‘Where do you go, Sadhuji?’
‘I go nowhere.’
‘But you must go somewhere?’
‘All somewheres go to one where.’
‘But,’ said a clever passenger, ‘that somewhere must be some sanctuary, some spot, some riverside holy city.’
‘There’s only one place such appointed — which is no, no place.’
‘Benares,’ said a pandit, his fingers trembling with old age.
‘The city of Kala Bhairav is no place, for everything is destroyed there as it arises. So I go where there is instant destruction; therefore all is. Where Shivji danced on the crematorium is where the world is real. Time and space are burnt to ashes. To live, you must dance,’ said the Sadhu and gyrated in the corridor of the wagon and in such a manner that the passengers (and Shivlal too) thought he would just jump out, and fly away.
‘Shiv,’ he said, ‘fill me now, my hookah.’ And Shivlal put the tobacco and pushed it deep in, and when the train stopped, some passengers brought coal embers from the railway engine, and laid them on the tobacco.
‘Ah,’ said he to Shiv, ‘you’re a worthy devotee to a Sadhu.’ And Shiv loved the Sadhu so much, especially the smell of the hookah.
The story is long. But the end is simple. Shiv and the Sadhu after many wanderings came to Benares. Shiv soon discovered that the Sadhu was no easy person to serve. ‘Oh, fill the hookah, get me a soda water bottle. Hé, go and find me three ripe mangoes, and then get me some milk. You say it’s for Sadhu Satyadevji. Who does not know Sadhu Satyadevji?’ Shiv discovered the Sadhu lost his temper easily, and when he did, he almost grew red-hot like an iron blowpipe fallen into the kitchen fire. The Sadhu also did not mind pilfering here and there, and if found out, he used such foul language: ‘Son of a prostitute, I’ll sleep with your mother.’ And he’d threaten people with all and evil things. One day in Benares (after they had been some fifteen days on the Ganga ghats) Shiv was wandering aimless through the streets. He was in tears. The Sadhu had howled at him (the Sadhu had had no bhang for three days — nobody had brought it to him).
True Shiv was negligent in performing his daily, dedicated duties. But he was a landowner’s son. And at the thought of Vallabhpur and the tiger cubs running through the moonlit streets, he bursts into sobs, A woman bejewelled, with much pan-red on her lips, and with temple offerings in her hands, and a gay gait, befriended him. ‘Son, why do you weep?’
‘I’m an orphan,’ answered Shiv, ‘and I am homeless.’
‘Come and I’ll feed you. And you can stay with me,’ said she. And she took him to a grand three-storeyed house and on to the second floor; when the woman came in Shiv saw there were lots of men in the apartment, musical instruments lying carelessly about the place. They all smiled and bowed to her, and some started tuning the instruments to play their music. There was also an old woman, tired, and with a husky voice. ‘Mother, I’ve found this orphan. I liked his face. We’ll keep him.’
‘Well, you’ve had enough boys here. They never brought you anything, but misery. And why do you want one more hooker.’
‘Mother, I liked this boy. I think he’ll bring in luck.’
From that day onwards Shivlal stayed in that house and started on his new job. When foppish men come to the door downstairs, he must lead them in. Then disappear. And in a few days Shivlal could go anywhere in Benares, and when he found the proper men — he knew them almost by a second instinct— he would say: ‘Maharaj, I know just the place for you.’ ‘O, go away you heady bloke.’ ‘No Maharaj,’ he would insist, ‘it’s not far from here. And she is so ripe. And full. And the music so good.’ The more the man threatened the more he wanted to go there—this Shivlal, by now, knew. So Shiv would sometimes play pranks with the future customer and say: ‘O you are searching for the Rukmini Temple or you want to buy a mynah and the cage,’ and the man would smile back and say, ‘I’ll skin you, do you hear. Go away.’ But whether you want neither, a caged mynah nor the Rukmini Temple, you still come to Gowalia Lane. The Benares concubines are famous through history. How come to Kashi Vishwanath and not taste of the honey of consecrated womanhood? ‘Lord, may she be handsome, and may she know lovemaking of such a wise, the earth knows no greater truth. Lord, the woman is the most beautiful thing you have created. The breasts and the waist, and the music that rises, curls, and falls — and her dance is the dance that the Lord Shiva himself initiated mankind into. Takkadhim Takkkakakaka dhim, ta dhim — and she dances. Look.’
