White Man Falling (23 page)

Swami has written to Amma that he is okay to go back to Mullaipuram for the last couple of weeks of the hot, and has mentioned to her that sometimes he wonders if things are getting out of hand
on the guru side of things – but Amma is adamant that he is a first-class very best gem of a guru, and has told him so repeatedly in her letters. And today, it is true, there is a kind of
spiritual afterglow about him on account of a now unremember-ed incident from early in the morning. The white man came to him. Swami had been getting up after a rest, and Kamala was about to help
him wash, when the man just came walking into the room with a calm smile on his face, and sat down in a chair. Swami, still unwashed as he was, had sat down next to him. They didn’t speak out
loud, they just accessed a few aspects of each other – it’s less effort like that.
You’re in two places
, the white man had suggested.
I never think about it
,
Swami had replied. The white man didn’t respond.
They suffer more than they need to
, he had observed at some point. Shortly afterwards he got up and left, and Swami went to the
kitchen to find Kamala.

“Appa, half an hour you are sitting there hardly blinking, I was frightened.”

But Swami had already forgotten. He has lost that human urge to cling on to anything. People, however, are clinging on to him. No matter how much they seem to benefit from his calmness when they
are with him – in the hour of silence, during informal sessions – they are desperate to have more of him when he is not there. They hope he can solve their practical problems, they pray
that he’ll cure their sick relatives, they arrive at Highlands at all hours imploring his blessings, worshipping him, breaking down…

It’s always like this – isn’t it? – when some poor devil gets a fistful of the spiritual rammed into his life. Everyone else wants it too, and in their desperation to get
it they trample dirt all over its essence – because that essence is far simpler than they can see, and much more limited than they are prepared to accept. Swami, for sure, does not possess
the incredible powers that people impute to him. For example, he lacks the basic supernatural skills claimed by even the most run-of-the-mill charlatan, and so remains unaware that the tax
collector’s hidden cache of erotica is only eighteen inches away from the tip of his middle finger, which is currently tracing Amma’s anarchic grammar and semantics in this
morning’s letter. He would hardly know what to make of that tight bundle of dodgy nineteenth-century sepia images, tied up in scraps of jute sacking, undisturbed for sixty years – those
front views and back views and side views of bemused four-foot-six tribal women forced to stand naked next to a measuring rod held by a big white hairy hand amputated by the edge of the photograph.
Amma’s letter – fifteen pages long and rather light on content – is more than amazing enough.

…
husband definately you are the guru you are coming back from the death isnt it you are dying and living husband and the comon people are beliving in you you dont want to diserpoint
the people and anyway husband fourgive me but whatever and all you are thinking on this matter is not importent you are simple pure guru of course you are humble and thinking you are not the god
but it doesunt matter because every one is knowing you are the god they are feeling it imedeeatly in your presense and bowing down to you because they feel the god in you…

Maybe she’s half-right. Maybe she’s half-wrong. But which half is right, and which half is wrong? Swami doesn’t know.

…and look at D.D. Rajendran husband he is spending the lifetime cheating bullying swindling he is caring only for the fat wallet and the bulging bank and the dirty doings and then he
is incountering you and what is he doing I will tell you what he is doing he is becoming best reformed caracter he is giving up filthey cheating ways and devoting himself to the good works isnt it
husband and all Mullaipuram is talking about this and saying how can this happen and they are ansering that it is you the guru who is making this happen because DDR is feeling your aura every body
is feeling your aura every body is knowing that DDR is devoting himself to you now husband he is making very big plans and now he is paying educashun fees of all dauters husband so what are you
thinking of when you say you are not sure if you are the guru of course you are the guru you must be the guru or why else would DDR be doing all this husband…

Swami’s default condition these days is passive – more than likely, god lies in the reception and not in the commission – but when he thinks at all about DDR’s
activities, then he feels ambiguous. Five times already the fellow has been visiting, with a legion of retainers, and once with the owner of a tea plantation who – unknown to Swami –
was excited about making a big donation towards DDR’s plans for an ashram, but understandably wanted to sample the new guru’s aura first of all, just like he did with tea. But Swami is
not so sure about this idea of an ashram. What about Number 14/B and his ordinary life?

