings continued to surprise me. He was able to predict how I would feel long before I arrived at the emotion myself, describing to me the states of my despair with greater accuracy than I seemed able to experience them. I told the monk I longed to share his knowledge.

  “But I have no knowledge. I am only describing what has been observed by others wiser than myself.”

  I refused to believe him. I was convinced he had some unusual power and I wanted to possess it.

  The monk tried to warn me against such ambition. I would not listen. I had become like my ancestor, determined to pass through each door the monk opened, as my ancestor had walked each alley of the bazaar until he learned its secrets.

  . . .

  NOW THE DANCERS are whirling under the lighted archway that marks the street leading to the sprawling house built by my ancestor’s wealth. My father puts his arm around my shoulder. I see tears welling in his eyes. I push aside the strings of diamond solitaires, anxious to conceal my mortification at the scale on which he has orchestrated my renunciation of the world.

  I turn smiling to him, but my father’s grief humbles me, forcing me to understand that this massive procession, this immense display of charity are only his attempt to give away what I have denied him from giving me, his eldest son.

  He pulls me into his embrace, and I am filled with remorse at my father’s sorrow as I was once overwhelmed by tenderness at his anguish.

  Throughout my childhood my father had told me the ability to sense approaching danger was something possessed only by the greatest merchants. As I grew older I came to realize he prided himself on being among the handful of men who had it.

  Perhaps it was that instinct that led my father to dissuade me from seeing the old monk again. “His tranquility is seductive. But you have no idea what price he may have paid for it.”

  I had refused indignantly. “He is trying to alleviate the suffering around him. That’s good enough for me.”

  “We do more good through our trusts every day than he will do in a lifetime of being a monk. Without our work there would be no alms to allow him to live on charity.”

  I had leveled my old accusations at my father. “At least he has some humanity. You only help people to display your power.”

  Instead of rage, for the first time fear had colored my father’s reply. “You do not understand what you are saying. There is no suffering as harsh as that of the Jain monks. Our ascetics don’t believe there is any purpose to endurance. They only endure increasing pain, until they no longer fear it. I do more good than them every day without undergoing their pain.”

  My wife was standing at the doorway listening with concern to my father’s passion.

  “Their ways are bleaker than you can possibly imagine. Do you know what it means to be such a monk? Do you know the levels of asceticism he must suffer?”

  My father was expressing himself with such urgency I dared not interrupt him. “Do you know how that serene old monk hopes to die? Starving himself to death. He observes respect for life when all the time he is working toward the goal of denying his own life.”

  He stared at me, waiting for my response, but I could not speak. His anguish had melted the numbness that froze my heart. I was overcome by compassion for him, for myself, for my concerned and curious wife, for the human helplessness that linked us all.

  It was my first experience of ahimsa.

  In his attempt to frighten me, my father had made me realize that to prevent suffering a man must be capable of suffering, that a man who cannot suffer is not alive.

  My father could not understand why I needed to be with the monk more than ever and I could not explain, for the lesson of ahimsa must be learned by the heart, not the mind.

  But I knew I could never return to the anesthesia of wealth that had for so long numbed me to the suffering that could make me human.

  I told the old monk of the sudden, unexpected compassion that had overwhelmed me at my father’s fear. “But it lasted for such a brief time and I have not experienced it again.”

  “The human heart must conquer many hurdles to recapture that vision until ahimsa can become a way of life.”

  “I am willing to cross the hurdles.”

  The old monk had smiled. “Oh, my innocent young friend. Can you overcome your disgust at all the things from which your father’s wealth has protected you? Can you beg in the filth of the bazaars? Can you eat what has been discarded? Until you can do these small things you will understand neither the nonviolence of ahimsa nor gain freedom from the world.”

  THE PROCESSION HAS halted at our gates, and guards are steering the camel carts and mounted riders down a side street. People are running from the house to help my relatives dismount from the elephants.

  As I walk past the milling dancers I can see the women of the house weeping on the balcony—my wife, my mother, my sister-inlaw, my cousins. But I know they are reconciled to my departure, their tears are only an overflow from the excitement of the day.

