I wandered also among the cows tied up inside the temples, and touched their grave and fervent faces and fed them with green grass. What wonderful animals these be in our sacred land — such maternal and ancient looks they have. One can understand why we worship them. I bought some kunkum one day and decorated the faces of all the cows in a temple, then went out and bought Bengal gram and fed the monkeys. Evening was falling. I went back to Harishchandra Ghat and collected Little Mother where she sat on the bank of the river, talking away to Sridhara. I hired an ekka somewhere in the outskirts of the Brahmin quarter and took Little Mother to the Annapurna temple for worship. How beautiful the Devi looked, in her saffron sari and with dark forehead bejewelled, and what strength emanated from her, what depth of Peace.
O Thou who hast clothed Thyself in cloth of gold,
Decked in ornaments made of many and varied gems;
Whose breasts rounded like a water-jar Are resplendent with their necklace of pearls;
Whose beauty is enhanced by the fragrance of the
Kashmir aloe;
O Devi who presidest over the city of Kashi
O vessel of mercy grant me aid.
‘Anna-Purné Sada-Purné,’ I recited with Little Mother, and when the camphor was lit Sridhara was so absorbed and quiet that I knew this last child of my family could gather the holiness of generations. Maybe one day he would answer my questions; for I had serious questions of my own and I could not name them. Something had just missed me in life, some deep absence grew in me, like a coconut on a young tree, that no love or learning could fulfil. And sitting sometimes, my hand against my face, I wondered where all this wandering would lead to. Life is a Pilgrimage I know, but a Pilgrimage to where — and of what?
Everyone, for thousands of years, every one of the billion billion men and women since the Paleolithic ages, feels that something is just being missed. One in ten million perhaps knows what it is, and like the Buddha goes out seeking that from which there is no returning. Yet what is the answer? Not the monkhood of the sadhu, or the worship of a God. The Ganges alone seemed to carry a meaning, and I could not understand what she said. She seemed like Little Mother, so grave and full of inward sounds.
I was anxious about something, anxious with an anxiety that had no beginning, and so no maturity. Lying on the stone floor of the big Brahmin house where we were staying I could hear the bells ring all the hours of the day, and pilgrims, muttering mantras to themselves, going down the steps. Sometimes, too, a fish caught something in the water, and you could almost feel the night tear with its swish and plunge.
Little Mother slept. Her hands on the head of Sridhara, pressed gently against her breast, Little Mother slept. She slept as though the waters of the Ganges were made of sleep and each one of us a wave. But she would suddenly open her eyes and ask, ‘Rama, are you sure you are not cold? I am frightened of your lungs, Son.’
Though the damp entered the very pores of my body the mosquitoes were worse. Little Mother had given me her mosquito curtain that I at least should have real rest. Under the net I felt so much apart that sleep seemed unnecessary. Perhaps it was the damp, or perhaps I did not eat enough, but I started to cough again. Little Mother was frightened. By the next afternoon we had left for Allahabad. Getting down at the station Little Mother said: ‘I fear everything now.’
But she was warmed by the presence of Venktaraman on the platform. Venktaraman was a colleague of my father’s in Hyderabad. He now taught English at Allahabad University, and we had sent him a wire. Little Mother felt comforted too when a south Indian spoke to her in Telugu; and when we reached home, Oh, it was so wonderful to have rasam with asafoetida in it, and chutney with coconut and coriander leaf! In the morning, when dosé came with filter-coffee, Little Mother really smiled. How much we are dependent on familiar things for our feelings of sorrow or joy. In this newfound ambience, Little Mother almost discovered her old spirits. Benares seemed hateful to her: the whole of the North, but for the Ganges, was one desolation of dirt. Lakshamma agreed. And they could talk of children and marriages, and who gave what and at which wedding. One daughter of Lakshamma was married to an I. F. S. in Delhi, and the other to someone in the railway services. The son was studying engineering in Benares, but he had come home for the holidays. Hints were thrown that though we belonged to two different communities Lakshamma would not mind thinking of Saroja for her first daughter-in- law. Little Mother noted all this in silence, and simply said, ‘It’s a pity Rama is married already. Otherwise he would be so splendid for Kaumudi.’ Kaumudi, the third daughter, was sixteen and was studying for the Intermediate. ‘It may still happen,’ said Lakshamma, blowing away at the kitchen fire. I was unconcerned.
But I, too, was happy in these south Indian surroundings. Since I left for Europe, I had never had an opportunity to live with other Indian families. We played — Kaumudi, Lakshamma, Little Mother and I — country chess that afternoon. In the morning Mother and I went down to the Triveni for the ceremonies and later I showed her Ananda Bhavan.2 One day I took her to the Museum.
It must have been on the second or third evening of our arrival, while sitting in the drawing room and reading some book on Mathematics — for I had my father’s interest as well — something happened which was to change the whole perspective of my life. Venktaraman came from the university club, bringing along a former student of his, Pratap Singh, to the house. Pratap Singh, as I was soon to learn, had been a very bright student at Osmania University. He had taken English Honours, and indeed did so well that Venktaraman had given him special coaching for the I. C. S.
Pratap was a posthumous son — his family were jagirdars of Mukthapuri in Aurangabad District. Of a melancholy temperament, Pratap at least wished to brighten other people’s lives. So he worked hard to brighten his mother’s solitary existence. He sat for the examination but the competition was too severe: they took only seven Indians that year, and he was but the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh on the list. The British Resident, however, immediately recommended him for nomination into the Political Services. He was a Raja Sahib of sorts; besides, he was such a clever lad, and the family had always been loyal to the Crown. He was of course chosen, and was sent over to England, being one of the last batch of civil servants to do this. His mother was so happy she went to live with her daughter in Parbhani.
One thing, however, remained to be done. If only the boy could be affianced, of course on his return, to the right party, then even if his mother should die before her time, she would breathe her last with peace in her soul. Pratap not only came from an ancient, if impoverished, family — they only owned some six or seven villages now — he also had a certain gravity of bearing. He was naturally virtuous. He was steady, and he was devoted.
That the choice should fall on the daughter of Raja Raghubir Singh of Surajpur — on the daughter who has just been sent to Europe for her education — seemed neither strange nor impossible. That the Raja Sahib was a tyrant and even his servants were afraid to go anywhere near him, made no difference to the choice. On the contrary, having such a manly father — he had once tied one of his servants to a pillar and given him such a licking that his wounds took a month to heal in hospital — all this made the marriage even more desirable. A manly father has a gentle daughter always. Her mother was the gentlest of creatures, ever bent over her Ramayana and Gita. Her fasts and kirtans were known everywhere. She had lost a young son, her firstborn, while she was only eighteen — and it had given her such a shock that nobody had heard her speak a loud word or seen her make a quick gesture the many long years since. Dignified in carriage, she was a contrast to the whip-bearing, paan-spitting father, who was known to have other and more common vices. But music is, after all, as much mine as yours, and if dancing girls are more learned in the art the fault is not theirs but that of our own women!