…
and what about the dauters husband they were in number one worst posishun no dowries no chance no good boys no anything husband and during very first pre-engagemunt meeting white man
is falling on your head in extra special spirichual way and in second pre-engagemunt meeting DDR is taking you away for the higher reasons and then you are dying and then you are walking with God
and then you are living and before I know it parents of Mohan practiculy giving us dowry for Jodhi now what is this husband if not power of your godlyness now we have no dowry worries with or
without very fastest scooters what is that husband if not a miracul so now we are knowing why we had no sons husband so try to realize your humble guru nature makes you too modest but whatever you
say or do the people are knowing you are the guru and so do I husband I am proudest wife in all Mullaipuram I never thought that when you died it would be very best thing that ever happened to
me…

At page eleven of Amma’s letter – which is remarkably similar to page one and page four, and page ten – Swami is interrupted by a wailing; there is some kind of commotion at
the front door of Highlands. He gets up from the desk and limps slowly into the cottage, as Kamala goes rushing to the front to peer out of the window.

“Appa, it is a woman with a baby bundle, and there is a man beating the earth. They look like tribals.”

Swami sighs. Another stillborn child. How can I make a dead baby live, he asks himself? Surely I am not this god they say I am. I don’t even remember walking with God. I am just a man who
is no longer in despair.

Perhaps Leela’s guilty conscience has cracked just in time, because today a pained Mr and Mrs P are visiting Number 14/B, bringing with them a panoply of aggrieved
expressions, half-hidden hurts, multifarious doubts, and some second-best-quality Sri Lankan tea. At first Amma is not very worried. If they had visited yesterday – before Leela had confessed
to her every assault on truth’s citadel, from her lessermost random dabblings to her utmost inspired gossip-mongering, then who knows how Amma might have handled this difficult encounter?
Even a woman who can draw on all the authority that comes with being the wife of the Guru Swamiji might have struggled for equanimity in such circumstances. But now, for the first time in weeks,
Amma feels as though she has an understanding of the Jodhi situation. She might be exhausted after a night of recriminations and tears with her youngest and eldest daughters, she might be feeling
hard-done-by because of the obstacles placed in her path, but at last she feels as though she is in control: Leela has admitted to all her mischief, and Jodhi has unambiguously reaffirmed that her
daughterly duty is to marry the person whom Amma and Appa deem appropriate.

The conversation in the living area of Number 14/B has been delicate but substantive in its treatment of the jeans, and has now come to a halt. Mr P sips at his tea in a parsimonious fashion,
and smoothes down his moustache with his free hand, gazing glumly at the cement floor of the bungalow, at the bright but worn home-made mats – Kamala’s handiwork. Mrs P is not
interested in the floor. For some reason, she has taken the opposite tack, and with her head thrown back is earnestly scrutinizing everything above her, taking in the curious exposed rafters of
this old British-built house. Amma gazes with some appreciation at the way those three chins of hers arrange themselves on the exposed neck, like fleshy garlands.

“Well well,” Amma says, sighing; she thinks she is home and dry. “So many sorries and apologies and what-all,” she offers, so that Mr and Mrs P cease their mysterious
musings and return their attention to her; “all this confusion and the many gossipings, one day we will all be laughing!” she trills gaily. “Please be understanding,” she
sums up, “Leela is a little girl, she is not knowing all these serious consequences of getting carried away with silly stories!”

Why do Mr and Mrs P seem so strangely unconvinced? Mr P has shunted his buttocks to the edge of his white plastic chair, and sits with his elbows on his knees and with his chin on his
fingertips, nodding non-committally at Amma’s reassurances. Mrs P, who has no wish to challenge the fundamental constraints of her personal physics by shunting her buttocks towards any
perilous edges, is conveying her unease by planting both forearms on the armrests, and by failing to partake of a plate of fried banana wafers that is well within range.

