Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

Uncle’s body has become very soft and tender and womanly since he completed the discipline of the madhura bhava . Uncle is so sensitive now, so open. He sees God in everything. Sometimes if Uncle is staring at an expanse of grass and someone strolls across it Uncle will shudder, as if they are carelessly walking across his own tender torso, and his body will exhibit severe bruising after. Or if a driver whips a horse Uncle will cry out, in misery, “Why are they hitting me?!” I once found Uncle writhing with pain by the main ghat at the temple and believed that he had been soundly beaten, but then Uncle explained to me that he had merely witnessed an argument between two fishermen, and when it came to blows he felt the sudden exchange of punches raining down — one after the other — upon him. Uncle is so very sensitive. The lightest touch of a sinful person will leave marks and bruises on his skin.

Ah, there was so much grandeur and yet so much terrible poverty on our pilgrimage! Uncle’s heart was greatly moved with compassion on many occasions. At a village near Deoghar he obliged Mathur Baba to give a piece of wearing cloth and a good meal to an entire village. When Mathur Baba resisted Uncle’s desperate request, he threatened to stay with these humble people forever and to live among them as one of their wretched number. Mathur Baba loves Uncle very dearly and cannot bear the idea of being without him. So he had no option but to grudgingly comply. The good-quality cloth was ordered in huge quantities from a warehouse in Calcutta.

At Kasi, Uncle discovered the Brahmini and went to visit her several times. Then at Vrindaban Uncle made the acquaintance of yet another holy woman whose name was Ganga Mata. As soon as this old woman set her eyes upon Uncle she became convinced that he was the incarnation of Radha. She called him her dulali (her darling) and immediately invited Uncle to stay with her and set up a permanent bed in her small room for him. Of course, Uncle promptly complied with her request. Uncle is like a child! He is so unconstrained! He acts suddenly and impetuously as a child might. He felt an instant attraction to Ganga Mata — was perfectly besotted by her, forgot to eat or to sleep, just followed the old lady around like a lost puppy — and resolved to stay and live with her in Vrindaban from that moment onwards.

I cannot begin to describe the distress Uncle’s crazy decision generated amongst our party. Had I not spent many long years nursing Uncle through his sadhana , six of these enduring the constant interference of the headstrong Brahmini , only for Uncle to now abandon all that we had worked for to live with an old holy woman who would sing with him and dance with him and seemed to take a vindictive sort of pleasure in clambering up onto Hridayram’s shoulders like an ancient monkey whenever she entered one of her many maddening trances?

Mathur Baba was in a dreadful state, unable to leave without securing the return of Uncle. My patience was greatly tried by Uncle. I tried to impress on Uncle’s mind that he had responsibilities back at the temple, and that he had a weak stomach and needed to be constantly tended, but Uncle just laughed and paid me no heed. Only following days of endless negotiations was Uncle finally persuaded to come back with us after he suddenly remembered his ailing mother and how her heart might easily break if we returned to Dakshineswar without him.

When I arrived back at the temple, tired from my lengthy trip and perhaps even a little exasperated with Uncle, I discovered that my wife was very ill. She died shortly after. I was inconsolable. I had loved her so dearly, but sometimes she would accuse me of not loving her nearly so dearly as I loved my Uncle. Is that why she died and left me? Out of jealousy?

My wife is now gone, and what have I in return? I have Uncle. But had my beloved Uncle not been perfectly happy to abandon us all in Vrindaban for some insignificant holy woman he had known for a mere day or two?

During this time of my great suffering, Uncle continued on with his sadhana . He met a Moslem man by the name of Govinda Ray and was persuaded by him to practice the worship of Islam. He learned all of the many rules of this faith, uttered the name of Allah with great devotion, and prayed three times daily, and Mathur Baba even went to the special trouble of hiring a special chef to cook Uncle Moslem food.

Uncle embraced his new Islamic faith wholeheartedly. He lost all interest in the deities at the temple. Then, following three days of intensive trances — and the complete abandonment of all his previous behaviors and prejudices — Uncle was finally blessed with a vision of the Prophet Mohammed, who walked slowly toward him and entered his body.

Uncle now believes that there is only one God, and that this God is formless but also with form. This God is beyond our humble understanding. To illustrate his theory, Uncle often tells a story about a group of blind men being led toward an elephant. The person who leads the blind men to the elephant tells them its name and asks them to describe what they find there. Each of the blind men approaches the elephant and places his hands upon it and carefully touches it. One man feels the tusk and reports back that the elephant is smooth and sharp, another feels the ear and reports back that the elephant is like a winnowing fan, another feels the leg, another the tail, another the vast flank. All of the blind men have felt the elephant, and all of them have described it with perfect sincerity and accuracy, and none of the men is wrong about what they have encountered. But none will have experienced the entire elephant; their minds can only engage with just a small part of it, and their ideas will soon become fixed and unbending about what an elephant is. And so it is with faith. Each of us feels only one part of the elephant and refuses to understand that there are many parts and many ways to feel him, and that whatever our own experience, it should never be considered complete because God is, after all, like the elephant, a great and an incomprehensible beast.

Uncle recounts this story all the time — and another about maya being like the green layer of pondweed on a lake which you can push aside with your hand, and another about the worldly man being like a snake swallowing a mole, and yet another about the world being like a hog plum (only stone and skin).…

In fact, Uncle is very patient when people ask him about God. He tells them that there is only one Truth and that we are all seeking this same Truth, but that because of differences in languages and climate and temperament we like to call the Truth by a variety of names. But Uncle insists that everyone may find God if they are sincere and they long for him.

Uncle does not mind repeating all of his best stories time and time again. Sometimes I think Uncle should save his best tales and not exhaust himself with constantly talking. He should book a lecture hall and send out invitations and tell them only to a special few, then take a collection afterward, the way a proper pandit does. What is to be gained by Uncle telling them to anyone and everyone who turns up at his room and has the inclination to listen? But Uncle is a child. He is open. He has his own special way of seeing things and of doing things. Uncle will never be told how to think or to feel.

When Uncle’s beloved nephew, Akshay, became ill after being forced into a marriage against his natural inclinations, Uncle hardly seemed to feel anything at all. He simply blamed it on the inauspicious timing of his journey (in the month of Chaitra). And when Akshay’s condition worsened, Uncle calmly warned that the signs were not good for his recovery. We brought Akshay back to the temple and I arranged the best possible treatment for him, but his mysterious fever grew still more intense. Sick with worry, I turned to Uncle and asked for his help, but Uncle simply shrugged and said that the Goddess had already told him the poor boy would die. Uncle is a child who will always speak his mind, but I soundly reprimanded him for these cruel words just the same. Uncle was indignant at this stern treatment and threw up his hands, exasperatedly. “Do I want Akshay to die?” he demanded. “I speak only under divine influence. It is the Mother who decrees this, not I!”