Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

‘And then,’ intruded Savithri, ‘what with dressing for the dance and meeting Michael I forgot whether we’d arranged to meet here or at the library, so we went there first — and I with these terrible stilts, and we did everything to be on time. You know watches are always against me,’ she apologized, as she removed her coat.

We had come to the Adelphi, and the terrace was all that is gracious and sprightly in Cambridge, pink dresses, frills, magnolias, bow-ties, whispers, laughter. Swanston and I were the only two who looked like boors: Swanston had abandoned his lecture — Savithri had a way of begging people to excuse her which made everyone follow wheresoever she went. As we all sat for dinner I saw for the first time that Savithri could be beautiful. She had put on some ancient Agra jewellery— her ear pendants were very lovely — and she had blacked her eyebrows with collyrium; the smell of Lucknow attar made me feel I should like to be back in India. For Hollington, doing radio-engineering at Pembroke, Savithri was just another undergraduate. Her father and his father had shot tigers together, or some such thing, and so the old Raja Sahib had written to Sir Edmond who in his turn wrote to Jack and asked him to take care of her. This was the first time they were going out together.

Swanston they both knew from hearing him plead the Communist cause at the Union. He was clever, a scholar, and ever so willing to be of service. You found him often at the library or outside the Copper Kettle, talking of Molotov or Haldane. It was the time of the Soviet accusations against the United States about germ-warfare in Korea, and Swanston had the names, qualifications and findings of everyone on the international committee of inquiry, from Joliot-Curie to some obscure professor in Australia. What continually surprised me was the obscurity of the great defenders of the Soviet land — if Lysenko were to be proved right you quoted a Melbourne newspaper; if Stalin was to be virtuous, you invariably quoted a Tokyo or Toronto source. Again, the negro of America, whether he were called Jim, Harry, or Peter Black, was always a great leader, and knew everything about the great peoples’ democracies. This amused me a great deal, for it reminded me of Georges with his obscure authorities for the defence of the dogma: it only needed some patristic Father or a bishop of Nevers in the thirteenth century to prove to Georges that his theory was correct. It was incontrovertible when he said, ‘L’Archevêque Henri d’Auxerre a dit.. .’ and I had to be silent. Haldane was the same for Swanston. It would have amused Henri d’Auxerre, Archevéque, to face history with Haldane. This eighteenth-century prelate being more trained in diplomacy and unction than the British biologist, the Archevéque would no doubt have opened some Burgundy — the best is grown near Auxerre — and then after a meal of rognons à la brochette, une caisse de foie gras aux truffes, et enfin la fondue a pinch of strong snuff from the Levant would be passed on to Haldane; which would have proved that bishops and comrades, whatever their origin, never go wrong.

‘Well, Dr Ramaswamy, what have you been thinking?’ started Savithri. ‘Ramaswamy has always such interesting things to say about everything. He relates things apparently so unrelated — for him history is a vast canvas, for the discovery of value, of metaphysical value. He’s my guru,’ she concluded, a little hesitant, a little shyly, as though it was such a big thing to say that it might not be named.

‘What’s that?’ asked Jack.

‘Well, it’s such a difficult thing to explain. A guru is a real teacher — the one who shows you the way to Truth.’

‘That’s asking a great deal too much of anyone, isn’t it?’ said Swanston, not because he did not think Truth was possible, but because for him it had only one route, as it were, one system, the end of one dialectic. And in his own mind he named that one to himself — a man, a great man, far away and big, and gentle and kind to children; thrice married but virtuous, a Generalissimo, the Father, the creator of the past, the present and the future Socialist Republics. I could follow his thought, so I broke in:

‘In fact, I’ve been thinking about the inevitability of Communism — this new Catholicism — and why Nazism had to be defeated, had to die. Hitler,’ I went on, ‘was an extraordinary man, but he could no more succeed than Ravana did against Rama. Rama is the river of life, the movement towards self-liberation, the affirmation of one’s true existence; Ravana is negation, is the earth, the fact. But the earth is made for dissolution, so he who holds the earth in bondage, he who possesses in the real sense works against life. That if anything is the meaning of Communism.’

‘There are too many incomprehensible factors in your statement, sir,’ said Swanston, removing his glasses. He wiped them carefully, respectfully, and put them back, as though the shine on his nose gave his intelligence acuity.

‘Ah, that’s just like Ramaswamy,’ explained Savithri, ‘he works with symbols and equations. History for him is a vast algebra, and he draws in unknowns from everywhere to explain it.’

‘So do we,’ said Swanston. Jack Hollington was busy looking at the other tables; his red rose sat self-consciously in his buttonhole.

‘Well, there’s a difference. Ramaswamy is like a scientist— his history, thank heavens, has no morality. In his history, there are no bourgeois or Capitalists; to him the whole of history is one growing meaning. Or rather, it is instantaneous meaning.’ She turned to me. ‘Am I right? To think I am trying to explain you while you are here!’ The jewel at her neck shone with such simple, intimate, unswerving splendour.

‘Ravana, the king of Lanka, in our great epic the Ramayana, was compared by Mahatma Gandhi, who read the poem every day, to the British Government of his time.’ This brought about general laughter. ‘Your father,’ I said, turning to Swanston, ‘and your father, were henchmen of Ravana, and so if I may be permitted to say it…’

‘Was this young lady’s father too,’ intervened Savithri, and we all laughed again.

‘Well, Ravana wants to possess the world — he’s taken Sita, daughter of the furrow, child of Himalay, and wife of Rama, away; he’s kidnapped her and taken her away and made her his prisoner.’

‘And so?’ said Jack joining the discussion.

‘And so Rama has to fight his battle. He goes about in the forest and the animals of the wild and the birds of the air join him, for the cause of Sri Rama is dharmic, it’s the righteous turning of the Wheel of the Law. For right and wrong are questions of a personal perspective, but dharma is adherence to the impersonal. So when Rama goes to liberate Sita from the prison island of Ravana, the very monkeys and squirrels build roads and bridges, carry messages, set fire to fearful cities, because dharma must win.’

‘What’s dharma?’ asked Swanston.

‘Dharma comes from the word dhru to sustain, to uphold. It’s as it were the metaphysical basis of the world — in so far as the world exists, of course — and it’s the same dharma, to continue the story, that forced Sri Rama, after having burnt Lanka, killed Ravana, and liberated Sita, and after returning to Ayodhya the capital, in the splendour of banners, victory- pillars, music, and worship, to send queen Sita away on exile. The fair, the pregnant Sita was sent away for the dharma of Rama, the dharma of a king demanded it.’

‘Why?’ pursued Swanston.

‘Because some suburban gossip between washerwoman and boat-builder’s wife leapt from mouth to mouth, saying that queen Sita could not have kept her integrity while prisoner of demon Ravana. And although the earth and sacrificial fire proclaimed the purity of Sita, yet the populace spoke of this and that, and Sita had to be sent away on exile, that the kingdom of Ayodhya be perpetually righteous. The impersonal alone is right,’ I said.