A Writer's Notebook (77 page)

The Sufi. He lived in a little house in a poor quarter of Hyderabad. It was almost a slum. There was a veranda, and we waited there to find out from our guide if the holy man would see us. Taking off our shoes before we entered, we were ushered into a smallish room, divided into two, as far as I could see, by mosquito-netting, and I surmised that the part we could not see was his sleeping apartment. The greater part of the space in which we sat was taken up by a sort of dais or platform, about eighteen inches from the ground, covered with cheap rugs, and on these was a rattan mat on which the saint sat. He was very old, very thin, with a ragged white beard; he wore a fez, a white cotton coat and white trousers; and his feet were bare. His eyes looked very large in the extreme thinness of his face in which the cheek-bones stood out above the sunken cheeks. He had long beautiful hands, but fleshless, and his gestures were profuse, graceful and expressive. Though so old and so frail, he seemed full of energy and talked with animation. He was cheerful. The expression of his face was very sweet and kindly. I do not know that he said anything remarkable. I know nothing of Sufism and so perhaps was more surprised than I should have been to hear him speak of the self and the supreme self in the same strain as the Hindu teachers speak. The impression I carried away was of a very dear, tender, kindly, charitable and tolerant old man.

A Holy Man. Sir Akbar Hydari sent his car to fetch him and at the appointed hour he entered the room. He was richly dressed and wore a great scarlet cloak of fine material. He was a middle-aged man, tall, of a handsome presence, and his manner was courtly. He spoke no English and Sir Akbar acted as
interpreter. He talked fluently and well and his voice was sonorous. He said the things I had heard from others twenty times before. That is the worst of the Indian thinkers, they say the same things in the same words, and though you feel that it should not make you restive, for if they possess the truth, as they are convinced they do, and if the truth is one and indivisible, it is natural enough that they should repeat it like parrots, there is no denying the fact that it is irksome to listen interminably to the same statements. You wish at least they could think of other metaphors, similes, illustrations than those of the Upanishads. Your heart sinks when you hear again the one about the snake and the rope. Custom has too much staled it.

I asked him how I could acquire the power of meditation. He told me to go into a darkened room, sit on the floor cross-legged and fix my eyes on the flame of a candle, emptying my mind of every thought so that it was a complete blank. He said that if I would do that for a quarter of an hour a day I should presently have some extraordinary experiences. “Do it for nine months,” he said, “then come back and I will give you another exercise.”

That evening I did as he had directed. I took the time before I began. I remained in that state for so long that I thought I must have by far exceeded the quarter of an hour he had prescribed. I looked at my watch. Three minutes had passed. It had seemed an eternity.

A week or two ago someone related an incident to me with the suggestion that I should write a story on it, and since then I have been thinking it over. I don't see what to do. The incident is as follows. Two young fellows were working on a tea plantation in the hills and the mail had to be fetched from a good way off so that they only got it at rather long intervals. One of the young fellows, let us call him A., used to get a lot of letters by every mail, ten or twelve and sometimes more,
but the other, B., never got one. He used to watch A. enviously as he took his bundle and started to read, he hankered to have a letter, just one letter, and one day, when they were expecting the mail, he said to A.: “Look here, you always have a packet of letters and I never get any. I'll give you five pounds if you'll let me have one of yours.” “Right-ho,” said A. and when the mail came in he handed B. his letters and said to him: “Take whichever you like.” B. gave him a five-pound note, looked over the letters, chose one and returned the rest. In the evening, when they were having a whisky and soda after dinner, A. asked casually: “By the way, what was that letter about?” “I'm not going to tell you,” said B. A., somewhat taken aback said: “Well, who was it from?” “That's my business,” answered B. They had a bit of an argument, but B. stood on his rights and refused to say anything about the letter that he had bought. A. began to fret, and as the weeks went by he did all he could to persuade B. to let him see the letter. B. continued to refuse. At length A., anxious, worried, curious, felt he couldn't bear it any longer, so he went to B. and said: “Look here, here's your five pounds, let me have my letter back again.” “Not on your life,” said B. “I bought and paid for it, it's my letter and I'm not going to give it up.”

That's all. I suppose if I belonged to the modern school of story writers, I should write it just as it is and leave it. It goes against the grain with me. I want a story to have form, and I don't see how you can give it that unless you can bring it to a conclusion that leaves no legitimate room for questioning. But even if you could bring yourself to leave the reader up in the air you don't want to leave yourself up in the air with him.

I went to lunch with the heir apparent and his wife, the Prince and Princess of Berar. During luncheon the prince talked to me of my journey. “I suppose you've been to Bombay?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered, “I landed there.” “And were you put up for the Yacht Club?” “Yes,” I said.
“And are you going to Calcutta?” “Yes.” “I suppose you'll be put up at the Bengal Club?” “I hope so,” I replied. “Do you know the difference between them?” the prince asked. “No,” said I innocently. “In the Bengal Club at Calcutta they don't allow dogs or Indians, but in the Yacht Club at Bombay they don't mind dogs; it's only Indians they don't allow.” I couldn't for the life of me think of an answer to that then, and I haven't thought of one since.

The Swami. He was dressed in the saffron robes of the monk, but pinkish rather than yellow, with a turban of the same colour and a cloak. It looked an unduly hot costume. He wore white socks and very neat brown shoes, rather like dancing pumps. He was a tallish man, inclined to corpulence, with a large fleshy face, handsome shining eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and a large sensual mouth. He spoke loudly in a resonant voice, which when he lectured was apt to be a trifle rasping. He smiled a great deal. His manner had an unctuous benevolence. He gave you the impression of being more than commonly self-satisfied. He was glad of adulation and fond of talking about himself. I asked him on one occasion whether he didn't regret the pleasures that men in the world enjoy. “Why should I?” he answered. “I had them all in a previous life.”

The Fakirs. The ceremony took place in a Moslem cemetery where one of the saints of the order had been buried some centuries back. The head of the order was a full-bodied man with a hooked nose and a clever, commanding expression. He wore an Arab cloak of fine brown stuff and on his head a neat white turban. In front of where he sat was a small brazier containing burning charcoal into which he constantly dropped incense, and the various instruments the dervishes were to use in their display.

They were seated in a row opposite him and about four or five yards away. They were of all ages; one could not have been more than fourteen, some were young men; the most important were, from the Indian standpoint, old, with great beards and grey hair. They were a wild-looking lot with their long hair, the coloured voluminous rags they wore, their ear-rings and chains.

The proceedings began with a prayer which the head of the order chanted and in which at intervals the others joined with cries. Then one of them advanced and took a skewer, perhaps two feet long, passed it over the incense and had it touched by the head man, then he put it through his cheek and pushed it through till it came out for at least two inches on the other cheek. He walked round to show himself and then with precaution took it out. He lightly rubbed the places where the skewer had gone in and come out and not only was there no blood, but there was no wound. Another came forward, took another skewer, passed it through his neck, behind the windpipe, and withdrew it. Then one took a short blunt dagger and after certain extravagant gestures and shouting gouged his eye out. He walked around with the ball of the eye hanging down his cheek, a revolting spectacle, then replaced it, rubbed it a little and appeared none the worse. Another passed a skewer through the skin of his abdomen, and still another through his tongue. They seemed to suffer no pain. The performance went on for perhaps half an hour and ended with another long prayer. One or two bled a very little, a drop or two, but the bleeding quickly stopped.