A River Sutra (17 page)

This evening I stopped to look through the doorway of his music room, never having heard my father play this way before. To my surprise I saw a young man sitting below my father's platform playing the veena. He was dressed as a supplicant, bare-footed, his torso naked except for the instrument resting against his bare shoulder. I stared in wonder at his slanting eyes, at his black hair falling softly to the strong line of his neck, at the muscled arm as his fingers moved across the frets of his instrument. He was so beautiful I shut my eyes against his power, thinking I had imagined him in my long training in desire. When I opened my eyes I still saw him, and it was as if ten thousand honeybees had stung my heart at once. I don't know how long I stood there, but finally the young man laid his instrument at my father's feet.
"Will you accept me as a student?" he asked humbly.
My father did not bother to disguise his impatience. "Everyone knows I have never taken a pupil, except for my daughter."
"Then let me live here, so I can listen to you play. I will serve your food or heat the water for your bath. I will perform the most menial tasks if only you permit me to be near you."
"Are you so willing to do anything to be taught by me?"
"The more rigorous your terms, the happier I will be to accept them."
"Music is not allied to pain. You will not be a better musician if you suffer more than other men."
"Just tell me what you require of me and I will do it."
"If I teach you, will you take my daughter as your wife?"
"Is that all? Willingly."
My father lifted his hand to beckon me into the room, and the stranger turned. I saw the shock on the stranger's face, as if he could not believe my father could sire such ugliness.
At that moment I wished my father dead. He did not see the stranger's disbelief, and if he had my father would not have cared. Genius stands at a strange angle to the world of humans, careless of its own cruelty.
And what refinement of cruelty it was. Day after day my ugliness faced the stranger's beauty as my father taught us.
Locked in my hatred of my father, I could not bring to my instrument that longing which I had perfected when there was no one there.
My awkward playing made the stranger's music more unforgiving, so that the notes of his raga had an iron hardness that forbid approach.
My father was enraged at his insensitivity. "The ragas are the architecture of emotion. Have you never known weakness or fear? Are you so stupid?"
I wept within myself for the stranger's pain at my father's harsh criticisms. But my father was relentless. "Any pedant can learn a raga's melody. It is only a matter of practice. Music goes beyond technique. The Boddhistava broke every string of the veena, one by one, and still the raga continued, vibrating in the waters of human emotion."
The stranger did not yet know his own genius, only his talent and his ambition, and my father eroded that ambition with ruthless skill.
"Your tastes are too cheap to play the great ragas. You are content to create mere pleasure. Didn't your last teacher teach you the Upanishads:

" 'The better is one thing, the pleasant another. Both aims may bind a man.
But the wise man chooses the better over the

Then my father turned to me, his fury at my incompetence as great as his anger at the stranger's lack of imagination.

"The heroic for the man. The erotic for the woman," I whispered, fearful of drawing the stranger's eyes to my face.

My father raised his hands in the air in front of him as if beseeching the gods. "What am I to do with these lumps of clay? From the outside they look like a man and a woman. Why are they not alive?"

We were betrothed, my father's two students. And yet we never spoke to each other except in stilted greetings and farewells.

My father spoke for both of us, haranguing us to become more than we were, not allowing us to hide our shame from him or from each other.

Once he took the veena from the stranger's shoulder when he was again displeased by the boy's playing. "Do you know what this instrument is? Look at the curve of its neck. Its breasts, its slender arm. This is the expression of Shiva's love. Can't you imagine a woman? Or love?"

Day after day, lesson after lesson, he shamed us, forcing us to understand the meaning of being a man and a woman.

But what we learned most from him in those years was the blessedness of silence, when we were neither struggling to please him with our instruments nor listening to his voice harshly reminding us of our errors.
Over the months my father's fury made us conspirators. Fearing his anger at one student would be deflected on the other, we began helping each other, trying to read the other's mistake before it was made, increasingly conscious of each other's moods.

Now I remembered my father's teachings as I tried to be the water to the river of the stranger's raga, the moonlight to his night. And when I thought how my father had said that a raga without the waterfall of grace notes was like a woman without a garment, I tried to teach the stranger what a woman felt, pleading for his attention by extending the notes pulled from the strings of my sitar so he could hear the ache in me.

