Once upon a time there was a small and insignificant hamlet located in one of the northern hilly regions of the tutelary kingdom where a beautiful young woman lived who was pitiably deaf and mute and also insignificant.
Now for no apparent reason this woman had no house of her own. She belonged to no family, possessed nothing and therefore slept on pavements, etc.
She was so uncommon that everyone always got embarrassed just to think about her; and they put her so far out of their minds that she nearly didn't exist at all. And she certainly didn't count, that's for sure, as her hair was matted sadhu fashion and her thin wool raiment clung to her thighs as she walked here and there in a trance-like state. At times she prowled around the hamlet like a leopard; but also walked deliberately, adjusting her demeanour to the courtesies of discipline as she halted in front of a certain house and patiently stood there cupping her hands. She kept her eyes cast down on her hands and meekly awaited food to be offered. She ate whatever was given on the spot and then licked her palms and rubbed them into her luxuriant dreadlocks.
Due to the hamlet's out-of-the-way remoteness, it had never been ruled by either of the capitals. It maintained an integrity all its own. Its customs were unique...
One spring day a stranger appeared and began asking questions about the tatter-clad almswoman. And getting no answers, he pressed the inhabitants of the hilly hamlet to launch a thorough investigation to unveil the roving yogini's identity. And having carefully scoured through all the temple records it was then made known that the deaf and mute nun was traceable to no genealogy what so ever, and the people of the hamlet were astonished and disturbed by this fact.
As for the stranger, he was a shaven-headed wanderer himself and therefore cordially received by the priests, even though they couldn't tell him anything. One thing led to the next.
1. Priest of emptiness
'O dear,' I thought, 'what has happened here? Abandoned by its parents? O destitute thing in the throes of misery – has it lain out here all night? Then lucky to be breathing at all!' I thought... 'Or maybe it were better off dead.'
I had been on the road two days already and had only taken food to last one day. I got myself lost while hunting for a poet down paths obscured by vines and fallen tree limbs. It took me all day just to reach his hermitage only to find it deserted and broken. So I swept the dust from the wooden veranda and ate the remaining portion of food. I rested through the night in the depth of the forest.
Still not knowing exactly where I was, it was clear that I'd be camping out again this night: all hopes for reaching a settlement thwarted... as I cautiously approached the balling child as it squirmed in the cold and desolate dirt. It was easy to tell that the thing was a boy but regarding its age, I could only guess a year or so, so caked with filth as if having been dragged along the bottom of the forest, its face swollen red as it screamed and clawed at the rich dark soil, desperate to avert its head in terror of a creature it had never laid eyes upon.
This forced me to halt at a courteous distance. What else could I do but sit and wait. And as I waited I began to ponder on the fate of this savage infant flailing itself before and within me.
'How had it come here?' I wondered to myself. 'Who on Earth had mothered this thing? Had it sprung from the matrix of nature herself like a frond poking up from the forest floor?... Where was she now? Torn and vanquished, function discharged: vamoosed? Had she mingled with the rain-soaked leaves and larvae? Had the child only listened to her bodily sounds undistinguished from the grunts and groans of the earth? Had he listened and learned that arcane tongue, bending miniscule ear-bone within the fleshy womb of wonder?'
'Born the previous spring,' I figured, 'then together one year though the bitter moons of winter. Then one spring morning with frost on its nose, it crawls from beneath her cooling body huddled beneath its tree-bark shrouds, then presses his hand to her bluing face like a rock, taps gently. Quiescence. What is gone?'
As I pondered these things, I saw myself the child. For the both of us were truly in the self-same fix. 'What conspiring law-of-chance was at play here? Was nature simply using us to further her own cause? Why had our paths come to cross at this juncture? Why was it I, the itinerant priest-of-emptiness, made to confront this bud of human urge?'
As we sat in the dirt in the middle of nowhere, the cold blue sky brought goose bumps down our spines. Not far away came the murmur of the stream as it trickled over pebbles where it crossed the path... As the sun lent warmth to the fresh morning air, the child became settled and quietened down. Then I drew up closer until we sat knee to knee. I pulled out a notebook and scrawled a few lines:
It was extremely hot the day it happened. You know, it was just a few of weeks ago. But I don't even care that I missed some days of school. Those teachers don't teach much anyway. I think it's okay to stay home and play. But every kid is supposed to go to school. So when I get to stay home I have an uncomfortable feeling like I am doing something wrong.
