“Afzal!” he broke in. “It’s other people who look disgusting to you.”
“Yar, it happens sometimes that a man, finding others disgusting — well, some morning he discovers that his own face has changed. For the last couple of days I’ve somehow been fearful that I too might — that my face might—?”
“All right, stop this babbling. Here’s a cot, lie down on it and go to sleep.”
“Yes, yar.” He went at once and lay down on the cot. “I want to sleep.” As he spoke, he looked around, and said with surprise, “Yar! Your room seems like a cave to me.” He paused, thought, then said slowly, “All right, I’ve been awake for a long time. I’ll sleep for seven hundred years.” And his eyes gradually closed.
Voices, what kind of voices? he muttered. It’s just that Afzal’s ears ring. He finally grew quiet, but deep inside he was speaking. He’s a man who lives by delusions. Every day a new delusion. He hasn’t yet grown up. He thinks he’s a child, living with his granny in the atmosphere of his old town, where there were trees like those in my Rupnagar. Rupnagar, where the trees were such that when you looked at them you felt delusions arising, willy-nilly. And in his imagination he went back to Rupnagar.
•
In the full heat of the afternoon, they passed by the Black Temple, went on beyond Karbala, approached the Fort. Then they went on, and kept going on. They entered the Ravan Wood. Walking along, they hesitated. In the distance they could see the banyan tree. A solitary tree in the midst of the Ravan Wood, as though Ravan himself were standing there. They thought they could see something in the tree. Then Habib said fearfully, “Yar! What kind of voice was that?”
“Voice?” Bundu looked at Habib with astonishment.
“It came just a moment ago. Zakir! Didn’t you hear it?”
“No.”
“Listen!” Habib said, as though he was hearing the voice again.
They all three pricked up their ears. They stood obliviously in the blazing sun, listening for some far-off, unknown, mysterious voice. He himself didn’t hear anything. But the wonder and terror that spread over Habib and Bundu’s faces told him that they had heard something. Watching them, he too was gripped by wonder and terror.
“Run!” Habib said, as though the voice was coming close, ready to pounce on them. They ran away; he ran with them. He ran and ran. The distance back from the Ravan Wood became a long, perilous journey. The voice seemed to be following right behind him, and the town, his home, seemed to be miles away. He hadn’t even sighted the Black Temple yet! When he saw it, it seemed to be beyond the horizon. Habib and Bundu had gotten ahead of him. He was left behind alone, and kept on running. It was as though an age had passed, and he was still running. How long can I go on running? I’m winded, and my legs are already tired. And with my panting breath and tired legs I’m running all alone in this uninhabited forest. But for how long? How far away is my house? There’s no one to be seen anywhere around. As he ran, his gaze fell on the hillock. A man, is it a man? A wave of panic ran through him, and his feet weighed hundreds of pounds. Is it a man?
•
One of Afzal’s loud snores had woken him, or startled him. Had he been asleep? He glanced at Afzal, who was deep in sleep and snoring loudly. This man is really going to sleep for seven hundred years, he mumbled, sitting there and yawning. Then he fell into thought. Afzal was right. This was indeed the time to have a long sleep. A man should go into a cave, apart from everyone, and sleep. And go on sleeping for seven hundred years. When he wakes up and comes out of the cave, then he’ll see that the times have changed. And he has not changed. It’s a good idea, it’s better than getting up every morning and looking in the mirror, suspecting that his face has changed, and being tormented all day by the thought that his face is changing! When a man sees people changing all around him, such suspicions arise. Or it also happens that no suspicions arise, and then a man changes. How? How have they gone on changing? Those people, every one of whom believed that the others were changing, while he himself looked the same as before. Everyone looked at everyone else and was stupefied. “My dear friend! What’s happened to you?”
“To me? Nothing’s happened to me. But I can see that something’s happened to you.”
“My dear friend, nothing’s happened to me. But I do see that your face—”
One tangled with another, the second tangled with a third. One clawed at another, the second clawed at a third. They all clawed at each other and were injured and deformed. I was afraid that I too — I came away. I should go into my cave and sleep. And keep sleeping until the times have changed.
… I’m in a forest. The forest keeps getting denser. How dense, how deep. And this town? No words of piety and peace, no rain of virtuous deeds. The sweet song of the flute has been broken off. No feeling of devotion anywhere. Land and water muddied and mingled. Men and women distraught. People have left their houses. “The way they’d flee from their houses during an earthquake.”* The virtuous were oppressed. Women as pure as Savitri had their saris torn to shreds. Happy wives were turned into widows. Laps that had held babies were emptied. Children were at the point of death, with drooping heads and eyes rolled back. I was aghast: where was the protector of this town? A yogi with matted hair roared at me, “Fool! The protector of this town was the savior of all the world. But he has left this place and gone to the forest.”
“For what reason?”
“Don’t ask the reason. Look around, and understand. It happened that a horse with reins hanging loose, neighing, went into the forest. When he saw this, he lost all hope. Getting down from his chariot, he placed his flute on a pitcher and broke it, smashed the pitcher into pieces, and went into the forest, searching for his brother.”
When I heard this tale of disaster, I left the town. Traveling far, I came to a forest. An uninhabited forest. Unfathomable silence. Under a tree I saw his brother sitting, with ash-smeared limbs, on a deer-skin. His hair was knotted and tangled, his eyes closed, his mouth open — and from within his mouth a white snake thrust out its head. It came out hissing, and began to grow long, and kept growing longer and longer. It grew so long that its hood touched the waves of the distant, surging ocean. I saw with fear that the long white snake’s body kept emerging from the wise man’s mouth, and vanishing into the ocean. Then I saw that the snake’s tail had emerged from his mouth, and the breath had left the wise man’s body.
Seeing this, I marveled: Oh Ram, what mystery is this? With this worry I turned back, so I could say, Oh people of Dwarka! Here, you are fighting to the death; there, the snake has gone down into the ocean. But before I could get to the town, the ocean waves had already reached it. The town, which had been a light of peace in the ocean of existence, now looked like a bubble in the churning ocean waves.* Thus as he was dying in the midst of the field of Kurukshetra, Bhisham said to Yudhishtir, “Oh Yudhishtir, in the beginning there was water, for everything is made only of water. And now I’ve realized that in the end too there’s only water. The source is water, the end is water. Om, shanti, shanti, shanti—”
… He shook himself, and looked at his sleeping companion — who seemed to have been sleeping through many births, oblivious to the world and everything in it, snoring long and loudly. He glanced out of the cave and at once pulled his head back in, for it was very dark outside and a hurricane had begun to blow. He muttered, There’s still a lot of the night left. The nights of mischief are so long — he looked at his sleeping companion. How restfully he’s sleeping, while outside a hurricane is raging. And how long he’s slept, though he meant to sleep for only seven hundred years! But now his own eyelids too began to feel heavy. Yawning hugely, he muttered, Now it’s time to go to sleep.