The Assassin's Song (30 page)

My father wrote,

“May Pir Bawa preserve son Karsan, his beloved successor at Pirbaag, in excellent health and keep him resolute and wise in his ways …

“Learning is a wonderful thing, my son; this is why you were sent to the better school in our area, all the way to completion, and why your Dada also sent me to the same school and to the university in Bombay. But learning can also bring arrogance and blind you to the facts of life.

“You may remember that the Quran and the Bible tell the story of
Azazel, the best and cleverest of God's angels, who possessed the knowledge of 360 million books but did not understand his true essence. In his arrogance he disobeyed God; he did not bow to the clay statue God placed before him. He asked the question: Why? And so Azazel lost all, became a denizen of hell.

“Book knowledge is not everything. It is good that university makes you think and reflect on our path. We may not be special, my son, but we must keep with what we know and are certain of. It is true that all people are special to themselves. Your destiny is at Pirbaag, never forget that. A great soul came among us and gave us his wisdom and our key to the secret of life. You were born to continue that guidance among our people and to care for this tradition.

“Our friend Premji does not live far from you, I understand. He will contact you to help you keep in touch with our ways. Meanwhile, pray to Pir Bawa constantly. Recall the wisdom of the ginans. Remember your bol every day. It ties you to your guru and the line of gurus that goes straight back to Pir Bawa.

“Your mother and brother send ‘lots of love.’ And accept plenty of the same from

“Your father and Saheb,

“Tejpal.”

[How can I continue the line of the gurus, Bapu-ji? I don't feel spiritual or powerful, I feel just ordinary. I have always felt ordinary. I cannot be like you; I cannot guide people, or give them a mantra that will show them enlightenment. I would be a hypocrite and only confuse them if I tried. What do you want me to do then, Bapu-ji?]

[And also, Bapu-ji, tell me, was our Pir Bawa an avatar of God or God? And if so, are you an avatar of God? Do you expect me to become one? This also I dare not ask you, for I may not be able to bear the answer.]

[You say that knowledge is not everything; or that it is a forest of illusions and I will only get lost. Why? Knowledge excites me, Bapu-ji, I am not afraid of it. I need a guru, you say. But actually I need more than one guru; aren't the wise men I read—philosophers and poets and scientists—also my gurus, besides you? They have given their lives seeking enlightenment. You must trust me not to go astray, Father. After all, who guides you?]

“Dear Mansoor and Beloved Ma,

“The first snow can be beautiful, did I ever tell you? And sometimes, when you look out the window you see white flakes and streams going on forever, it seems, and you are in a cocoon in its midst; and you walk to the window and see the trees hanging with white wool, and the ground too is soft and white; this vision I saw a few days after Christmas. Afterwards, though, when it warms up the snow turns to black water on the streets; there are puddles and pools everywhere and passing cars splash dirty water on you. And it is as if something clean and white had been dirtied and spoiled.

“But now it is spring, the beginning, and little buds of green or yellow sprout on the trees. The sun is warm but tender and the earth seems clean. And you appreciate the wonder of nature. In spring also there are more people on the streets and everyone looks cheerful; music seems to be playing everywhere.

“I received the chevdo and the thépla; just as I like them, Ma. So you do remember your Karsan! And thank you for wrapping them in the sports page of the
Samachar.
How I miss playing cricket! How I miss
seeing
people playing cricket!

“I will not remind you to write to me. I know you will, one day, when you feel like it.

“Yours affectionately,

“Karsan.”

“Hey, don't you find me attractive any more
?” she said, and my face burned red.

Russell was with me, and Bob and Dick, the four of us having set out on a mission to the Square to look for lunch on a hectic, cold, and windy Saturday. At the traffic island, teeming with pedestrians, where the newsstand famously sold papers from all over the world (except India and such places), I had caught a fleeting glimpse of her, also waiting to cross, and quickly looked away to avoid possibly embarrassing myself. But she had seen me, and the next thing I heard her sharp, excited voice shouting in my ear. “Hi!—how are you?” She had pushed her way through the throng and was tugging at my sleeve with a mitted hand. I turned around, pretending surprise. “Why, hello!” We stared at each other. Smiled. She wore a red jacket, the hood flapping over her hair, and she looked beautiful. The boyfriend Steve now caught up with her, grinning and looking rather silly to my jaundiced eye. The six of us crossed the road and huddled apart from the crush of people to finish our greetings. That was when she came out with her mischievous remark, accusing me of avoiding her. And so as repartee I tried my best to sound cool. When you are a foreigner you have all the courage in the world, what do you have to lose? In this case, plenty.

“I am complicated, you know,” I said, giving her a mysterious-Indian smile and a nod of the head.

A look of confusion clouded her face, but only for an instant. Recovered, she turned to the restless giant hovering possessively a head above her and said: “This is the guy from India I was telling you about—remember? With the funny accent—and he's as complicated as Jesus. I told him that.”

Bob and Russell exploded with laughter, and Steve growled, “Aw, what d'you know of Jesus—”

“He's son of a god, that's not far off the mark,” Russell replied.

I joined in the laughter this time, red face and all, regretting that virgin day when in a spell of alien earnestness I had revealed the details of my background to my new friends. Happily the spotlight shifted and we exchanged other pleasantries before saying goodbyes, though Bob, the Canadian among us, lingered to chat with the twosome before rejoining us.