But that day I knew it would be okay because everyone was busy and the neighbourhood was empty. I knew it. It was just too hot that day because the volcano was "acting up again," as the grown ups said. They worried a lot, and wondered what to do.
The Elders were presently meeting at the town hall. They were terribly upset and hot as well because so much smoke was blowing out the top of the volcano so that every morning people hurried outside to measure how much ash had fallen in the night, as everybody chattered and made their predictions on the fate of the town.
My mom had opened all the doors and windows. I was lying on the bed in the big front room because that was the coolest place in the house.
But I did not feel much shame that day. For staying home I mean, because my mom gave in so easily when I told her I had a stomach ache.
Just before she left the house, she gave a serious look. "Why do you make up stories?" she said. "If you don't want to go to school just stay home. But be careful when you light your agarbatti. I'll be back later on – bye!" And she left.
I was a little bit nervous when Tanti stepped in. She was acting again like my older sister and complained about the heat from the volcano as she fanned herself with her hand.
"I need to cool off in the shower," she said. "Do you want to go first?"
I felt kinda strange but answered "yes." She blinked and smiled, and before I knew it I was following her back through the garden to the pump house. "Take off your britches" she said, "I'll pour cold buckets down your back."
I liked very much the sound of the water swooshing past my ears and down my body and splashing loudly on the bricks.
"Enough?" she asked.
"Enough!" I said then dashed across the garden to get my ashy towel off the clothesline. I shivered a bit as I hugged the towel and felt the warmth of the sun on my face. Then I heard the muted sound of splashing water.
The cooling down does not last long on these strange hot days, I mean. One again feels hot-and-sticky soon after bathing. Especially sticky. And there's lots of ash in the air, too, because of the volcano.
I looked in the dictionary and found the word "lassitude." That's probably what I felt. It's kinda of strange. I don't believe in anything.
I was lying on the bed and spoke to my mother combing her hair in front of the mirror.
"I think I feel depressed." I said.
She turned around and looked at me. "Children don't feel depressed," she said. "They only feel sorry for themselves."
I watched her reflection as she turned to the mirror again. She was smiling.
I just kept lying there scratching my mosquito bites. I stared at the ceiling and practiced holding my breath. It was still quite early and I was already bored. I tried to imagine what I could possibly do all day. Then my mom set the comb down and moved toward the door. She stopped and turned, and then looked at me again. "Bala," she said, her face was serious, "are you in love?"
Tanti and I became best of comrades, even though she was a whole year older than me. She was really my guru. We shared all of our secrets. We had nothing to hide. I told her how I loved to write poems. She was very surprised. Why? Because before whenever she saw my homework assignments they were always full of the teacher's red marks, and she giggled sometimes and considered me an idiot. But when I showed her my poems she changed her opinion.
I showed her my whole collection. She praised them all. "Forget the homework!" she said very strictly. "Just write poems. I'll be your agent."
Tanti was wonderful. She was naturally the cleverest student in the school. She was cleverer than the teachers. They even let her plan her own special field trips, and she sometimes got me to come along, too. She always got her way...
One fine day when no one was home, I kissed her little knob and something exploded inside my chest like a volcano. They thought they had broken me of the impish habit...
Some years passed. We went our separate ways.
3. Sabija
Carrying out his fey ministrations in a rainbow body like a current of dreams; Kavi sends word from the dusty Kashmiri capital:
On the distant shores of the southern sea, I can feel the warmth of the moon in her hair. In the quiet glade of her pleasure grove, I can sense the cool of her morning sun as she feeds on mere touch... so far away; away from Sri Nagar.
She was actually but one of many such goddesses of the night enshrined here and there throughout the town of Sri Nagar.
"My bodily fluids are highly flammable," she told me the very first night we met. "I allow no smoking in bed." Later she confessed, "My heart is heavy with bliss."
I was curious about her past.
"I found my way here as a young spiritual seeker," she explained. "At first I sold original paintings of fakirs and saints to support myself. Then I was discovered by a tantrique swamin who shrewdly converted me to the ancient continuum. I was mysteriously guided to his simple mandir on the outskirts of the city. I arrived at his door with my offering of fruit. He carefully checked to make sure they were ripe then placed them high on the fragrant altar. He lit a single agarbatti and – abracadabra – the angels appeared."
