Now Shalwar Khan, also a friend of Bhedia’s, is just a different type of horse — it has five legs. You must understand what Bhedia means by this. A four-legged horse runs just like that, like those tied to an ekka. But with Shalwar Khan they ran in any direction you like: back or forth. They can go forward going backwards or go upwards going downwards. For Shalwar Khan can grow mangoes where there’s only a foot-high plant, he can play magic with his cobra, his loved one, his beloved one, his noble friend, his destiny, his God’s companion; he can make his son, Putli, dance on earth, and then high up in heaven. Shalwar Khan can lay his travelling bundle under a neem or tamarind tree, spread his cloth at any cross-lane, and then plant his magic-pole into the earth, shake his drum-drum and all the neighbourhood is suddenly awake: the children, as if woken from a dream, come lisping and tumbling, holding their aunt’s hands, their maid’s fingers, and the boys make a huge circle for the marvels to see. Putli loves to be a hero among boys, Putli’s mother was forgotten on some riverbank — she loved drink too much, and loved ghosts more than man, and Shalwar Khan’s gods hated ghosts. So he abandoned his wife one day and ran off with Putli — he got into a train — his huge travelling bundle, his snake basket, and his oboe, and was he not successful in the train? Though at every other station he was thrown out by the ticket-collector, he and his son, Putli, then four years old. Finally he came to Shiva’s mighty city (Shalwar Khan’s gods had some minor links with Shiva’s minions — did they not?) and once you come to Benares how can you ever leave it? Tell me.
‘Hé, bolo,’ he would start, and all the housewives would lean over the windows, with their washings, their ladles, or their combs in hand, they too would watch the show while the children are already down by the tamarind tree. ‘In the time of Rama,’ Shalwar Khan would start shaking his drum and say, ‘there was a cow and her name was Ma-Moo.’ ‘Yes, Ma-Moo,’ repeats Putli. ‘And Ma-Moo was always of bad temper, like a shrew.’ ‘Like a shrew,’ repeats Putli. ‘Give me my shrew.’ And now Shalwar Khan takes out his oboe, and as he begins to play over the serpent-box he says: ‘Hé Lord, you must rise, and adorn our court. What do you say to that?’
‘Hé, Lord, I am here,’ says Putli, to the cobra whose hiss is now heard all around. And Bhedia who’s joined the crowd says: ‘O children, take care, go away, and stand at a distance, the great King of Serpents is there. Take care, his skin is gold, his eyes diamond, and his heart is that of a saint.’ ‘Of a saint,’ says Putli as if all these were known forever. ‘Hé, Bhedia,” shouts Shalwar, ‘come and sit with me here, and help me. You can lift the lid so that the great Prince may appear.’ Bhedia without a shake of fear goes straight and lifts the box-lid off, and there is our beautiful Naga, Lord, King, spreading his hood, and playful as play. He slips and whirls, quivering out his tongue with thirst as though music is what he lives on. Bhedia goes round and round the box whispering something to himself, fully fascinated. And then Putli tells the story.
‘Once the Prince of Oudh came to his court.’ ‘To his court,’ repeats Bhedia. And fingers in their mouth the children are in rapt attention. Only the one-year-olds on the waists of their ayahs are in tears. ‘O take me home. O take me home.’ I’ll give you honey, baby, I’ll give you a piece of gold,’ sings Bhedia, and the babies become silent. The quiet Ganga flows. The dippers are dipping, the crows are cawing. The vultures vociferate from high pipal tops. On terraces the wet clothes of pilgrims hang with assiduity. The more the sun, the more holy would they be. The bazaars seem of a sudden silent — it’s noontime and people like to eat and rest. Shalwar Khan now pushes the Naga’s head down with the oboe and fixes back the lid of the serpent-box. And then drags out a bamboo-basket from his large cloth-sack. Putli will still come out from some terrace, boys, having disappeared before you, into the earth. Life is so like an oboe song.
