Last Labyrinth

  LIBRARY OF

  SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

  Library of South Asian Literature is an ongoing endeavour to publish in English an eclectic selection of some of the finest writings from the rich diversity of South Asian Literature. It attempts to bring together books regarded as landmarks in their language, for having won literary awards or critical acclaim, or having been a major influence in their genre, creating a new narrative style or simply representing an outstanding writer’s art.

  Readers are invited to recommend books to make this more truly representative of the vigorous literary tradition of South Asia. These maybe sent by mail, fax or email to Editor, Orient Paperbacks, 5A/8, Ansari Road, New Delhi-110 002. Tel: +91-11-2327 8877, 2327 8878 Fax: +91-11-2327 8879, email: mail@orientpaperbacks.com

  ARUN JOSHI (1939-1993), son of a botanist and an eminent educationist, was born in Varanasi and educated in India and the U.S. After getting his Masters degree in Industrial Management from M.I.T., he returned to India to pursue a career in the corporate world.

  Yet writing remained his passion. In the five novels he wrote he spun out some of the most thought-provoking and outstanding fiction written in the twentieth century Indian literature and firmly established his credentials as a writer of rare talent and sensitivity. ‘I seek a belief and a faith beyond psychology’, he said. His search was essentially spiritual. He explored lives as labyrinth — hopeless mazes where one may get irretrievably lost or discover the shining secret at the core of life.

  Although English remained his ‘own first language’ he was equally an admirer of Hindi poetry of Dinkar, Ageya, Sumitranandan Pant and Nirala. The Last Labyrinth won him the Sahitya Akademi Award, India’s highest literary honour in 1982.

  ‘The Last Labyrinth is considered an outstanding contribution to Indian English literature for its restless search for a meaning in human existence, its treatment of the multiple levels of reality, challenging narrative technique and an evocative use of language.’

  Sahitya Akademi Award Citation

  For

  Arjun, Nihar and Shonar

  eISBN: 978-81-222-0506-0

  The Last Labyrinth

  © Arun Joshi, 1981, 2012

  Published by

  Orient Paperbacks

  (A division of Vision Books Pvt. Ltd.)

  5A/8 Ansari Road, New Delhi-110 002

  www.orientpaperbacks.com

  Electronic edition produced by

  Antrik ExPress

  Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright & Permissions

  Part One Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part Three Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Glossary

  PART ONE

  1

  Above all, I have a score to settle. I forget nothing, forgive no one.

  It is two in the morning. An hour to go. Geeta sleeps next door. Banjo outside the gate. Banjo is not asleep after all. I can hear him working at the sand. Phut, phut, phut. That is his hang-up. Beyond Banjo is more sand. Beyond the sand is the sea, washing at the far end the shores of another continent.

  Why is the sea so grey here? It is blue down in Goa and bluer still on the coast of Ceylon (now, Sri Lanka). They have a city by her name over there. Anuradhapura. A city of ruins. I was sent there once by my father — to negotiate deals. I tried to know the prices of things, the structure of discounts. They only talked of Nirvana and that other visitor, the Royal Bhikku, Mahinda, Ashoka’s messenger, and how when he spoke in King Tissa’s Court the Emperor wept. So did the courtiers. The Sakyamuni, the Tathagata, still lived among them, I was told, which meant some one had beat me to the contract. I couldn’t care less. I drank all the way back thinking of what I had read on a board beside a spiky monument. ‘There are beings who perish through not knowing the Dhamma’ said the battered board. ‘Go Ye forth, O Bhikkus, and proclaim the Dhamma. There will be some who will understand...’ Flying past Madurai I thought yes, there must be some, somewhere, who understood. But where? And, giving up, I drank all the more. At Santa Cruz, amidst the din of the customs, my father said, ‘You should not have drunk so much. What after all is a contract?’

  ‘It is not the contract,’ I said.

  ‘What is it then?’

  I told him.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes, his face flushed with emotion and embarrassment. A week later he was dead, of a heart attack, between four and five in the morning, according to K.