Concerning the life of her august sheik, "For years he craved greatness," she frankly told. "But he eventually found that it wasn't even worth it, nor necessary... The power of his sentiment had a very profound effect on me.... One day he gave me a magical potion and told me to masturbate with it. I followed his instructions and, to my total surprise, got pregnant. One month later in an easygoing manner, he said, 'Now that my spiritual heir is conceived I can finally leave the fleshy robe behind.'
"He arranged his simple and unadorned wake with the neighbourhood mortician several weeks beforehand. The body was displayed in mummy wraps, leaving only the oval of his face exposed. His lips expressed a faint angelic smile. The only other thing was the playing of a tape of the dearly departed's recorded laughter. All who attended the unassuming rite were encouraged to view the body and laugh."
Immediately upon her master's passing, Sabija's hair transformed into a matted mass of luxuriant dreadlocks as she became a svaminii of her own dispensation.
"As my belly bulged big," she said one morning, "I was naturally forced to take a lot of flak from the public sector – especially from my rivals. To counter their slurs I responded by saying, 'You mean ascetics aren't allowed to have test tube babies?'"
There is an oracle saying in the Kashmiri highlands: He clears his throat and a thousand dogs bark.
The terrain here is also very rocky and dry. But Sabija lauded its uplifting effect on the body – "especially on the body of Literature," she said, "and poetic style."
"Why is that?" he asked.
"Because it's bound to make you lay things bare and detect tiny blossoms clinging onto barren crags of rock."
But then their character-clashes got utterly real if not glossed over by the frequent love bouts, letting their otherwise mooted incongruities act as flints to their flaming abridgments.
Therefore it wasn't just a pretty bed of roses, not at all. In fact, before too long she would leave him high and dry, hence scoring the initial movements of plot,
They agreed to burn their collected correspondence and work with naked perception alone.
"But remember," she warned him. "My astonishing beauty is also my jinx, so don't get perplexed."
My only true friend was a student of mine. He showed up in Sri Nagar and wanted to learn the local language. Since I myself had already learned it, he asked me to teach him. I consented. He was earnest and clever and caught on quick. The problem was we fell in love; but me with him first, I openly to admit...
Of course when that happens the whole dynamic of the teacher-pupil relationship starts to wobble. We tried our best to make things right.
I thought it would be good to teach him something more. So I gave him colours. He gave me pictures. Simple colours. Simple pictures.
Our studio was very nice. Whenever there appeared a lull in work, birds would call through the open window and remind us of something.
Spring was approaching. Flowers were the first to understand this as the rocky terrain got daubed with colours. He became very good at bridging those colours unto broad sheets of paper that I also supplied him with.
One fine day he said, "How nice it would be if I could only sell some pictures as you once did, and earn a simple living."
So I bought a few pictures, only to encourage him, and thereby became his first collector. His output increased. I kept on buying... Before too long, I decided I had better go north and arrange exhibitions the modern cities.
It was bitterly painful to say good-bye. After I left he stopped the colours.
There were rumours of his death. Shameless art dealers rushed up to Sri Nagar bent on pillaging the quiet studio. His physical absence only fuelled their greed. There was a ruckus among them and the cops arrived, "To guard the premises," they feebly said, but they were really only looking for bribes... In any case, the dealers paid out a lot—but in vain because the studio was virtually empty. I had after all taken nearly everything with me. All that remained was a smashed little teapot. There was no turning back.
Now for no apparent reason this woman had no house of her own. She belonged to no family, possessed nothing and therefore slept on pavements, etc.
She was so uncommon that everyone always got embarrassed just to think about her; and they put her so far out of their minds that she nearly didn't exist at all. And she certainly didn't count, that's for sure, as her hair was matted sadhu fashion and her thin wool raiment clung to her thighs as she walked here and there in a trance-like state. At times she prowled around the hamlet like a leopard; but also walked deliberately, adjusting her demeanour to the courtesies of discipline as she halted in front of a certain house and patiently stood there cupping her hands. She kept her eyes cast down on her hands and meekly awaited food to be offered. She ate whatever was given on the spot and then licked her palms and rubbed them into her luxuriant dreadlocks.