‘Ready, jump in,’ orders Shalwar Khan. Putli turns round and round on himself, greeting the spectators with folded hands.
Now suddenly he flops into the bamboo-basket and stretches himself flat, while Shalwar Khan carefully draws the lid on top, and covers it all with a red mango-leaf design muslin cloth. Shalwar Khan then swings his hand thrice round and round the box muttering a secret something to himself, and shouts: And then there is absolute silence as if the world has disappeared. ‘Hé, my son, Putli, my son, Putli, go to heaven and come. Do you hear, go to Indra’s kingdom and return.’ ‘And return,’ murmurs Bhedia, sobbing, sobbing.
‘Bhedia,’ shouts Shalwar Khan, ‘Bhedia, throw up the cloth. Tear open the lid.’ Bhedia does what he is told, for life after life, as you will know, he was only born to lift the lid off the magical basket. ‘And now, ye genteel folk of Benares, ye, men and women, search where you will, and you will find there is no Putli anywhere. He’s gone, he’s gone. The basket is empty. Look, kick at it and see. Here, I thrust this shimmering sword into it and see. Where is Putli gone? There’s no Putli. In the kingdom of Rama, when Dasaratha had sent his son away in exile, people wept and said: Oh where have you gone, O son,’ relates Shalwar Khan, standing up and swinging his drum. ‘O son,’ says Bhedia, as if he knew exactly the meaning of the story and had rehearsed it. ‘“O father,” says the holy son, “I am gone nowhere. Let Bharathji, my ever-devout brother, rule in my place. But if you want to see me, just do one thing— call me, and I’ll come from any tree, any terrace.” “Come, my son,” says Dasarathji, I want so much to see you, I cannot sleep without a vision of your holy presence.”’ ‘Presence, O Revered Father and King, and here I come,’ shouts Putli from that high terrace, there beyond the tamarind tree. How did he get there? Under the earth and up into the sky? The children are wonderstruck. Yes, Putli went under the earth and came out of heaven, there! ‘Yes, Putli is a bright boy,’ says Shalwar Khan, lifting the lid off the snake-box. ‘Is he not, Hé, My Lord Naga, Lord of Dharma?’ The Naga Lord hisses and plays with the music as if heaven and earth were indeed of one matter made, and Bhedia and Putli were of course denizens of a true and higher world. ‘Why, Benares is all like that,’ auntie said, when she took little Girija home.
Girija has come from Kashmir for the Ram Lila. It’s wonderful to travel by bus and train, and be in Benares as if you were always there. Girija, who’s now five years old, has been three months in Benares. He loves Benares because here children play. They play in gangs. For example, between house and house there are established links, and newcomers are immediately taken into the fold. There are no strangers in Benares. The king of the young is one Mohendra. Mohone, as they call him, is a good big boy, you think because he tends cows. That’s not the truth at all, as any boy on Dashashwamedha Ghat will tell you. Mohendra and his gang are interested in teasing Sadhus, in thieving mangoes from shops, stealing clothes from bathers, and cigarettes from men’s pockets. And money from anywhere. Mohendra and his gang are well set, and have a code of honour. You have to eat Mohone’s spittle three times, and you’re joined on to the fold. Mohone is eleven but he looks fifteen. His gang has some twenty persons unless you count Bhedia as one of them. If you do so you must add five, for Bhedia is at least five men at the same time, and at five different places. And Bhedia is like their prophet. If Bhedia says: Go left, it means bad luck for your enterprise. If Bhedia spits on a side, it’s bad luck too. But if Bhedia is talking of his horses for some reason it’s always good luck. Sometime Putli would like to join the gang. But Putli is never out of his father’s sight. Putli knows all his father’s secrets. Putli can have no friends. A snake charmer has only three friends. His oboe, his snake, and his wand. Otherwise all the universe is ash. And Putli has come to accept it: ‘And the Prince has come back to you, Father,’ says Putli walking with folded hands, straight through the astonished audiences, to his father. And never will speak a word more to anyone.