Shadowlines

At last the train slowed down and I could see the signboard “Varanasi Junction”. A swarm of porters with red turbans pushed themselves through the doors and all I could hear was “madam, do you need help”. I only had a small suitcase and a little purse, nothing much to help me out. Nevertheless, I did not want to disappoint them. Naveed took my suitcase on his head and started walking towards the rickshaw stand.

I am back in India after 30 years. Rickshaws were hand pulled then, now they have motors, pedals; an uncanny newness quite beyond my landscape of imagination hit me right away. Varanasi, a city by the river Ganges, a city of winding alleys, old shabby buildings with the smell of moist mosses, the Ghats or the steps that go down to the holy river and 33 million temples; a city where you can feel the shadow of history at every nook and corner.

I came back to see Maya. Maya and I went to college here before I left for the northern winds and the snow in the far away lands of Canada. The last image of Maya I have in my mind is her long flowing hair, her dark mystic eyes staring at me, her almost unbearable innocence asking “why do I want to go away so far”. I remember I smiled back, patted her and said she will be soon married to a rich man, who will have everything to protect her and take care of her. My predictions were not very wrong. She was indeed married within few months after I left. Roshan Babu was a well-known merchant of silk sarees in Varanasi. He had a huge mansion with a big courtyard. Maya wrote to me in one of her long letters that how much she loved to sit down at the courtyard and comb her long hair in the autumn afternoons. Roshan Babu was a kind old man. He had 3 children from her first wife. The eldest daughter was married and the younger two sons were going to the college then. They were almost same age as Maya. But Maya was the lady of the house, with a large sindur or vermillion circle which almost covered her small forehead, magnanimously showing off her apparent pride as a married lady, a heavy silver key-ring hanging from her sleek waist, the red silk saree flowing down to the ground and the tinkle of her golden anklets subtly leaving a mark of her presence in the air. Roshan Babu died suddenly, somebody said because of prolonged drinking, his spleen was gone, others said rich oily food destroyed his stomach, Maya said age.

Now, as the rickshaw made a turn on the winding alley, crossed carefully the cow and reached the green huge door of the Roshanbabu mansion, my heart started beating faster. I quickly took my little suitcase, gave Naveed his money with some bakshish or tips and moved towards the gate. The guard with the moustache stared at me in suspicion blocking any unknown entry to the house. I spoke in a soft voice if I can meet Maya. “Who is Maya”, he asked in a disgruntled voice. I started explaining Roshan Babu, his young wife Maya, the names of the children as I remembered from Mayas’s letters.  I could see an uncanny smile hidden behind the moustache. He told me, this house now belongs to Karim Sheth. His pair of suspicious eyes asked me in wonder “did you really come to find someone with an address written to you 20 years back in this city of 33 million temples leave aside the population”.

There I was standing in my blue old jeans, a navy blue kurta and a shawl, my coloured short hair, my nike shoes, my wristwatch, evidently telling my foreignness to my own native country; Reality hit  my desire to find my long-lost friend, my once confidante with an address written in an old parchment 20 years back. Even the rickshaws have changed. What made me think Maya is stagnant, here, still in love with the courtyard, still the same. Naveed was still there at the corner of the lane exchanging some local gossips with a fruit vendor. He looked up and asked “ madam chale’ as if it was quite evident that I have to go back; as if my search for Maya itself was an elusion. I turned round, walked up to the rickshaw and asked Naveed to take me to the Ghaat, Dashashwamedh Ghaat. The setting sun on the western front, the crimson rays, the approaching shadowlines of the evening paved the way for a discomforting silence.

As the rickshaw zigzagged through the narrow winding lanes, I stared in wonder at the tall eroded buildings, the moss-filled walls,, the climbers creeping up, children playing cricket on the alleys, signboards glorifying a hair oil for instant hair-growth and youth; reminded me of the old television shows in Doordarshan. As the rickshaw took a turn in the Akbarpur Mahalla, a faint voice with the tunes of strings reached my ears…miya ki malhaar, my most favourite eastern classical raga. “Roko roko//Stop stop’ I instantly jumped down from the rickshaw; crossed a courtyard and climbed up the stairs, lost way, found back and ultimately reached a room. There was an old lady with her tanpura, sitting on the intricately embroidered carpet, her wet hair, neatly done with a jasmine flower garland. The mystic aroma of the room filled my heart -jasmine, the old tapestries hanging, the incense sticks, the open window overlooking the Ganges, the breeze with mixed fragrances.

Rajia Begam was 78. Still, every dawn and twilight, Mahalla get to listen to her rewazz. Rajia Begam, one of the last baijis of the golden times. Her voice now little cracked but still can sing a dhrupad without a pause almost. Her voice can still lure people, as it did to me, to find her room. Everybody calls her "amma" here.

When I pulled out my camera to take a picture, amma smiled and said- “don’t bind your memories, let them flow and you flow with them. Varanasi has a history hard to capture in a camera. Why do all these “gore lok”/white people from all over come to prison the images. They only get a bit, the rest are scattered in every pebble. You cannot bind a history of million years in a box. Try to get a glimpse and immerse yourself in its bliss”. -

“Get the Foreign guria some milk and honey” amma’s shuddering yet authoritarian voice echoed through the corridors. She then turned round to face the flowing Ganges, strum the strings of the taanpura and then the voice flowed on as if trying to mingle with every ripple of the river, trying to drift away with time.

I finished the milk, got up, Niyamat showed me the way back to where my rickshaw and the loyal rickshaw-puller was waiting for me. Naveed asked me what did I get suddenly entering a strange house. I could not explain. Amma her deep wrinkled eyes, staring deep down to me, curiously asking with her silence “why am I here, what am I looking for. There is so much in a city of million years, every moist wall can tell you billion stories, what do I want to capture, What am I searching for?”

Naveed started pulling the rickshaw to the Dashashwamedh. By now, the last thin line of red has disappeared into the western horizon. Dark Ganga with thousands of oil lamps. Puja/worship started at the Vishwanath Temple. Fire and water, all I was staring at; and the earth, the land, the stairs that go down to the Ganges. I slowly started climbing down to touch the water. As I went down each step, it felt walking through time. It started drizzling, I looked up, the sky shrouded with dark clouds. I know now why “amma” was singing Miya-ki-Malhar, the raga for rains. She knew it was going to rain. The air told her. We cannot feel the air the same way, we are too busy capturing information. I didn’t want to walk down fast, my feet taking each step at a time, the moist wind touching my earlobes, the breeze making me intoxicated, the rain splashed over the Ghat, I stood still, drenched staring at the river, the burnt oil lamps, still one or two flickering.

I do not know how long I stood there, bare foot, wet, immersed in the wind and the rain, the flowing waters and the sailing oil-lamps. I left my search by the waters on the rocks, I left “Maya” by the Ghat. Now I feel light with an implacable sweetness, a tangible bitterness almost “unbearable lightness of being”, I smiled and murmured to myself.