Due to the hamlet's out-of-the-way remoteness, it had never been ruled by either of the capitals. It maintained an integrity all its own. Its customs were unique...
One spring day a stranger appeared and began asking questions about the tatter-clad almswoman. And getting no answers, he pressed the inhabitants of the hilly hamlet to launch a thorough investigation to unveil the roving yogini's identity. And having carefully scoured through all the temple records it was then made known that the deaf and mute nun was traceable to no genealogy what so ever, and the people of the hamlet were astonished and disturbed by this fact.
As for the stranger, he was a shaven-headed wanderer himself and therefore cordially received by the priests, even though they couldn't tell him anything. One thing led to the next.
1. Priest of emptiness
Mother earth: child moonWalking one morning after rising up early, I hadn't been hiking for more than an hour when the sight of a wailing child stopped me cold in my tracks. It was sitting near a stream at the forest's edge.
Earth draws near; nourishes
Child in the moon-pen: Waxing,
Waning child under wing...
Shielded from the harsh cold sun.
'O dear,' I thought, 'what has happened here? Abandoned by its parents? O destitute thing in the throes of misery – has it lain out here all night? Then lucky to be breathing at all!' I thought... 'Or maybe it were better off dead.'
I had been on the road two days already and had only taken food to last one day. I got myself lost while hunting for a poet down paths obscured by vines and fallen tree limbs. It took me all day just to reach his hermitage only to find it deserted and broken. So I swept the dust from the wooden veranda and ate the remaining portion of food. I rested through the night in the depth of the forest.
Still not knowing exactly where I was, it was clear that I'd be camping out again this night: all hopes for reaching a settlement thwarted... as I cautiously approached the balling child as it squirmed in the cold and desolate dirt. It was easy to tell that the thing was a boy but regarding its age, I could only guess a year or so, so caked with filth as if having been dragged along the bottom of the forest, its face swollen red as it screamed and clawed at the rich dark soil, desperate to avert its head in terror of a creature it had never laid eyes upon.
This forced me to halt at a courteous distance. What else could I do but sit and wait. And as I waited I began to ponder on the fate of this savage infant flailing itself before and within me.
'How had it come here?' I wondered to myself. 'Who on Earth had mothered this thing? Had it sprung from the matrix of nature herself like a frond poking up from the forest floor?... Where was she now? Torn and vanquished, function discharged: vamoosed? Had she mingled with the rain-soaked leaves and larvae? Had the child only listened to her bodily sounds undistinguished from the grunts and groans of the earth? Had he listened and learned that arcane tongue, bending miniscule ear-bone within the fleshy womb of wonder?'
'Born the previous spring,' I figured, 'then together one year though the bitter moons of winter. Then one spring morning with frost on its nose, it crawls from beneath her cooling body huddled beneath its tree-bark shrouds, then presses his hand to her bluing face like a rock, taps gently. Quiescence. What is gone?'
As I pondered these things, I saw myself the child. For the both of us were truly in the self-same fix. 'What conspiring law-of-chance was at play here? Was nature simply using us to further her own cause? Why had our paths come to cross at this juncture? Why was it I, the itinerant priest-of-emptiness, made to confront this bud of human urge?'
As we sat in the dirt in the middle of nowhere, the cold blue sky brought goose bumps down our spines. Not far away came the murmur of the stream as it trickled over pebbles where it crossed the path... As the sun lent warmth to the fresh morning air, the child became settled and quietened down. Then I drew up closer until we sat knee to knee. I pulled out a notebook and scrawled a few lines:
Abandoned child is swept about2. Volcano
His life so chafe and shear.
It matters not his place before
To tell one to at all.
A gust of wind from wizened pen
Cuts heart so out of breath.
It was extremely hot the day it happened. You know, it was just a few of weeks ago. But I don't even care that I missed some days of school. Those teachers don't teach much anyway. I think it's okay to stay home and play. But every kid is supposed to go to school. So when I get to stay home I have an uncomfortable feeling like I am doing something wrong.
But that day I knew it would be okay because everyone was busy and the neighbourhood was empty. I knew it. It was just too hot that day because the volcano was "acting up again," as the grown ups said. They worried a lot, and wondered what to do.
