‘Even before I went to Oxford, Tripathi's influence had begun to wane. His son stopped the daily feeding in the dharamshala. Tripathi would sit in that old chair of his, stick in hand, like an aged lion, and he grew increasingly more melancholy.
‘Now I believe that Tripathi was perhaps an ichchamarani. One morning, after his dip in the Ganga, he could not sit up straight in his puja room, so he leaned on a wooden plank. Even though his own son knew Sanskrit and wore a tuft like him, he didn't call his son. He sent for me, with my modern cropped hair, and said, “If you have already bathed, put on your silk dhoti and come.” I wore as an upper cloth the silk dhoti that he had given me in my eighth year, after my mother's death, when he whispered the Gayatri mantra into my ears and got the thread ceremony done. I put on the gold-bordered silk dhoti which he gave me the previous Navaratri, and sat before him. I have a good voice. People say that my mother was a good singer, and I must have got it from her. Tripathi requested me to recite the stotras composed by Adishankara. But before I started reciting, he asked me to bring the bunch of keys from his bag. From this big bunch of keys he took one out and gave it to me, saying, “I have kept your mother's gold in my small iron safe. Here is the key- Be careful, keep it from my greedy son. When you go to England, don't leave the key here. After you come back, as your gift for having grown up in this house, rebuild the temple which my ancestors had built on the bank of the Ganga. In England, don't eat what ought not to be eaten, don't drink what ought not to be drunk. Come back, then marry a girl from a good family and become a good householder.” I fell at his feet and he blessed me.
‘As I began to recite Shankara's stotras, he closed his eyes and never opened them again.
‘I finished my studies in England, came back, and rebuilt the temple. His son did not particularly want this done. The dharamshala built by Tripathi was slowly becoming like a hotel. Those who came to stay there were now asked to pay some money in the form of a donation.
‘They even had to pay for hot water.
‘This saddened me deeply. Then, one day, Tripathi's son brought an accounts book and showed me some accounts on old yellowed paper. I could tell he himself had written this, but he pretended that his father had done so. He forced a smile and told me, “Look, these must be expenses incurred by my father on your behalf.”
‘The account he placed before me was for nearly ten lakhs. I began to tremble in disgust. I went and got the trunk from the iron safe and told him, “Don't bring dishonour on your father's soul by yapping at me that this account was written by him. Just take from this trunk whatever you want.” That made him unsure of himself. So I went and sold some bars of gold and gave him ten lakhs. Then I took my trunk with what remained in it, and came away to Delhi.’
∗
When he realized that Narayan, walking by his side, was not responding, Dinakar felt ashamed. ‘Have I acknowledged the nobility and sacrifice of his feeling “Gangu's son could be your son, but I will bring him up as my own?” Is it right for me to be boasting of my generosity in giving away gold?’ Dinakar felt dismayed at the self-regard which had not left him despite his new attire.
Yet even as he thought of touching Narayan's feet in reverence, Narayan surprised him by making a pointless remark, speaking purely as a lawyer.
‘You know, it wasn't necessary to give up the gold. You could have maintained that the account was a forgery, and not in Tripathi's handwriting. If the son had gone to court over it, he would certainly have lost the case.’
∗
Dinakar felt relieved by Narayan's worldliness, even though just a moment ago Narayan's large-hearted speech had created a dilemma for him. Seeing how a man such as Narayan could overcome his limitations in a noble gesture made Dinakar feel small. If he had responded by touching Narayan's feet, that act would also have increased his own self-esteem, and would not have been a sign of turning over, in facing a truth.
‘What was I really feeling as Narayan told of his affair with Gangu?’ Dinakar wondered. ‘Was it regret? When I pressured her the first time, she had appeared ignorant of such things, yet how soon she began to teach me. Did Gangu, who lost her virginity with me and I with her, then learn from a married man and begin to teach me?’
Dinakar remembered the places and times of meetings with her. Whenever Narayan and his mother went to the temple for darshan, Gangu would quickly pat Gopal to sleep, or leave him to play with one of the children in Tripathi's house, then find some unused corner of the attic Where, to the sound of Tripathi reciting mantras, they would join together in love.
‘When I was not there, would she meet Narayan in the same place? And when the bedding was spread and the others lay down to sleep, she would sometimes say that she wanted to wander on the bank of the river. Even in that cold we would open the doors of the old temple that Tripathi's ancestors had built and lie together under that stone wall with the big carving of Ganesh on it. On the stone floor that was damp with oil, sandal-paste, and kumkum. And again we would lie together in Kashi, where I went with them because she asked me to go. In my very small room. On a torn mat.
‘Where could she have met Narayan when everyone was sleeping side by side? Could he even have had her when his mother was sleeping in the same room? I had thought that all Gangu's stolen moments were mine alone. Where else, when she was out of my sight, could she have been meeting him? At Hardwar? At Kashi? At Mathura?
‘I used to get up early every morning to bring buckets of hot water to people staying in the dharamshala, to the very old and the very young who couldn't go in the cold to bathe in the Ganga. And then in the afternoon I had to serve food to everyone. I had taken these duties on myself during my holidays … perhaps that was when Narayan had his stolen moments with her.
‘Or could it have been when I visited the houses of my classmates?’ He remembered that Gangu used to tell him, ‘You may become bored being with me always. Take some time for yourself, go and wander about and then come back. I will be waiting.’
‘Perhaps when Gangu became pregnant and confessed to Narayan about her affair with me, he suffered in the same way I am suffering now,’ Dinakar thought. ‘Like me, he must have searched his memory, wondering when she made love with me without him ever knowing. If he dwells on the details of my lovemaking and I think of the details of his lovemaking, how can he or I ever cross over and realize the illusion of samsara? On the contrary, we keep on lusting feverishly. Searching, questioning, we chew the same stuff and regurgitate like a cow that chews its cud, swallowing it over and over again. Until we love another woman, we keep wandering like wraiths.’
Even as he thought this, Dinakar became aroused and again desired Gangu, wanting her even if it meant deceiving his friend. He thought of her years ago, gasping, getting him into her urgently, in the secretive darkness. When he had seen her come down the stairs just now, her middle-aged beauty had stirred him, got him vibrating with pleasure. She had been his first lover, she had made the pleasure of woman bloom for him and had remained in him like a fragrance. Thinking of this, he sighed, feeling sure that for him there would be no liberation from bhava. The sigh was not of sorrow, but of weariness. Of desire which had begun to wither.
Narayan, released from his lawyerly self, began to speak again. And again Dinakar listened and suffered, as if he were dreaming in the cool moonlight on the clean white sands of the beach.