Suddenly it was as if I had gained a voice to tell the stranger of my pain at my own ugliness, of my remorse that he should have been locked into this unjust bargain of marriage by my father.

I do not know where I learned such duplicity or if I always harbored it in my soul, but I began seducing the stranger with my weakness and he grew heroic in his music to defend me from my father's contempt.

As silk disguises its strength in softness, as water erodes the unforgiving nature of stone, as flesh embraces steel, I embraced the music of the stranger's veena and through the strings of my sitar I told him that I dared to love his beauty. Slowly, oh how slowly, the stranger's music began responding to the request in mine until we were no longer conscious of my father's presence in the room, only hearing the pleading of my ragini to be the wife of his lordly raga, the silences between our notes growing electric with desire.

Sometimes I saw the stranger's eyes linger on some part of my body left exposed by my garments and I did not hasten to cover myself, pretending I had not noticed his attention wandering from my music. I even began to hope I was not as offensive as I had always believed myself to be. We were young, you see, we were a man and a woman, and we could not pass our days in the constant dialogue of desire without being overwhelmed by it.

But my mother was growing impatient for our marriage to be performed. The stranger was by now twenty-one years old, I was eighteen. Every day she demanded that my father set a date for the wedding, yet my father hesitated. I had never seen him indecisive in his life. I could not understand why he bargained each day with my mother to delay the marriage he had himself demanded from his student.

Finally he told my mother, "Let them play together on the night of Shiva. Then we will choose a date."

That year, as always happened on the night of Shiva, our house was filled with musicians. All night the musicians played, one after another or sometimes together, waiting for the moment when my father would lift his veena and praise his gods with his genius.

But this year my father told the assembled musicians that tonight his students would play for them. Then he invited us to join him on the platform.

It was the hour to play the Bhairav, the raga of Shiva, when darkness turns into dawn. The stranger played the opening movement of the raga. My father nodded in approval listening to the stranger slowly unfold the raga's divinity, carving a great stone temple of music in the air. I understood my father's harangues against what is only pleasant in music as the magnificence of the raga was displayed to us, becoming ever more grave, more monumental, more relentless, as if embodying its name, the Fire of Time.

And now I disturbed its mighty solitude with the sacrifice of Parvati wooing Shiva from his asceticism, pleading that he love her. And so we played together, as the darkness turned into filigreed shadow, and still we played until there was light in the room, and still we played as the sun showed its power, until exhausted by the consummation of our music we ended together on a single note, as if consigning our music to the silence that followed it.

When even my father could no longer hear that last note vibrating in the air, he rose to his feet. "Tonight I gave my daughter in marriage to music. I have fulfilled my duties as a father. Now I free this young man from our bargain. But if he still wishes marry my child, the wedding can take place whenever my wife wishes."

The stranger smiled at me as my mother placed a garland of flowers around his neck. I dared not look at him in case my joy overflowed, flooding my eyes.

And so the stranger left our house to return to his family while my mother made preparations for our marriage.

For the first time I preferred my mother's company to my father's. We collected my trousseau and decorated the rooms in which my bridegroom and I would live as man and wife.

The priest was organized, an auspicious night was chosen for our nuptials. We sent shawls and saris for my bridegroom's parents.
Every day my mother speculated on the progress of events. The bridegroom's family should be arriving soon, the red invitations with the gold lettering must have reached their destinations.

Then at last a messenger arrived from my bridegroom's family.
My mother and myself hid outside my father's music room, whispering excitedly to each other as the messenger unwrapped gifts below my father's platform.
I looked at the shawls piling up at my father's feet and recognized them as the gifts we had sent to my bridegroom's family, but I still did not understand what was happening until I heard the messenger say, "Your student thanks you for granting his freedom. He is betrothed in marriage to my daughter."

From that moment I have not touched my instrument nor entered my father's music room. The very sound of music is hateful to my ears.

