Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

Madeleine’s uncle, of course, disapproved of all this outlandish matrimony. Oncle Charles was settled as a notaire at Rouen and he would not admit of any disturbance in his peaceful provincial existence. It was said of him that when he married his second wife — she was a divorcee — he married her without telling his old mother. It would have upset old Madame Roussellin too much — she lived in Arras. His second marriage was a most unhappy one, but he was proud of his brilliant wife; she made his position secure, and he loved her. Madeleine was her favourite, but lest the child should see too much of his married life the uncle very studiously avoided sending for her.

Madeleine was brought up by an unmarried aunt at Saintonge, in the Charente, but she saw her cousins from time to time, and they were gay with her. They teased her and said she would end up in a convent. Roland even discovered some mysterious tribe in the Australasian isles — they were called the Kuru-buri, I think — and said that on one of his expeditions he would land her on that blessed isle. ‘Your virtue will be appreciated there, Mado,’ he would say, ‘and imagine adding twenty thousand more to Christendom, before some Gauguin goes discovering the beauty of their virgins and peoples the island with many blue-eyed children.’ Such things were never said in front of me, but one day Madeleine, finding what a prude I was, told me the story with generous detail. ‘Imagine me a Catholic Sister,’ she said; ‘I who love the Greeks. Tell me, Rama, am I not a pagan?’

I was the pagan, in fact, going down the Ganges, feeling such worship for this grave and knowing river. Flowers floated downstream, and now and again we hit against a fish or log of wood. Sometimes too a burnt piece of fuel from some funeral pyre would hit against the oars of the boat. People say there are crocodiles in the Ganges, and some add that bits of dead bodies, only half-burnt, are often washed down by the river. But I have never seen these myself. Night, a rare and immediate night, was covering the vast expanse of the Benares sky. Somewhere on these very banks the Upanishadic sages, perhaps four, five, or six thousand years ago, had discussed the roots of human understanding. And Yagnyavalkya had said to Maiteryi. ‘For whose sake, verily, does a husband love his wife. Not for the sake of his wife, but verily for the sake of the Self in her.’ Did Little Mother love the Self in my father? Did I love the Self in Madeleine? I knew I did not. I knew I could not love: that I did not even love Pierre. I took a handful of Ganges water in my hand, and poured it back to the river. It was for Pierre.

~

I cannot remember anything more about Benares. We spent a further two or three days there, and while Little Mother went to hear parayanams in a private temple I wandered, like a sacred cow, among the lanes and temples of the holy city.

What I loved most were the shops, with their magnificent copper-work, inlaid with lacquer and ivory; the many bunches of false hair hanging from the roof; the multicoloured bangles; and the rich, fervid smell of bhang, as it was given mixed with buttermilk and spice. The Benares silk shops too were splendid, with saris of such intricate designs as to make one marvel that people still prepared such wonders and sold them for money. One day I went out alone and bought a rose-coloured sari, with pistachio-green mango-leaf pallo for Madeleine — the pistachio would be so splendid against her gold. For Saroja I bought a simple white knitted sari from Lucknow. I wanted to buy bangles, too, but I was afraid they would break, and thought besides that when Little Mother had had to break them but the other day, to carry them would have been improper.

I wandered also among the cows tied up inside the temples, and touched their grave and fervent faces and fed them with green grass. What wonderful animals these be in our sacred land — such maternal and ancient looks they have. One can understand why we worship them. I bought some kunkum one day and decorated the faces of all the cows in a temple, then went out and bought Bengal gram and fed the monkeys. Evening was falling. I went back to Harishchandra Ghat and collected Little Mother where she sat on the bank of the river, talking away to Sridhara. I hired an ekka somewhere in the outskirts of the Brahmin quarter and took Little Mother to the Annapurna temple for worship. How beautiful the Devi looked, in her saffron sari and with dark forehead bejewelled, and what strength emanated from her, what depth of Peace.

O Thou who hast clothed Thyself in cloth of gold,

Decked in ornaments made of many and varied gems;

Whose breasts rounded like a water-jar Are resplendent with their necklace of pearls;

Whose beauty is enhanced by the fragrance of the

Kashmir aloe;

O Devi who presidest over the city of Kashi

O vessel of mercy grant me aid.

‘ Anna-Purné Sada-Purné,’ I recited with Little Mother, and when the camphor was lit Sridhara was so absorbed and quiet that I knew this last child of my family could gather the holiness of generations. Maybe one day he would answer my questions; for I had serious questions of my own and I could not name them. Something had just missed me in life, some deep absence grew in me, like a coconut on a young tree, that no love or learning could fulfil. And sitting sometimes, my hand against my face, I wondered where all this wandering would lead to. Life is a Pilgrimage I know, but a Pilgrimage to where — and of what?

Everyone, for thousands of years, every one of the billion billion men and women since the Paleolithic ages, feels that something is just being missed. One in ten million perhaps knows what it is, and like the Buddha goes out seeking that from which there is no returning. Yet what is the answer? Not the monkhood of the sadhu, or the worship of a God. The Ganges alone seemed to carry a meaning, and I could not understand what she said. She seemed like Little Mother, so grave and full of inward sounds.

I was anxious about something, anxious with an anxiety that had no beginning, and so no maturity. Lying on the stone floor of the big Brahmin house where we were staying I could hear the bells ring all the hours of the day, and pilgrims, muttering mantras to themselves, going down the steps. Sometimes, too, a fish caught something in the water, and you could almost feel the night tear with its swish and plunge.

Little Mother slept. Her hands on the head of Sridhara, pressed gently against her breast, Little Mother slept. She slept as though the waters of the Ganges were made of sleep and each one of us a wave. But she would suddenly open her eyes and ask, ‘Rama, are you sure you are not cold? I am frightened of your lungs, Son.’

Though the damp entered the very pores of my body the mosquitoes were worse. Little Mother had given me her mosquito curtain that I at least should have real rest. Under the net I felt so much apart that sleep seemed unnecessary. Perhaps it was the damp, or perhaps I did not eat enough, but I started to cough again. Little Mother was frightened. By the next afternoon we had left for Allahabad. Getting down at the station Little Mother said: ‘I fear everything now.’

But she was warmed by the presence of Venktaraman on the platform. Venktaraman was a colleague of my father’s in Hyderabad. He now taught English at Allahabad University, and we had sent him a wire. Little Mother felt comforted too when a south Indian spoke to her in Telugu; and when we reached home, Oh, it was so wonderful to have rasam with asafoetida in it, and chutney with coconut and coriander leaf! In the morning, when dosé came with filter-coffee, Little Mother really smiled. How much we are dependent on familiar things for our feelings of sorrow or joy. In this newfound ambience, Little Mother almost discovered her old spirits. Benares seemed hateful to her: the whole of the North, but for the Ganges, was one desolation of dirt. Lakshamma agreed. And they could talk of children and marriages, and who gave what and at which wedding. One daughter of Lakshamma was married to an I. F. S. in Delhi, and the other to someone in the railway services. The son was studying engineering in Benares, but he had come home for the holidays. Hints were thrown that though we belonged to two different communities Lakshamma would not mind thinking of Saroja for her first daughter-in- law. Little Mother noted all this in silence, and simply said, ‘It’s a pity Rama is married already. Otherwise he would be so splendid for Kaumudi.’ Kaumudi, the third daughter, was sixteen and was studying for the Intermediate. ‘It may still happen,’ said Lakshamma, blowing away at the kitchen fire. I was unconcerned.