“You see,” says Mr P at last – scratching his nose, tweaking his ear, smoothing his moustache, slicking back his hair, pursing his lips, crinkling up his eyes, raising his
eyebrows apologetically, lowering his eyebrows decisively, raising them again rather less decisively – “you see, the thing is – Madam, this is very delicate matter, please be
forgiving me but – the thing is, what it is necessary to say, at this point in time, at this juncture, at this moment…”

Hasn’t he molested his own body enough? But look at him, he is still scratching and tweaking and pinching and rubbing things in embarrassment.

“Dowry situation?” Amma asks, puzzled.

“No no no, this is not about dowry, let us not be worrying about dowry situation.”

“Dowry situation is now excellent,” Amma boasts – choose your scooter, she is tempted to say. She knows and they know that an alliance with a family that is now intimate with
D.D. Rajendran is not to be sniffed at.

“Not about the dowry,” Mr P repeats.

Amma is frowning now, and no longer feeling quite as serene as she did ten minutes ago. She finds herself in one of those rare situations in her life when she cannot even hazard a guess as to
what to think – so she remains silent, looking between the husband and wife. Mr P smoothes his moustache for the umpteenth time and glances at his wife, who drums her fingers softly on the
armrests and glances at her husband, who breaks into an ominous and apologetic smile and glances out of the window, and—

Just as he is about to come out with it – whatever the damn thing might be – the front door opens and Jodhi walks in from her day at college.

“Oh – greetings Sir, greetings Madam!” she exclaims, in about as excellent an imitation of pleasure as could be hoped for from a woman who is facing marriage to their middle
son. “How are you?” She looks around the room apprehensively, as though Mohan might spring up from somewhere at any moment and identify a goat.

“Hello Jodhi,” says Mrs P awkwardly.

“Returning from college, is it?” Mr P says; he has come out in a sweat.

“Returning from college, yes…”

Jodhi looks at these three middle-aged faces and understands that her future is on the line; but during the night she has resigned herself to the worst the future can hurl at her.

“Daughter, while we are talking about this and that, take some money and go and buy the vegetables.”

“Yes Amma.”

Jodhi goes into the bedroom to deposit her books, comes back into the living area, and with a degree of self-consciousness so acute that it threatens to overwhelm her ability to walk, she finds
Amma’s purse on the shelf, extracts thirty rupees, goes into the kitchen and gets the shopping bag. Mr and Mrs P watch her.

“I’ll go and come back,” Jodhi says, almost inaudibly.

“Yes, go and come back,” Mr P says in a kindly way, and turns back to Amma as the front door clicks shut.

Poor Mr P – now he has to go through his repertoire of nervous gestures and aborted gambits from the beginning, which is a time-consuming procedure. Amma is thoroughly on edge by the time
he has scratched the stubble under his chin for the very last time and is ready to spill the beans.

“We are hearing everything you are telling us, the jeans, the Internet, the gossip, the dear little sister creating troubles, yes yes, the naughty little monkey…”

“Yes, that is not the problem,” Mrs P chips in.

“There has been all this gossip, that is so, but we can see Jodhi is a good girl, it is not as though we are thinking she is doing any bad thing…”

Amma smoothes her sari down over her thighs.

“…but the thing is, she is not seeming so very enthusiastic,” Mr P points out.

“Not 100% keen,” Mrs P suggests.

“Almost as though,” Mr P says slowly, “almost as though she is not liking Mohan.”

Amma rocks back in her seat in an approximation of horror at this amazing allegation.

“Not liking Mohan? Not liking Mohan?” Her hands are flailing up, in the manner of a woman flabbergasted that such a trifling impediment could be the source of all this bother; after
all, how could anyone not like a boy genius who is fully expected to go straight to the top of the Indian IT sector? “Let us not be worried by this – yes yes, of course she is liking
Mohan, who could not like your splendid son!”

“She is seeming little bit… reserved,” Mrs P says delicately.

“Yes yes, she is little bit reserved, this is the young girls for you, of course they are little bit shy, who would want it any other way?! When I was introduced to my husband first few
times, oh!” exclaims Amma, and she laughs with a desperate gaiety, fingering the edge of her sari anxiously – but curiously fails to develop her theme, mainly because when she was
introduced to Swami the first few times, and saw his proud gaze and bristling moustache and ceremonial police cadet uniform, she had been subject to such disturbing bodily sensations that she had
nearly fainted.