  I was twenty five and a millionaire.

  This illness has turned many things topsy turvy. One thing badly turvy is my sleep routine. Three to ten in the morning and four to six in the afternoon. There is nothing that K has not tried. Sleeping pills, tranquillisers, warm baths. But three to ten it remains and four to six. He is puzzled. I can see that. Your blood is only chemicals now, he says, pure unmanageable chemicals. Your body is God’s chariot, says Tuka Ram. There you are!

  Chemicals or no chemicals, I have become a nuisance. To K, to Geeta, to myself. No doubt about that. Geeta sits with me until midnight. I tell her then to go. From midnight till three I sit and moon. If I believed in God I could pray, maybe run a rosary through my fingers. But that’s out. Sitting around, I get into arguments: with the living and with the dead, with myself. And I have had enough of the world’s arguments. To shut everyone up, I took one night to this minute-book. Which night? Why this book? A tale hangs by this minute-book. Another by this cottage. There is nothing a tale doesn’t hang by.

  I fool around in this book like a clown performing before a looking glass. I get into arguments nonetheless. I shall sleep better when our brief winter sets in. To judge by the ocean breeze it should be round the corner.

  The earth turning slowly around the sun. 1000 miles a minute. Moon around the earth. Stars and spacemen. Villagers of Srikakulam gone gay with songs from the Satellite. Hunger of the body. Hunger of the spirit. You suffer from one or the other, or both.

  2

  That summer in Delhi, the summer of Anuradha, I was thirty five. Still a millionaire. Many times over. I had been married to an extraordinary woman. I had two children. That was the way the cards were stacked that summer evening when, more or less drunk, amidst the detonation of moths, we sat near the swimming pool of the Intercontinental Hotel. There was in the air a perfume of motia, and the prelanding whine of planes. Beyond them all, audible only to my ear, a grey cry threshed the night air: I want. I want. I want. Through the light of my days and the blackness of my nights and the disquiet of those sleepless hours beside my wife, within reach of the tranquillisers, I had sung the same strident song: I want. I want. I want. I want.

  I had been to the world’s finest universities, or what were supposed to be such. According to Mr. Thapar, who kept account of such things, a quarter million had been spent on my education. And there were things that I had picked up by myself. I knew that money was dirt, a whore. So were houses, cars, carpets. I knew of Krishna, of the lines he had spoken: of Buddha at Sarnath, under the full moon of July, setting in motion the wheel of Righteousness; of Pascal, on whom I did a paper at Harvard: ‘Let us weigh the gain and loss in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all, if you lose, you lose nothing.’ All this I knew and much else. And
yet, at the age of thirty five, I could do no better than produce the same rusty cry: I want. I want.

  I had learnt another thing, one among the several cadenzas, simple and complex, with which I conducted my orchestras of discontent: I had learnt to corner companies. And, that summer evening by the swimming pool of the Intercontinental, amidst the drinks and the eats, while a tape of Begum Akhtar spilled out her unhappy songs and, unknown to me, Aftab set sail for distant seas, that evening I had already laid the pincers on Aftab’s business.

  There is the memory of a warm Delhi night. Inside the great hotel Aftab, goggled, in a maroon jacket, had held a reception for the Plastic Manufacturers Association. I had come only to talk of business. I was in a hurry. I was always in a hurry then, like a hare chased by unseen hounds. I had noticed Anuradha like one notices a monument: tall, handsome, ruined. We stared across a dozen glossy heads. Her eyes, just a little slanted, had that inky blackness that files the eyes of the victims of small pox. She might have been thirty, thirty-five. She could have been from Bengal, from Sikkim, from the valleys of Nepal. She did not look clever. She wore costumes of twenty years ago — brocade sari, large gold borders, sleeves up to the elbow, antique jewellery. She was obsolete like her husband.

  Later, I invited them for drinks — I was not yet finished with my manoeuvres. The open air, the chit-chat of tourists, the twilight, quietened my nerves. Aftab did not drink. It was Anuradha who kept me company. Aftab smoked his hand rolled cigarettes, filled with heaven knew what. He laughed easily. The dim lighting had turned him into a pale prince.

