Shashi Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel

But we were talking about something else — you mustn’t let me get distracted, Ganapathi, or you will be here for ever. Was it not the profound inscrutability of Providence I was on about? It was? More or less? Well, in Pandu’s case it manifested itself quite early. He was in bed one day with both his consorts, attempting something quite unspeakably imaginative, when an indescribable pain shot through his chest and upper arm and held his very being in its grip. He fell back, unable to mouth the words to convey his torture, and for a brief moment his companions thought their ministrations had brought him to a height of ecstasy they had never seen before. But a quick look lower down convinced them something quite different was the matter. They frantically screamed for help.

‘Massive coronary thrombosis,’ said Dr Kimindama, as Pandu lay paler than ever under the oxygen tent. ‘Or in plain Hindustani, a whopping great heart attack. He’s lucky to be alive. If it weren’t for the prompt call,’ he added, looking with appreciation at the two not-quite-shevelled ladies beside the bed, ‘I’m not sure we could have saved him.’

Pandu recovered; his big heart rode the blow and knit itself together. But when he was ready to resume a normal life the doctor took him aside and gave him the terrible news.

‘I’m afraid,’ Dr Kimindama said, ‘that in your case there is one prohibition I must absolutely enjoin upon you. The circumstances of your attack and the present condition of your heart make it imperative that you completely, and I mean completely, give up the pleasures of the flesh.’

‘You mean I have to stop eating meat?’ Pandu asked.

The doctor sighed at the failure of his euphemism. ‘I mean you have to stop having sex,’ he translated bluntly. ‘Your heart is simply no longer able to withstand the strain of sexual intercourse. If you want to live, Your Highness, you must abstain from any kind of erotic activity.’

Pandu sat heavily back on his bed. ‘That’s how bad it is, doctor?’ he asked hollowly.

‘That’s how bad it is,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘Your next orgasm will be your last.’

Think of it, Ganapathi! To be married to two of the most delightful companions that could have been conjured from Adam’s rib, and yet to be denied, like an over-cautious chess-player, the pleasures of mating! Such was the lot of my pale son Pandu, and it could have been the ruin of a lesser man. But the blood of Ved Vyas ran in his veins, don’t you forget that, Ganapathi, and he resolutely turned his back on his misfortune, and his wives. His putative father had died of his lust, and Pandu had no desire to conform to the pattern.

‘This is a signal,’ he explained to his grief-stricken spouses. ‘I must pull up my socks, turn over a new leaf and make something of my life, if I am ever to acquire salvation. Sex and worldly desires only tie a man down. I am determined to roll up my sleeves and put my nose to the grindstone, not forgetting to gird my loins while I am about it. I shall practise self-restraint and yoga, and devote myself to good causes. Oh, yes, and I shall be sleeping alone from now on.’

16

It was a time of great grief and much sorrow

When Pandu rose up from the dead;

For starting today (not tomorrow)

He must renounce the joys of the bed.

The medic didn’t give him an option

Except ‘tween this world and the next;

To live (and avoid any ruption)

He just had to give up sex.

To young Pandu, as you can imagine

It came as a painful wrench;

He could enjoy life’s great pageant

But he couldn’t lay hands on a wench.

To his wives, two lovely ladies,

He could offer no more than a kiss;

They might as well have lived in Hades

For all the hope they could have of bliss.

Yes, after those nights full of pleasure –

Full of baiting and biting and laughter –

They would now have only the leisure

To contemplate the hereafter.

Good deeds! was now the motto

Of the rest of their lives on this earth;

No frolic, no getting blotto,

No foreplay, no unseemly mirth;

No, nothing but an ascetic’s toga

And the quest of the good and the right:

A regular session of yoga

And a guru to show him the light.

Thus Pandu abandoned the pastime

Of expending in women his lust;

He shrugged passion off for the last time

And set off to strive for the just.

And where else could he go, Ganapathi, but to his uncle Ganga, now ensconced in his ashram on the river bank? Of course, Pandu the so-recent sybarite was not about to enrol straight away in the commune and take cheerfully to his share of dish-washing and toilet-cleaning; he remained initially an occasional day-scholar, coming to listen to Gangaji’s discourses when he could, then returning to the comforts and — for he was still the younger brother of a blind maharaja — the responsibilities of the palace.

This was about the time of Motihari, just after, in fact, and the ashram was already beginning to attract its fair share of hangers-on. You know the song, Ganapathi:

groupies with rupees and large solar topis,

bakers and fakers and enema-takers,

journalists who promoted his cause with their pen,

these were among his favourite men!

Pandu joined this motley crowd at Gangaji’s feet, listening to his ideas and marvelling at the disciples’ devotion to him. He learned of politics and Gangan philosophy:

of opposing caste

unto the last

(for Sudras are human, too)

of meditation

and sanitation

(and cleaning out the loo).

He learned to pray

the simple way

(for Ganga taught him how)

to help the weak

turn the other cheek

(and always protect the cow).

Soon he sounded more

like his mentor

(than any other chela)

Spoke Ganga’s words

ate Ganga’s curds

and became even paler.

He brooked no debate

on being celibate

(a trait that’s Sagittarian).

His passionate defence

of abstinence

turned others vegetarian.

Poetry, Ganapathi, but it’s not enough to sing of the transformation of Pandu under Ganga’s tutelage. No, one must turn to prose, the prose of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan biographies and the school textbooks. How about this, O long-nosed one? In discourse his speech became erudite, his tone measured. In debate he thought high and aimed low. He became adept at religion, generous in philanthropy and calm in continence. No? You don’t like it? Well, take it down anyway. We must move on: Pandu has begun quoting the shastras at unlikely moments, applying the most arcane of our ancient concepts to the circumstances of everyday life, and we must not leave these unrecorded.

17

Where shall we rejoin Pandu? He began, you see, to enliven his conversation with legend and fable — a myth, he thought, was as good as a smile — and his moral tales would curl the pages of the Kama Sutra. Shall we intrude upon him as he tells his red-eared Madri of lustful Vrihaspati, who forced his attentions upon his pregnant sister-in-law Mamta, and found his ejaculation blocked by the embryonic feet of his yet-to-be-born nephew? Or of the Brahmin youth who turned himself into a deer to enjoy the freedom to fornicate in the forest, until he was felled by a sharp-shooting prince on a solitary hunt? Or should we, instead, eavesdrop on our pale protagonist as he pontificates on the virtues of celibacy to his ever-sighing mate Kunti?