Takkatakka takka
My love is like a twisting creeper and there she goes twisting her waist, and showing her ripe breasts
My love is cool like honey
My love takes me where no light goeth (But to where all love is — and here she gives a long wink)
My love is tender as betel
My love stays where I move,
And moves when I stay.
Shiv learnt some of these songs too. And he became such a raresome success, that other women said: ‘Shiv, if you came to me, you could have 10 per cent of it.’ Others came — but one fat Punjabi bitch said: ‘You stay here and take all the money. You are the lord, and I the slave.’ And Shiv somehow fell to the fat bitch. He brought her men, and juicy big men, too, and she enjoyed them, and they enjoyed her, and money just flowed into the house, as never it had. Shiv forgot his tiger and the cubs. He was better off now than in Vallabhpur. That wretched uncle might have mills and cars, but here Shiv is no poor hanger-on. Policemen visit him (to have access to pleasure or money) and sometimes even politicians. There was one big politician, who in his hurry, forgot his Gandhicap in the house. Shiv now put this headgear on and he looked ever more respectable. The Gandhi-cap gives you such respect that you could go anywhere, and nobody will say one harsh word to you. It also made contact easier. A Gandhi-cap trusts another Gandhi-cap. And when two Gandhi-caps meet there’s much greater fun. Life is not worth living now, I tell you, unless you speak the Mahatma’s tongue. Of course the British have left, that was so long ago. They left, and we have Swaraj. But this juice of woman, what could life be without it. Hé, what do you say to that, Shiv?
‘A woman’s juice,’ quoted Shiv, ‘is like a river that stays.’
‘You’re a wonderful man. Where do you come from?’
‘From Bombay,’ lied Shiv. He hated to speak of Vallabhpur and the Eight-pillared House. ‘In Bombay I learnt all the tricks native and foreign. Yes,’ continued Shiv, ‘and the white woman has no juice. Did you know that?’
‘How so, mosquito mite?’
‘Why, how can there be juice where there’s neither the smell of turmeric nor of the civet bone. The woman’s treasure is in studied smells,’ he said and rolled his eyes in such mischief, the Gandhi-cap just followed him.
The fact however is: Shiv had never touched a woman. Evil though the Sadhu was he’d given Shiv a mantra. The repeating of it was simple. It gave him power over desire. He also sang hymns morning and evening — the Kalabhairava stotra, the Chandi stotra, etc., etc. It made every woman seem so like a mother, all women were creatures rising out of the lotus stalk, wearing garlands round their necks, crowned with celestial diadems, chanting sweet hymns. ‘A woman is beauty,’ he said. ‘A woman is creation. A woman is sister. A woman is mother. I worship all women.’ That’s how Shiv felt. He made money, and much money. And this went on for many years. He kept it in a tight heavy trunk of steel he’d bought in the bazaar. And whenever he’d time he’d slip into the Annapurna temple, and sit in prayer. He prayed that he be kept pure. And he went far and deep into himself, but he knew not where. And coming back he’d bring a client for Nanna, for that was the fat Punjabi bitch’s name. She was so good, she was always smiling, and so virtuous. She was kind to the poor, she was friendly to the rich. For her money was important. Yet so was the satisfaction she gave man. She wanted no false money. Every man she satisfied God would remember, and she would have that much credit in her next life. Shiv respected her. After all she was born a concubine and she performed what she was born to: her dharma. An ass’s son is an ass, a buffalo’s son is a he-buffalo. What was wrong about it anyway. Take the name of Shiva or Rama and sing hymns. Truth is only in the holy name. That’s the only truth which is truth.