The Elders were presently meeting at the town hall. They were terribly upset and hot as well because so much smoke was blowing out the top of the volcano so that every morning people hurried outside to measure how much ash had fallen in the night, as everybody chattered and made their predictions on the fate of the town.
My mom had opened all the doors and windows. I was lying on the bed in the big front room because that was the coolest place in the house.
But I did not feel much shame that day. For staying home I mean, because my mom gave in so easily when I told her I had a stomach ache.
Just before she left the house, she gave a serious look. "Why do you make up stories?" she said. "If you don't want to go to school just stay home. But be careful when you light your agarbatti. I'll be back later on – bye!" And she left.
I was a little bit nervous when Tanti stepped in. She was acting again like my older sister and complained about the heat from the volcano as she fanned herself with her hand.
"I need to cool off in the shower," she said. "Do you want to go first?"
I felt kinda strange but answered "yes." She blinked and smiled, and before I knew it I was following her back through the garden to the pump house. "Take off your britches" she said, "I'll pour cold buckets down your back."
I liked very much the sound of the water swooshing past my ears and down my body and splashing loudly on the bricks.
"Enough?" she asked.
"Enough!" I said then dashed across the garden to get my ashy towel off the clothesline. I shivered a bit as I hugged the towel and felt the warmth of the sun on my face. Then I heard the muted sound of splashing water.
The cooling down does not last long on these strange hot days, I mean. One again feels hot-and-sticky soon after bathing. Especially sticky. And there's lots of ash in the air, too, because of the volcano.
I looked in the dictionary and found the word "lassitude." That's probably what I felt. It's kinda of strange. I don't believe in anything.
I was lying on the bed and spoke to my mother combing her hair in front of the mirror.
"I think I feel depressed." I said.
She turned around and looked at me. "Children don't feel depressed," she said. "They only feel sorry for themselves."
I watched her reflection as she turned to the mirror again. She was smiling.
I just kept lying there scratching my mosquito bites. I stared at the ceiling and practiced holding my breath. It was still quite early and I was already bored. I tried to imagine what I could possibly do all day. Then my mom set the comb down and moved toward the door. She stopped and turned, and then looked at me again. "Bala," she said, her face was serious, "are you in love?"
Tanti and I became best of comrades, even though she was a whole year older than me. She was really my guru. We shared all of our secrets. We had nothing to hide. I told her how I loved to write poems. She was very surprised. Why? Because before whenever she saw my homework assignments they were always full of the teacher's red marks, and she giggled sometimes and considered me an idiot. But when I showed her my poems she changed her opinion.
I showed her my whole collection. She praised them all. "Forget the homework!" she said very strictly. "Just write poems. I'll be your agent."
Tanti was wonderful. She was naturally the cleverest student in the school. She was cleverer than the teachers. They even let her plan her own special field trips, and she sometimes got me to come along, too. She always got her way...
One fine day when no one was home, I kissed her little knob and something exploded inside my chest like a volcano. They thought they had broken me of the impish habit...
Some years passed. We went our separate ways.
3. Sabija
Carrying out his fey ministrations in a rainbow body like a current of dreams; Kavi sends word from the dusty Kashmiri capital:
Hello out there! – I'm back in the pink! I have presently dispensed with transparent colours and go around with pocketfuls of gemstones instead! I buy them in the markets with crumpled rupees and sell them to the tourists for crisp clean Euros! The Tuesday market is the most amusing! 'Why?' Just this morning I saw a little teapot! Its tepid charm delighted my eye! So I brought it home and gave it a rub! You will never guess what happened!Conforming to an inner emotive twirl of seeping love from the seamless sphere: this undreamt truth in praise of Sabija; so far away; away from Sri Nagar...
On the distant shores of the southern sea, I can feel the warmth of the moon in her hair. In the quiet glade of her pleasure grove, I can sense the cool of her morning sun as she feeds on mere touch... so far away; away from Sri Nagar.
She was actually but one of many such goddesses of the night enshrined here and there throughout the town of Sri Nagar.
"My bodily fluids are highly flammable," she told me the very first night we met. "I allow no smoking in bed." Later she confessed, "My heart is heavy with bliss."
I was curious about her past.