  ‘Aftab Rai is a rather peculiar person,’ Mr. Thapar had briefed me. He was apologetic as though in some way he had a hand in creating him. ‘You will have to be patient with him. His wife is more balanced that way. Perhaps, you can work through her.’ What made him think I worked through anyone? I had my vanity about my forthrightness.

  ‘Who is he anyway?’

  ‘His great-grand-father was a zamindar, a courtier of Wajid Ali Shah. They fled to Benaras after the mutiny. They have lived there for more than a hundred years.’

  ‘That is a hell of a long time. Anything else?’

  ‘Not much. He is a secretive sort of a man.’

  ‘And the wife?’

  ‘I am afraid not much is known about her. She was a film star for a short while. Very briefly, though.’

  ‘I never heard of her,’ I said.

  ‘You must have been in America at the time. She retired after her marriage.’

  ‘Who runs the company?’

  ‘No one really knows. His wife has a reputation for being clever, shrewd.’

  I looked at her now. She, too, had been transformed by the lighting. It had levelled the pits in her face, brought out the unquenched fires that constantly burnt in those haunted eyes. Even her antique costume had come alive. It lent her a personality very different from any I had ever known. She was attractive; I had to hand it to her. Alone with me for a moment while Aftab hunted for an ashtray, Anuradha said, ‘A Bhaskar, what is a Bhaskar doing in business?’

  I stared at her. There was a tattoo mark on her forehead, a permanent bindi burnt into the skin.

  ‘What should a Bhaskar be doing?’ I snapped.

  ‘You are a Brahmin,’ she said as though it explained everything.

  I wondered why her question had angered me.

  She kept quiet, wanting, perhaps, not to annoy me. But I would not let her be.

  ‘Not everyone has the brains to run a business, you know.’

  I saw the shot go home. She averted her eyes, took out a cigarette. I offered her a light. She cupped the flame warding it from the draft. I noticed, then, the tracery of mehndi on her pink palms. A little hot wave, tinged with sorrow, travelled down my spine. The delicate curlicues, golden arabesques, road signs of fate, wound and unwound, turned upon themselves. I had seen that hand before: as a child, as a boy, in my fantasies of lust. I stared at her not quite understanding what was happening to me. At thirty five, I was a worn-out weary man incapable of spontaneous feeling. What, then, was this?

  Aftab came back. ‘I am going to the dargah tonight,’ he announced. ‘Come with me.’

  He addressed us as though Anuradha was as much of a stranger as I. But there was warmth in his invitation, a charm that could not be spurned. I said I would come.

  Through lanes paved with shadows, Aftab led the way. We, the actress and the tycoon, followed. The alcohol weighed me down, but my mind was restless again, full of frustration. Another evening wasted; the attack parried.

  It was late. The moonlight had tinged everything a light blue. White-robed faceless figures moved silently through the lanes. From a balcony, amidst the giggling of women, the notes of a sarangi floated down. These were narrow lanes meant only for walking. The houses were old with low roofs and stoops across the gutter. Alleys shot off in all directions. Barefoot boys rushed out of them, quiet as cats. A donkey stood tied to a stake. I was reminded of the old section of Cairo.

  ‘What on earth are we going to the dargah for?’ I asked Anuradha.

  ‘Why did you come?’

  I shrugged. ‘I wish I were in bed.’

  ‘The walk may help you sleep better.’

  ‘Nothing can help me sleep better.’

  Out in the open, her voice had changed. It was resonant, yet hushed, as though it came from afar.

  ‘I am told you were in the movies.’ I put it as though it were an abuse.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I have my informants.’

  ‘Mr. Thapar?’

  I was surprised she should know about Mr. Thapar.

  ‘Well, what do you have against Mr. Thapar?’

  ‘Why should I have anything against him?’