“You know Marge?” I asked suspiciously.

He nodded. “Sure. A bit. She's from Canada.”

And she had told me she was American; and that I could become one too. What a backward fool I must have seemed to her. How positively clubfooted I had sounded back there.

What did I want from this girl? She had caught my fascination the moment I had glimpsed her at the theatre. I found her hauntingly attractive, with her dark brown long hair (not visible today), her olive skin, her oval face; that sassy manner of hers, instead of deterring me, only provoked me further. It seemed as if we had known each other in our previous births; such an instant attraction could only be explained this way, where I came from. And so I wanted to be with her and get to know her; I wanted to gain her respect, as someone interesting and intelligent, not some mixed-up complicated and crude fellow from a backwater of the world. She attracted me sexually, too, and came into my thoughts at night in bed, so that I would toss about in discomfort, sleepless; but I would not allow these thoughts to become explicit and taint the purity of my feelings. I wanted to win her in a noble way; what I meant by winning I did not quite know. She had a boyfriend, after all. But it was she who had taken the initiative again and come to speak to me. I must mean something to her, despite my complications, as she put it. Did I expect to take her home with me? My models of man and wife had been Rama and Sita—hopelessly idealistic and traditional. I did not know how to approach her. It embarrassed me that I did not have—could not even muster if I tried—the hip, male predatorial language and attitude of conquest that were common around me in that permissive age. She was no virgin. How did I know? I was naive but not a total dolt. I would get so anxious with my slippery thoughts, trying to
shape and rule them according to the values I had brought with me, there would come tears of frustration in my eyes.

One night, at the instigation of Russell and Bob, I called her up. They came to my room, sat on my bed, and ordered me to pick up the phone. “Enough pining away after the fair maiden. Now take action,” Bob said. After some argument, I agreed and told them to wait outside. I dialled.

“Hi … Can I speak to Marge please? This is—”

“Karsan from India, I know. Hi!”

“Could you tell so easily?”

“There is only one person in Cambridge who speaks like you, and that's you,” she said.

“That bad?”

“That bad. How are you?” she asked.

“I am very well, thank you. Listen—would you like to go out with me … on Friday, if you are free?”

“You met my boyfriend—”

“Steve. The football player.”

She laughed. Delightfully, the gloriously soft giggle of the morning she had sat across from me at Pewter Pot. “Yes. Anyway, I don't think it's a good idea. I am sorry. And I apologize if—”

“Yes?”

“If I misled you into believing—”

I did not let her finish. “No—no need to apologize. You didn't mislead me—you were simply you. You know, I am convinced that we have known each other in our previous births—”

She laughed. “Nice try. Well, bye.”

“Bye.”

That was that. A heavy heart, but I was happy, in a way, with that sense of finality. A door had closed on the impossible, there was no point to further anxiety. So I told myself. To which Russell added his reassuring note, “At least now you know. You tried. Now you can move on. There's plenty of fish in the sea.”

And Bob the big Ottawan: “She's harder to hit on than most girls I know.” That raised eyebrows, and he quickly put in, “You'll find someone, don't worry.”

As if that's all there was to it, finding someone.

I hoped I wouldn't see her, but of course I did, from a distance, for about a year. She must have seen me too on those occasions, but happily she let me avoid her. And then she disappeared.

My friends fixed me up occasionally with other girls. They were good company mostly, and we were matched only to satisfy the requirement of symmetry among the sexes that was so important in this culture. Girls whose boyfriends had gone away; girls who were not very attractive or not really interested in relationships with guys. Nothing foolish happened, nothing was expected to, I didn't know how; and I had been cured of the disease of love, at least for the time being.

But one girl I was set up with was a fellow Indian called Neeta. She was from a well-placed family in Delhi, and if that were not enough, alarmingly attractive and sophisticated. She was studying economics and had ambitions of going into politics. An uncle was the current governor of Kerala. She had met Nehru as a child. Her family members had marched with Gandhi during the struggle for independence. I learned all this soon after I had picked her up outside her residence, as we walked across the Yard and introduced ourselves. I couldn't help feeling embarrassed about myself, in a manner I had never felt with my American friends, alien and strange though I was to them. It seemed to me that this girl must see through me, and find behind my new facade the genuine rustic from a backward Indian “gaamda,” as she might put it to her cosmopolitan Indian friends and family back home. Nevertheless we managed to engage each other, discovering to our surprise, past the first awkward hour, that we shared sensibilities. We had dinner and saw a political thriller at the Orson Welles, the South American context of which she took pains to explain to me. After the films, we talked earnestly and idealistically about “home,” late into the night, first over tea in a café, then in my room. She was so much more aware than I about conditions back home, and taught me things about our country that I didn't know. Finally—at whose suggestion I cannot recall—she spent the night in my room, taking my bed while I threw a blanket on the floor for myself. This seemed neither unusual nor discomforting then, all around us was the casualness of student life. However, the next morning we both were embarrassed. With hardly a word
exchanged, she quickly dressed and departed. And my friends, grinning from ear to ear, would not believe nothing had happened, the hormones had not kicked in, or I had not scored, as they vulgarly put it.