"I found my way here as a young spiritual seeker," she explained. "At first I sold original paintings of fakirs and saints to support myself. Then I was discovered by a tantrique swamin who shrewdly converted me to the ancient continuum. I was mysteriously guided to his simple mandir on the outskirts of the city. I arrived at his door with my offering of fruit. He carefully checked to make sure they were ripe then placed them high on the fragrant altar. He lit a single agarbatti and – abracadabra – the angels appeared."
Concerning the life of her august sheik, "For years he craved greatness," she frankly told. "But he eventually found that it wasn't even worth it, nor necessary... The power of his sentiment had a very profound effect on me.... One day he gave me a magical potion and told me to masturbate with it. I followed his instructions and, to my total surprise, got pregnant. One month later in an easygoing manner, he said, 'Now that my spiritual heir is conceived I can finally leave the fleshy robe behind.'
"He arranged his simple and unadorned wake with the neighbourhood mortician several weeks beforehand. The body was displayed in mummy wraps, leaving only the oval of his face exposed. His lips expressed a faint angelic smile. The only other thing was the playing of a tape of the dearly departed's recorded laughter. All who attended the unassuming rite were encouraged to view the body and laugh."
Immediately upon her master's passing, Sabija's hair transformed into a matted mass of luxuriant dreadlocks as she became a svaminii of her own dispensation.
"As my belly bulged big," she said one morning, "I was naturally forced to take a lot of flak from the public sector – especially from my rivals. To counter their slurs I responded by saying, 'You mean ascetics aren't allowed to have test tube babies?'"
There is an oracle saying in the Kashmiri highlands: He clears his throat and a thousand dogs bark.
The terrain here is also very rocky and dry. But Sabija lauded its uplifting effect on the body – "especially on the body of Literature," she said, "and poetic style."
"Why is that?" he asked.
"Because it's bound to make you lay things bare and detect tiny blossoms clinging onto barren crags of rock."
But then their character-clashes got utterly real if not glossed over by the frequent love bouts, letting their otherwise mooted incongruities act as flints to their flaming abridgments.
Therefore it wasn't just a pretty bed of roses, not at all. In fact, before too long she would leave him high and dry, hence scoring the initial movements of plot,
plumbing to the tepidness of sea and sand,He frequently gets the same recurring dream. He is driving her out to the local airport; she goes through immigration and they wave good-byes. He is then overcome by a gripping sadness like loosing something he had never found for eternity.
the delicate pinks of shells in her fingers,
sand and salt-foam swooshing round her thighs...
They agreed to burn their collected correspondence and work with naked perception alone.
"But remember," she warned him. "My astonishing beauty is also my jinx, so don't get perplexed."
*
I have always been a controversial figure. But I never tried to be. People have jumped in the air and thrust their fingers at me to get me to stop, but why? Stop what? I never offered those people advice. They asked for it. I suffered many and suffered as a consequence.My only true friend was a student of mine. He showed up in Sri Nagar and wanted to learn the local language. Since I myself had already learned it, he asked me to teach him. I consented. He was earnest and clever and caught on quick. The problem was we fell in love; but me with him first, I openly to admit...
Of course when that happens the whole dynamic of the teacher-pupil relationship starts to wobble. We tried our best to make things right.
I thought it would be good to teach him something more. So I gave him colours. He gave me pictures. Simple colours. Simple pictures.
Our studio was very nice. Whenever there appeared a lull in work, birds would call through the open window and remind us of something.
Spring was approaching. Flowers were the first to understand this as the rocky terrain got daubed with colours. He became very good at bridging those colours unto broad sheets of paper that I also supplied him with.
One fine day he said, "How nice it would be if I could only sell some pictures as you once did, and earn a simple living."
So I bought a few pictures, only to encourage him, and thereby became his first collector. His output increased. I kept on buying... Before too long, I decided I had better go north and arrange exhibitions the modern cities.
It was bitterly painful to say good-bye. After I left he stopped the colours.
There were rumours of his death. Shameless art dealers rushed up to Sri Nagar bent on pillaging the quiet studio. His physical absence only fuelled their greed. There was a ruckus among them and the cops arrived, "To guard the premises," they feebly said, but they were really only looking for bribes... In any case, the dealers paid out a lot—but in vain because the studio was virtually empty. I had after all taken nearly everything with me. All that remained was a smashed little teapot. There was no turning back.
