Isn't it the night to.....

 

Isn’t it the night to transform oneself, to change into wolves, or bats, or hyenas, or owls, or whatever nocturnal creature one wants to be?

 

Myra are you listening? Myra? You never answer do you? You would like me to find out for myself…

 

Well, it’s a full moon night. The garden is flooded with a clear, soft light. The trees in the distance are amassed in the moonlight, a gathering of shadows. The mountains placid and powerful are teeming with secret life…. But why am I telling you what you already know?

 

Come Myra, be a wolf with me tonight. Let’s leap out of this room, onto the grass and into the mountains, the cold night air in our fur, breathing deep the scents of the night, loping through the woods in search of prey. We could run too, just run. Have you seen how wolves run? I’ll run like a wolf tonight, bound, roll in the grass, sneak through trees,  streak through the clearings and lie down panting with exhaustion and happiness.

 

Ah Myra, the nurse will come tomorrow. She’ll help me have a bath, massage my legs, give me medicines and ask me the inevitable question,” Did you have a good night, Mr. Bose? What if I told her,” Last night I was a wolf. I ran in the mountains, I hunted and ate, I drank water from a stream. You can imagine her expression, can’t you? She’d immediately call the doctor, “Poor Mr. Bose is losing his mind. It’s no more safe to leave him alone at home.”

 

Nobody knows, nobody Myra, and you can’t ever tell anybody. You wouldn’t want to. You don’t care. But you have seen me during the last full moon , gliding out of the window, a white barn owl, screeching in delight. I first flew onto the big lime tree beside the river, trying out my wings. The leaves rustled in the breeze. Across the river, the mountains crouched beneath the sky. I set off ,  harnessing the wind, the wind my ally, buoying me up, parting to let me through.  Skimming gliding, silently, I lighted on the big oak in the middle of the forest. The white  eyed moon gazed down and I gazed back ruffling my feathers, waiting, till I heard a squeak. . Quickly I rotated my head around and before it could run into its hole. I was upon it, my claws gripping its body, my beak digging into its flesh. It was a feast. The next day I was so tired. The nurse was worried. She kept asking me if I had slept at night, if I was alright?

 

But Myra you didn’t tell me as yet? Will you come with me? No? Why? You don’t want to be a wolf. Come to think of it, neither do I. There’s too much flesh and blood. What should I be then? What did you say? I heard you whisper something. Can you say it gain?

 

Whisssper……………..

 

You whisper but say nothing. You sound the wind in the leaves, susurrating. You sound like the wind in the grass, murmuring. Ah Myra, Myra, let me think, let me try to understand what you’re saying.

 

Why do you whisper Myra?

Why do you?

What happens when we whisper Myra

What happens?

The breath rises, the breath escapes.

The breath rises, the breath escapes.

 

Oh how brilliant!! You want me to be the wind. That’s grandiose, stupendous, mind-boggling, so, so much more than I ever dared to imagine, to be. To be the wind sweeping through the grass. To be the wind keening in the mountains, making branches sway and creak and bend. The sirocco in the Sahara piling up the soft, slippery sand in undulating hills, mountains. The monsoon winds storming over the Arabian sea, making waves rise and dance with foaming crests, herding the dark, billowing rain clouds, blowing them to the shore to burst over parched earth and thirsting rivers. Ah Myra I’ve never felt such joy!

But I could be gentle too, a soft, soothing breeze , carrying the scent of flowers, creating ripples on ponds and lakes, breathing coolness onto the sweaty tiredness of men and women labouring in fields, building houses under the blazing sun.

 

Yes Myra, I’ll do it. I’ll feel my breath fill me up , my toes, my legs, my thighs, my stomach, my chest, my back, my throat, my face , my forehead my head….And then I’ll breathe out in the clear, moonlit sky.

 

“Mr. Bose. Mr. Bose.” It’s time to wake up. Come sit up. Would you like some tea? Mr Bose?”

 

Arunima

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doggy Wonder

I was walking down a crowded lane in Pondicherry, avoiding a melee of cycles, motorbikes, rickshaws, maneuvering heaps of sand besides the road dug up here and there presumably for laying water pipes. A handicapped man on a three-wheel scooter zipped past me followed by a dog with a collar round its throat. It weaved its way through cyclists and bikers, dodged rickshaws auto rickshaws, skirted the mounds of sand, leapt over potholes, without breaking stride. I stopped to watch, captivated and full admiration at its incredible dexterity and capacity of adaptation. 

At the same moment an image rose in my mind of well brushed poodles on leashes, docilely following their masters and mistresses on clean sidewalks, peopled by a few disciplined pedestrians.  It goes without saying which dog I thought was happier. 

