The Lord was so touched. He laid his two thumbs on the two sides of the sparrows of Benares that whatever happens they would not be eaten by vultures or be killed by the hawk. These Rama-marks on the sparrows of the right have come generation after generation, and just as no crocodile will touch you when you bathe in Benares, no vulture will touch the Rama-sparrows. They seem, as it were, to have eyes on their wings. For at the moment when Rama laid his fingerprints on them Sri Rama had not broken the arc of Shiva nor had he seen Sita Devi yet. But when he returned on his way to Ayodhya and with his new-wed Queen, the holy couple stopped and gave a few nuptial rice-grains to these sparrows so that they now eat only the virtuous grains of pilgrims. Thus after many lives they’re born again as men, and sometimes even as Brahmins. And why not I ask of you, a sparrow be born a Brahmin? The wise Bhim the parrot says: Are you still there, O race of Bhagirathi? The Brahmin is dead with his lucre as the English with their greed. In Benares we know no caste but virtue. ‘Oh, ho,’ says the vulture of the right, ‘and what about us then? You don’t want us to be like those butchers on the other side eating of buffalo flesh?’ Bhim turns to Rupvati and says, ‘Talk to them, I cannot. I must go on with my meditations.’
The bharadwaj-bird now comes in poking her nose in everyone’s affairs, that eternal thief. The vultures, knowing the bharadwaj has not only a long tail but a long tongue, frighten her and say, ‘Don’t you meddle in our affairs.’ ‘What,’ says the bharadwaj, ‘I am only a praying bird forever willing to eat off the leavings of pilgrims. What are you angry about?’ The vultures do not argue, they hiss. It’s then Rupvati says, ‘When my lord is in meditation we need no intruders. Will you just keep quiet?’ Which explains why when the bells are ringing for evening worship, and, all of a sudden the night falls, there’s a long silence as if the temple water-tank were shaken by the breezes, and between the shake and the splash there’s the space of no-sound. The wavelets by the Ganges play about as if in adoration of evening, and when the bells ring high, and the drums beat and the leaping pilgrims of the boat wash their hands and feet, and beat their cheeks seeking forgiveness, and they fold their hands in worship, on the neem tree there, there’s a wide-awake silence. By the red-stone of Prabhavathi Devi a lamp has been lit. On all the verandas the lamps leap from house to house, and Benares begins its evening of worship. The birds do not move any more. There are no bats on the neem tree. Sometimes, however, so old is Bhim that in the Bindu House you can hear his snore. Did you know parrots snored like men? They do.
And just a few days ago. as anybody will tell you in Benares, Bhim took his usual evening bath in the Ganga and was never seen again. And since that was the evening of the death of Swami Siddheshwarji, the great blind saint, the story is that one saw the bird, yes, Bhim, as he was known to every sadhu, fall into the pyre and die. This is perhaps just a rumour. It is believed Bhim came every day to be fed by Siddheshwarji, and when he knew he was going to leave his body, he told the bird: I am going away, you know, the day after tomorrow. This explains why Bhim never ate for two days, never left his perch. And then Bhim disappeared from the world.
Now Rupavati sits in her austerities biding her time.
III
Chhota Munna Lal (or Madhobha, as he was called) was a quiet, young man of the busy lanes of Benares. Playful and shrewd, grave but kindly, people wondered how all this could go bundled in together. Was there not some dark hole, some secret in that big chest of his, behind that fat talisman on the left arm, or the two unequal moles of his face, or in the large, moonstone ring he wore — was there something that everybody in Benares did not know, for all Benares knew him — or had the great Shiva really made this young man as good as he looked? He always wore silk shirts, his collar neatly ironed, and a shy elegant scarf around it — his dhoti was ever well-creased, his tilak on the forehead was round and big (it was made of sandal paste and sanctuary butterlamp black) and he put on collyrium around his big bursting eyes. For he ever seemed to be going out on a hunt, and when asked he’d say, as if in jest: ‘I have a rendezvous with a lovely spirit — I see her only on moonlit nights. And she is so beautiful. All the beauties of this earth seem as nothing.’ ‘And with your profession?’ you asked, as he sold firewood for cremation. ‘Yes, sir, it’s because of my profession that I can see spirits. You only see the dead. I see beyond the dead. Anyway my Mohini is not of the world of the dead. She is so real, not a dancing girl of Benares — and I have seen most of them — can match in beauty with this Mohini.’ And you might see in the windows of the little attic he had, above the shop, small frills hanging, long threads of gold, garlands, and one heard of lovely earrings, naga head-jewels, fripperies, bangles, and they all lay, so people imaged, on a tray under a large gilt-framed looking glass. But how could anybody say anything, for nobody had gone into the room in the last five years, no, nobody. She would come, so once again the Benares legend ran, she would come through the mirror to pick her lover’s gifts whensoever she wanted, and she came often. You knew of her presence because of the melody she sang — and she sang as no human sang:
sa ri ga sa ri ga sari ga
sa ri ga sa, sa ri ga, sari ga sa
sa ri pa ma ga sa, sa ri gamma ga
ma ga sa. . etc.
She never sang a song but always notes. And you could slip into sleep and hear them, there, that was her mystery. And she sang to you all through the goodliest sleep, so said our Madhobha, whenever he was elated. Otherwise he spoke little.
‘Ho, Madhobha.’ It was the boss calling. Benares has no night. The dead have no night. They die at all times, diurnal or nocturnal, and the firewood has to be kept ready. The fact is when the monsoon comes, and when it does come, it does come and pour oceans on Benares, you know, like a howling police inspector spitting and kicking and thundering, and then there’s the rain of a thousand years. You understand, the firewood then can be disastrously wet. The boss does not care. ‘The less it burns,’ says he, ‘the more they’ll buy.’ But the Brahmins are keen masters in this choice of good firewood. Their tasks have to be finished quicker. Otherwise they would lose their next client. So between the Brahmin and the firewood-sellers there was, as it were, an ancient pact: four annas to the rupee would go to the Brahmins. That made firewood costlier for the dead. But then who will not pay dearer prices for the dead? You can ask a hundred thousand rupees, and if they could, they’ll pay it to you. ‘Take it, brother, and give me the good firewood! Golden, goddess firewood!’ Also, the price you fix will go with the face you see. You’ve learnt by now that a lean face is tricky, and the price should be medium (say, seven rupees eight annas a maund) and if he has a fat face you can be sure (were he even a bania) he has a big heart. Also you must be able to judge who’s dead from the face of the customer: brother, mother, wife, or grandfather, or a nobody of anybody. Somehow in Benares grandfathers fetch the highest prices. If you ask Madhobha why so, he says, does Madhobha, ‘Because the grandfathers have always the treasure-trunks with them.’ And they dote on their granddaughters. There is generally a widowed daughter or granddaughter to look after the grandfather. And she is usually very kind. So you can go up to eight rupees four annas a maund (and the Brahmins get a slightly higher proportional sum). It’s gay with the dead in Benares, you talk of them as you talk of tamarind or mangoes, or of trains. ‘Are you taking the Jaunpur Express?’ is just like saying, ‘Sathu Madhurai is dead, and he will be brought to the ghats, in half an hour. The home-rites are almost over. The Brahmins came just a while ago. They couldn’t find a fourth. That’s the delay. But now they’d have found one.’