  The softness was gone. She smiled but her smile had an abrasive edge. I hardened. So, a little later, did she. And so did the core of the night. She wrapped her sari tightly around her, receding into herself. My steps sounded loud on the pavement, loud and obscene, footsteps of an interloper.

  Under a clump of trees, nearly one with the shadows, Aftab waited. He looked back towards us, then looked away. When I was within range I could hear him softly calling. ‘Amjad Mian. Amjad Mian.’

  ‘Aftab Rai?’ a voice called back. Then an old man stepped out of the dark cavities of the wall, an old man with a beard, holding a lantern. The two of them exchanged greetings, quietly, in great politeness, showing neither surprise nor pleasure.

  Through a narrow entrance, they led the way into the dargah itself. First look, and I knew it was a mistake. There was nothing I loathed more than I loathed the sight of death and here, amidst the cenotaphs and the gravestones, there was death with a vengeance. I felt tricked. To be shifted so suddenly from the euphoric heights of the Intercontinental to these desolate mounds was a rebuke I did not deserve. Anuradha’s sari brushed against my arm. Aftab approached us looking, more or less, a ghost.

  ‘My friend will like to tell you something about this dargah,’ he declared, addressing no one in particular.

  Amjad Mian was no guide. But he liked to talk, considered it probably his duty, like old Leela, to educate, reform. White-haired, eyes receded beyond visibility, draped in black, he addressed us from his stony perch. My attention kept wandering but was pulled back again and again to his melancholy drone. Bustami banished from Baghdad. Mansur Hallaj put to death raving to the end. Ana’l Haq, Ana’l Haq, I am God. Next came the Chishtis, said Amjad Mian. Khwaja Mu’inuddin wandering into India before the invasions of the Ghor, wandering on into the realms of the Hindu Prithvi Raj. ‘Alone, hungry, his feet bitten with the sands of Rajputana,’ cried Amjad Mian, moved at the vision. ‘Alone, without imperial power at his back, the Khwaja was no less a success in Ajmer, Aftab Sahib, no less a success.’ Aftab Sahib nodded several times. I thought of the failure of my business mission. Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki dying in ecstasy while singers sang:

  Kushtagane khanjare taslim ra,

  Har zaman
as ghaib digar ast.

  Breaking his silence, Aftab translated for us: ‘When the dagger of submission has killed you, there will come new lives from unseen worlds.’

  Unseen worlds..... Unseen worlds. Everyone looking for unseen worlds.

  Khwaja Mu’inuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. Baba Farid. Iltutmish, the king. Wanters all. Sheikh Nizamuddin himself, Mehboob-i-Ilahi, in whose dargah we stood. What did he have to say about unseen worlds?

  ‘He saw seven kings,’ said Amjad Mian. ‘Seven filled the throne of Delhi, then went.’

  ‘Went where?’ I teased.

  ‘Where we all have to go,’ said Amjad Mian profoundly.

  Nevertheless, here was food for thought. To have had royal esteem, commanded the hearts of men, seen the play of the Khiljis and the Tughlaqs and have remained uninvolved, unmoved, that must have been trial enough.

  ‘Each sultan, on bended knee, begged him to visit. Not once, sir, not once did he visit the durbar of the seven kings. Not once.’

  Anuradha listened with hands on one hip. Her face was expressionless. It struck me then that there was something that those three knew that I did not. Tired, I sat down. Amjad Mian carried on, addressing the gravestones. Tariqat, Haqiqat, Tawakkul, Sabr, Khauf, Ishq, Rida, Fana. Much else. He was a learned man. But how was one to acquire all those virtues?

  ‘Fana,’ he cried. ‘Fana. The body must first die.’

  I lit a cigarette but was told sharply to put it out. I put it out. Amjad Mian had his prerogatives. But if the Aulia could introduce music, at the cost even of inquisitions, why couldn’t Amjad Mian let me smoke? I was too tired to argue. There was silence. Amjad Mian looked at me with suspicion. The rebuke had momentarily nipped the flow of his rhetoric.

  ‘Shall we see some more of the dargah?’ Aftab said at last.

  I wanted to say: Hell with your dargah.