Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

That is the India I glimpsed — and lost again, as the customs officials called and the coolies clamoured. The hideousness of Bombay hurt me as only an impersonal falsehood can hurt. But I quickly took a bath at the Taj, and drove back to Santa Cruz, where once again on the green of the airfield I was back in the intuition of India. All the way to Hyderabad I looked down on hills, trains, plains, and villages, on rivers and roads — O those endless white lines, between streaks of yellow, maroon, and green! Soon I would be at Hyderabad.

I remembered how the city was founded. The king of Golconda, so the story goes, was ill and impoverished, despite his celebrated diamonds. His prime minister, a Brahmin, was deeply concerned over the finances of the state. There were enemies abroad — the Moghuls on the one side and the Marathas on the other. But one night, as the prime minister lay in anxiety, restless and concerned over the fate of his sovereign, he saw a great spread of unearthly green and peacock-blue light, and he saw the bejewelled form of Devi, processioning in the sky. ‘Where may’st thou be going, and who may’st thou be, Goddess, Auspicious Lady?’ he asked. ‘I am Lakshmi,’ she said, ‘and I go to the Himalayas, to Brahma my Lord.’ ‘Couldst thou not, Lady, stay a while, just a moment, just a trice, the time a man takes to open his eyes and shut, and I shall call my king my liege, that he behold thy beautiful form.’ ‘Earnest thou art, and thus the prayers be answered,’ she said. So our Brahmin, with turban, cummerbund, and tight trousers, ran up the hill and stood before his king. The night was vast and very luminous. ‘There She stands, over across the river. She awaits us. Come, my liege, my sire.’ Hassan Qutub Shah went in, and soon came out dressed, sword and buckle in hand. He looked from his high, round citadel towards the luminous sky, and across the river. As the Brahmin bent low showing his liege the way, the king cut him in two, that the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, might reside in his kingdom. So he rode down to the goddess on his white charger, and said, ‘My prime minister, Great Lady of the Lotus, will never return. I have killed him that thou mightst remain here forever and ever.’ And Hassan Qutub Shah built her a temple with four spires, as though it were a mosque, and she resides with us, the goddess does, to this very day… She shines on our coins, does Lakshmi, as Bhagyavathi and that is why we call our city Bhagyanagar — city of beautiful wealth, for Hyderabad is but a vulgar homonym.

I hadn’t told Little Mother the day and the hour of my arrival. I wanted so much to surprise them all — I thought it would remove from them the sense of distance, of unfamiliarity, of otherness. It was about the middle of the day when I arrived home. The gate was closed, and when I opened the door, Tiger, the dog, made a lot of angry manifestations against me, till he fell flat before me, helpless, and begged for forgiveness: ‘The Master of the House had come.’ I could see that the water-tap in the garden still needed mending, and as I went up the steps and peeped in, the house was one knit silence. I knocked, and Little Mother said, ‘Who’s there?’ from the sanctum. From her voice I knew she must be at prayer. ‘The son is come home,’ I shouted back. And you could have heard Little Mother’s sobbing voice even from the door.

‘You’ve come,’ she said, and being in sacred clothes she would not touch me. I brought the luggage in — the servants had gone for their siesta and noonday meal — sent the taxi away, and went for my bath towards the familiar, warm, soot-covered bathroom. I saw the ever-active wall lizards over the stores, and peeped out to see if the papaya and the moon-guavas were in fruit in the backyard. I took the huge ladle-jug of the bathroom and saying ‘Ganga, Jumna, Saraswathi,’ poured water over myself; then, dressed in a dhoti, I went into the sanctum. Little Mother was still praying — the gods were covered with flowers— the casket of the gods was the same that Grandfather Kittanna had brought from Benares, and it was thence that Little Mother had taken the family toe-rings to give to me. Drawing Father’s wooden seat before the gods I sat with Little Mother, thinking of Grandfather Ramanna, who had given me the love of Shiva and Parvathi, the worship of incarnations; who had first whispered unto my ear the Gayathri, OM, O face of Truth…’

Sridhara woke up, and I told Little Mother to continue her prayers while I went to swing the cradle. I remembered a beautiful berceuse, the one with which I used to send Saroja to sleep, and I sang it to Sridhara.

The Swan is swinging the cradle, baby,

saying ‘I am That,’ ‘That I am’ quietly;

She swings it beautifully, baby,

Abandoning actions and hours.

Sridhara had no illusions as to who was at the cradle — it was not his mother. He cried and cried, till Little Mother came and talked to him and the noon silence fell on the house again. ‘It’s Saturday today, and you’ve come just in time for the story of Rama,’ said Little Mother, and seating me beside her, she told me once again the story of Rama…

‘Once upon a time there was a Brahmin, and he said to himself, “Oh, I am growing old; I want to go to Benares.” And so he called his son and said, “Son, Brahma Bhatta, I am growing old, I’ve grey hairs on my skull, and my body is parched like a banana skin. I must now go to Benares. Keep Mother and the cattle in good state, and I leave you this House of Nine-Pillars, and the wet-fields and my good name. Look after them then, Son, for a twelve-year.”

‘“As the father ordains, so it shall be,” said Brahma Bhatta. And the father said, turning to his sacral-wife Bhagirathi, “And so, Wife, I go and come.” And she wept and made many holy requests, and she said, “Yes, but what about this daughter?” The father said, “O give her to me, and I’ll have her wed on the way.” And he took his female child on his shoulder — she was but seven years old — and with music in front and fife and elders he came to the village-gate. The villagers wept and made ceremonies of departure, and the wife fell at the feet of her Lord and said, “Well, he goes, my Lord, to Benares; to bring light on the manes.” And she asked, “What may we do meanwhile?” And he said, “Wife, my sweet-half, keep the house clear and auspicious; the son will look after the home and cattle. And when Saturday comes — just tell the story of Rama.” And the son fell at the feet of Ishwara Bhatta, and said, “Yes, indeed, Father.” They all stood at the village-gate, where the road bent by the Chapel-of-Swinging-the-Swing-in-Spring, and the giant mango tree, and then he was gone, was Ishwara Bhatta, beyond the folds of the hills, across the river — to Benares.

‘So while Ishwara Bhatta wended his way upwards to Benares, Brahma Bhatta said to his mother Bhagirathi, “When Saturday comes, Mother, we’ll tell the story of Rama.” And he looked round, and the house was very bright with vessels and decorations and with cattle that lowed in the cattle-yard. Peasants came and peasants went, some measuring rice, others cutting shoots and vines; some drawing water, others sharpening the shares; while the maid — servants plastered and washed the floors with cow-dung, and Bhagirathi covered the threshold with red-lead and drew sacred designs before the main portals: pentagons of lotuses and mandalas many and sumptuous.

‘Now the traveller had gone away, and when he had gone but a few leagues he rested. He cooked, said his prayers, ate, gave food to his daughter; and when evening came he meditated, and spreading his bedding said, “Lord!” and went to sleep. In the morning, shivering, he went to the river, bathed and took the bathed girl to the temple; and before the sun had said, “I am there,” he had started again on his pilgrimage.