The Other

As a child I grew up in a strangely eclectic religious atmosphere. My parents and I lived with my uncles and aunts as a large, extended family. Our household deity from several generations was Krishna. On special occasions such as on my grandfather’s death anniversary or on Janmashtami, Krishna’s birthday, my youngest uncle who was a staunch Vaishnava organized devotional concerts in our house. Big, hefty men clad in white dhotis and kurtas, some with cymbals and others with khols 
( a two headed drum held horizontally while playing)  strapped around their necks and hanging down to their midriffs, gathered on our terrace. At first they sat in a circle and sang. As the night deepened and the singing got more fervent, they rose to their feet and began dancing as well. My father and uncles joined in, the music and dancing rose to a pitch of excitement and ended with a shower of exclamations , “Hari! Hari!” This was followed by the Vaishnavas throwing handfuls of sugar candies in the air which I along with other children scuttled to gather.My father though had strayed from the flock. He had become the follower of a Bengali freedom-fighter turned philosopher-saint, settled in Pondicherry, and a “French woman,” my relatives muttered amongst themselves, with revolutionary ideas on education, marriage, society and gender equality.  

I was sent to a school run by nuns where every week we went to the chapel and read colourfully illustrated books on the miracles wrought by Christ. I was particularly attracted to the picture of a gentle, bearded Christ feeding a small, fluffy lamb.There was no contradiction in all this. I bathed in the holy soup of Krishna, Jesus, Sri Aurobindo, and felt safe and protected.

There was also a Muslim servant called Chamatkar which means wonderful. Chamatkar was old. He had a white, longish beard. His face was like soft, crumpled paper with bright, laughing eyes . He always wore a dirty, white skull cap and a lungi with blue and white checks. He often carried me in his arms and the elders in the house teased me by saying, “When you grow up we will marry you to Chamatkar.” Chamatkar too found this funny and when I was unbearable, pulling his beard or wanting to wear his skull cup, he would threaten me with the same fate. I knew he had a wife but he lived alone in our house on the ground floor in a damp room with a single window. Like all devout Muslims he prayed five times a  day. I knew I was not supposed to disturb him then, but when I could I peeked in through the window to watch him spread his prayer mat, wash his feet and hands and kneel down to pray. This ritual of withdrawal into a private world which had nothing to do with the one which surrounded him, fascinated me.I don’t know if I asked him about his beliefs, maybe I refrained unconsciously because I knew there was an invisible barrier to be respected. But I do not think that I was consciously aware of the fact that he was the other.

As I grew up the outline of the others grew clearer, all those who believed in other divinities than the community I belonged to, were the others, all those whose financial and social status was inferior to ours were the others, all those whose skin colour and physical features were different than our own were the others.  My father later sent me to a school founded on the teachings of his gurus and there all those who did not belong to the same line of belief were the others. So in fact we were surrounded by others and had to define our identity by distinguishing ourselves from the others. All this happened during my teen years. And it was natural to lose the innocence of my childhood and define my self by taking into account  existing boundaries. But with growing awareness of these boundaries was also a growing revolt against them.  During my childhood the devotion that was spontaneous became fraught with obstacles. The ethical rigidity of  Rama repelled me, the elitism and intellectual snobbery of my education suffocated me, the belief of middle class families of which my family was a part, that all those who are poorer are also dirtier, less intelligent and less honest  than they,  infuriated me. I wanted a way out. I could not say to hell with religion and become a Marxist because I was fed on belief along with my mother’s milk, but accepting it was like entering into a room, locking myself in, and throwing away the key. I wanted a way out, whereby my atavistic tendencies and my personal beliefs could find a meeting ground, where poetry and philosophy fused, where humanity and divinity walked hand in hand.

Kabir showed me the way. A boyfriend who walked on the margins of heresy himself gifted me a tattered translation of Kabir’s poems translated into English by Tagore. Wallowing in a morass of confusion and disillusionment where the heaven that I had been promised had turned out to be a country divided into mined frontiers, the poems touched my being with their simplicity and courage.

... It’s just as well my prayer beads scattered

I’m free of all that holy chatter!

The burden of my head is gone.

or

Your words are sweet as sugar

Your deeds are poisoned bread.

Quit the words, walk the talk.

   Turn the poison to nectar.

or

          Some say the lord dwells in heaven.

Some say in the land of holy cows.

         Some say in the land of Shiva.

In every age they set up their shops!

                                                             Do what you must, you seekers!

There are so many more. I could keep on quoting.   Here was a voice which went directly to my heart, where all that created The Other was knocked down with frightening ease and nonchalance, mosques, temples, the Gita, the Koran, the rich, the poor and what remained was not emptiness but an infinite vastness.

So Kabir made me reconcile myself with form by being supremely irreverent to it. His words gave me the courage to be radical because he had by abandoning everything found all. The world was made whole again, the Other only an illusion.

Arunima Choudhury