  On the veranda the children are waiting to bid me farewell. They are too young to understand what I am doing, and I do not wish to frighten them so I embrace them as I would have done on any other evening.

  When I reach my chambers the servants help me undress, freeing me of the diamond helmet and the garlands of gems that have suffocated me all day. I enter the silence of my marble bathroom. Standing under the shower I let the cool, clear water wash the caked dust from my body, the chaotic scenes of the procession from my mind. Suddenly I am paralyzed by fear. This is the last time I will embrace my children, or laugh with my brother. The last time I will enjoy the privacy of my bathroom.

  A servant is knocking at the bathroom door. “The barber has arrived. Your father is calling for you.”

  I abandon all hope of retreat. The ceremonies of renunciation have progressed too far. I wrap a towel around my waist and come out to join the barber. Seven monks are sitting cross-legged in a row outside the room.

  I place my head before the barber and he starts cutting my thick hair. As the wet locks fall on the floor around me, the monks recite the afflictions I will endure when I become a member of their brotherhood.

  “You will be a social outcast.

  “You will be insulted.

  “You will be hounded.”

  My father is weeping and I can hear my brother coughing, trying to restrain his emotion as the barber shaves my scalp.

  “You will depend on strangers for your most basic needs.

  “They will despise your weakness that imposes on their charity.

  “You will be heartsick.”

  The barber finishes shaving my head, and I put my hand up to make sure he has left the five hairs intact that I will require at the diksha ceremony.

  “You will experience cold.

  “Hunger.

  “Heat.

  “Thirst.

  “Sickness.”

  The bare skin of my scalp feels strange under my hand. I can feel it prickling in fear as the monks recite their litany of afflictions, preparing me for the future. I look at my father but he averts his eyes. Neither he nor I can any longer avoid the reality of my renunciation, and I cannot tell him now that I should have heeded his warnings.

  “You will suffer pain from constant walking.

  “You will suffer loneliness.

  “You will grieve for your children.

  “You will be deprived of the ministrations of any woman lest she arouse your desire.”

  My father’s personality seems to undergo a change as he listens to the chanting. After the excesses of the procession he is subdued, sitting with me all night but at a distance, as if already awed by my new role and the relentless reminders of the masked monks in the da
rkness outside my chambers.

  He leaves me only when he has to return to the stadium to preside over the feast he has organized for the massive congregation.

  Now the monks hand me a muslin mask to tie over my mouth. They give me the three pieces of cloth that will be my only garments from today, and I go into the bathroom to change. In the mirror I examine my reflection for the last time. Seeing the five hairs hanging from my shaved scalp, I know I do not have the strength to endure the deprivations of my new life. For a long time I stand there, my forehead pressed against the marble walls of the bathroom.

  When I finally come out the old monk gives me a stick tied with woolen tufts to clear my path and a wooden begging bowl, and we climb into the cars waiting to take us to the stadium.

  At the gate the monks leave me. Still chanting, they file toward the podium where only twenty-four hours ago I commenced my departure from my father’s world.

  My father comes to fetch me. Seeing me in the garments of a mendicant, he weeps again, but I can offer him no consolation. I touch his feet as a son for the last time and enter the stadium.

  The crowds are silent, watching my approach. I cannot believe it is the same place or that these are the same people from yesterday. There is an atmosphere of tense expectation as I walk around the stadium. It takes me a long time, and I can hear the sound of my bare feet on the baked mud of the field as the crowds fold their hands to me in hushed respect.

  At last I climb the podium steps to join the chanting monks. Suddenly the stadium explodes in applause. People are on their feet, clapping and shouting encouragement. For half an hour I stand before them their cheers pounding in my ears. Once more I descend to circle the field, seeking again the blessings of these thousands of spectators to my act of renunciation.

  They are still cheering when I return to the podium. Now the monks take my staff and begging bowl. I raise my hands to my shaved head. A silence descends on the stadium as I prepare to imitate Mahavira’s last gesture against vanity.