So my father has brought me here.
He says that I must meditate on the waters of the Narmada, the symbol of Shiva's penance, until I have cured myself of my attachment to what has passed and can become again the ragini to every raga.
He says I must understand that I am the bride of music, not of a musician. But it is an impossible penance that he demands of me, to express desire in my music when I am dead inside.
Do you think it can be done?
Do you think this river has such power?

ing to Amir Rumi's tomb. Above the mosque the purple blossoms of a jacaranda tree waved gently against the brilliant blue of a late April sky.

It was such a glorious morning I could not understand why I was suddenly overcome by a sensation of—how shall I describe it—being adrift in the strangeness of other people's lives, but I seemed unable to stop my account from turning into a complaint.

I stared at the chessboard lying idle between Tariq Mia and myself.
"I suppose all this emotion alarms me." I ended lamely, "Broken engagements, unrequited love, that poor musician. It all strikes me as somehow undignified."
"You still know so little of the world," the old mullah observed, his eyes on the brook. "But you have chosen a hard path to knowledge, little brother. Hearsay, not experience. I hope your education proves less painful than your musician's."
"Why shouldn't it? My father, a most reasonable man, is already dead. And at least I don't dread my mirror."
"Destiny is playing tricks on you. Don't you realize you were brought here to gain the world, not forsake it?"
The old priest's complacency annoyed me. "I know the world well enough. Sitting in your isolated mosque you can have little idea of the power and influence I once wielded. Or the respect I enjoyed."
Tariq Mia laughed at my indignation. "I still say you should envy your musician, not pity her. Think of your misfortune. To hear of love without ever having melted in its embrace. To acknowledge beauty with your eyes and never carry its image in your soul. Sing with me if you dare,

I hate it when Tariq Mia is in this mood, and I examined the chess piece in my hand wondering why I walked so far each morning to listen to his quavering old man's voice singing love songs so inappropriate to his age. My irritation only fueled Tariq Mia's mischievousness.

"For years you have been admiring the Narmada as if it is a woman. But what has all your adoration taught you? Not even the capacity to sing. Prove me wrong, sing with me,

I pushed the chessboard aside and stood up. "I am not a child. Play these games with your students."

Tariq Mia lifted a lined hand to restrain me. "Sit down, little brother. Don't abandon me to my students yet. The young believe they understand the world. My games are for older men."

Ashamed of my display of ill humor, I was about to resume my seat when he exasperated me by singing again,

"0 river, born of penance
Named by laughter,
Forests heavy with wild jasmine ..."

Then I grasped the piupose of Tariq Mia's teasing.
"That's a song about the Narmada!" I interrupted. "You've never sung it before. Where did you learn it?"
Tariq Mia giggled with pleasure at surprising me. "From the minstrels who sing for the ascetics meditating on the banks of the river."
"Have you heard them often?" I asked enviously as I sat down. "Can you arrange for me to hear them sing?"
"Alas, it has been years since I last saw the Naga Baba. He may be dead by now."
"Is this Naga Baba a minstrel?"
"No, no. He belongs to the martial ascetics, the ones they call the Naga sadhus, the Protectors. But I first heard the invocation to the Narmada from his lips."
I wondered if Tariq Mia was about to make me the target of another joke, comprehensible only to himself. "How did you meet a martial ascetic?"
"By chance. Shortly after I became a priest." Tariq Mia leaned back on his bolster cushion and stroked his thin beard, memory softening the expression in his sharp eyes.
"Imagine me as a young man, little brother. In those days I used to take my books down to the riverbank and look for a teak tree or a bamboo cluster to shade my head. Then, making certain no one could hear me, I practiced singing the Sufi poems. For some reason, whenever I was near the river, my texts became clearer to me, and I wandered all over the riverbank in search of solitude to pursue my studies.
"One day, as I was roaming the hillside, I heard a deep voice chanting in the distance. I followed the sound until I reached the waterfalls but I found no one there. I looked all around me, even up in the trees, and still I couldn't see anyone although I could hear the words clearly from the direction of the waterfalls,

" 'Drop by transparent drop,
Each weighted with our separate sins, You flow into the ocean's surging tides 0 holy Narmada.'

"I stared at the rock ledge in front of me, unable to understand how the voice could be coming out of the waterfall itself when another voice, so highpitched it had to be a woman or a child, came through the water,

" 'Messenger of Passing Time, Sanctuary and Salvation, You dissolve the fear of time. 0 holy Narmada.'

"Unable to control my curiosity, I took off my shoes and slipped down the ledge in my bare feet until I was standing directly in front of the fall. Now I was close enough to see these voices did not belong to some supernatural being. Through the splashing water I could make out two figures sitting inside a cave behind the falls, as dry as anything while I was being drenched in spray.

"A child of seven or eight years of age dressed in a torn cotton dress was facing a naked man with long matted hair while he recited,

Alighting herons play upon your tranquil surface.
Fish and crocodiles are gathered in your embrace.
0 holy Narmada.'

"As the child repeated the lines, the ascetic turned his face toward the waterfall. That is when he saw me.

" 'How dare you disturb us?' he shouted, throwing his matted locks back from his face. 'What do you want? Who are you?'

"I splashed through the water to present myself, even though I knew these Naga ascetics were famous for their bad tempers, and the child ran to hide in the recesses of the cave. 'Nobody. Just the mullah of a village mosque.'

" 'You have terrified her! Now I will not be able to teach her for the rest of the day!'
"I stood there dripping water onto the stone floor of the cave, uncertain what to say next, when he inquired in an educated voice, 'Did you see any cattle on your way here?'
"I was so astonished by his question that I could only nod in silence.
" 'Where? Where?'
" 'On the hill,' I stuttered, alarmed by the menace in his voice. 'I saw cows on the hill above.'
" 'Come out,' the ascetic called to the child. 'Don't be frightened. Go and collect some cow dung.'
"The child appeared timidly from the shadows, carrying a cane basket and a pile of leaves. The ascetic plucked the leaves one by one from her small hands and lined the inside of the basket.
"I was fascinated by the gray ash falling in a thin powder off his stomach each time he moved. I had never been this close to an ascetic of Shiva before. His body was emaciated, except for the belly falling over his crossed legs in such a manner it was impossible for me to see whether he was completely naked or wearing a loincloth. I think I would have been frightened by the smoke-stained human skull cut open at the cranium lying by his side if he had not placed a pair of rimless glasses on its nose. The sight was so incongruous I nearly burst into laughter.
"Holding the basket on her head with both hands, the child passed through a gap in the waterfall at the edge of the cave. When she was gone the ascetic demanded, 'What do you want of me, mullah?'
" 'Nothing, please forgive my intrusion. I must be getting back to my village.'
" 'You will remain until the child returns.'
"I did not want to upset him further so I said, 'Oh, of course. Certainly. Whatever is convenient.' He closed his eyes and I just sat there looking at him breathe. When he opened his eyes again I asked nervously, 'What were you teaching the child?'
" 'Shankaracharya's poem to the Narmada.'
"To my surprise the ascetic began reciting the invocation to me in Sanskrit. Unable to understand the words, I could only listen to the cadences of his recitation and I imagined I heard the river flowing in the rhythms of the poem.
"Then he courteously explained the invocation to me. The elegance of his translation made me wonder what he had been before he became an ascetic—an academic perhaps, or even a scientist with his grasp of the botanical terms he was using to explain the plants mentioned in the ancient poem."
Tariq Mia paused, breathless from his long account. Only the cry of the rain fever bird broke the morning silence until a young scholar in a long white tunic and pajamas entered the veranda to inquire shyly if there was anything we needed.
The old mullah asked for some hot tea before turning back to me. "So, little brother. That was how I first heard the song of the Narmada." "Did you see the child again?"
"Oh, yes. I talked with the Naga Baba for a long time until the child returned. I shall never forget the fear in her eyes when she saw me still sitting behind the waterfall."
"Why was she so frightened of you?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Tariq Mia's white eyebrows lifted above his sharp eyes and hooked nose, so that he looked for an instant like an aging bird of prey.
I laughed, embarrassed by my earlier complaints. In silence we watched the scholar fill our cups with hot tea. As the scholar backed out of the veranda, the old mullah began his story.