‘Well, Dr Ramaswamy, what have you been thinking?’ started Savithri. ‘Ramaswamy has always such interesting things to say about everything. He relates things apparently so unrelated — for him history is a vast canvas, for the discovery of value, of metaphysical value. He’s my guru,’ she concluded, a little hesitant, a little shyly, as though it was such a big thing to say that it might not be named.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jack.
‘Well, it’s such a difficult thing to explain. A guru is a real teacher — the one who shows you the way to Truth.’
‘That’s asking a great deal too much of anyone, isn’t it?’ said Swanston, not because he did not think Truth was possible, but because for him it had only one route, as it were, one system, the end of one dialectic. And in his own mind he named that one to himself — a man, a great man, far away and big, and gentle and kind to children; thrice married but virtuous, a Generalissimo, the Father, the creator of the past, the present and the future Socialist Republics. I could follow his thought, so I broke in:
‘In fact, I’ve been thinking about the inevitability of Communism — this new Catholicism — and why Nazism had to be defeated, had to die. Hitler,’ I went on, ‘was an extraordinary man, but he could no more succeed than Ravana did against Rama. Rama is the river of life, the movement towards self-liberation, the affirmation of one’s true existence; Ravana is negation, is the earth, the fact. But the earth is made for dissolution, so he who holds the earth in bondage, he who possesses in the real sense works against life. That if anything is the meaning of Communism.’
‘There are too many incomprehensible factors in your statement, sir,’ said Swanston, removing his glasses. He wiped them carefully, respectfully, and put them back, as though the shine on his nose gave his intelligence acuity.
‘Ah, that’s just like Ramaswamy,’ explained Savithri, ‘he works with symbols and equations. History for him is a vast algebra, and he draws in unknowns from everywhere to explain it.’
‘So do we,’ said Swanston. Jack Hollington was busy looking at the other tables; his red rose sat self-consciously in his buttonhole.
‘Well, there’s a difference. Ramaswamy is like a scientist— his history, thank heavens, has no morality. In his history, there are no bourgeois or Capitalists; to him the whole of history is one growing meaning. Or rather, it is instantaneous meaning.’ She turned to me. ‘Am I right? To think I am trying to explain you while you are here!’ The jewel at her neck shone with such simple, intimate, unswerving splendour.
‘Ravana, the king of Lanka, in our great epic the Ramayana, was compared by Mahatma Gandhi, who read the poem every day, to the British Government of his time.’ This brought about general laughter. ‘Your father,’ I said, turning to Swanston, ‘and your father, were henchmen of Ravana, and so if I may be permitted to say it…’
‘Was this young lady’s father too,’ intervened Savithri, and we all laughed again.
‘Well, Ravana wants to possess the world — he’s taken Sita, daughter of the furrow, child of Himalay, and wife of Rama, away; he’s kidnapped her and taken her away and made her his prisoner.’
‘And so?’ said Jack joining the discussion.
‘And so Rama has to fight his battle. He goes about in the forest and the animals of the wild and the birds of the air join him, for the cause of Sri Rama is dharmic, it’s the righteous turning of the Wheel of the Law. For right and wrong are questions of a personal perspective, but dharma is adherence to the impersonal. So when Rama goes to liberate Sita from the prison island of Ravana, the very monkeys and squirrels build roads and bridges, carry messages, set fire to fearful cities, because dharma must win.’
‘What’s dharma?’ asked Swanston.
‘Dharma comes from the word dhru to sustain, to uphold. It’s as it were the metaphysical basis of the world — in so far as the world exists, of course — and it’s the same dharma, to continue the story, that forced Sri Rama, after having burnt Lanka, killed Ravana, and liberated Sita, and after returning to Ayodhya the capital, in the splendour of banners, victory- pillars, music, and worship, to send queen Sita away on exile. The fair, the pregnant Sita was sent away for the dharma of Rama, the dharma of a king demanded it.’
‘Why?’ pursued Swanston.
‘Because some suburban gossip between washerwoman and boat-builder’s wife leapt from mouth to mouth, saying that queen Sita could not have kept her integrity while prisoner of demon Ravana. And although the earth and sacrificial fire proclaimed the purity of Sita, yet the populace spoke of this and that, and Sita had to be sent away on exile, that the kingdom of Ayodhya be perpetually righteous. The impersonal alone is right,’ I said.
‘How do you explain that?’ asked Savithri, thoughtful.
‘The impersonal alone could be the Truth because he, Sri Rama, was the Truth.’
‘How can one be the Truth?’ asked Swanston with a silly little laugh. The elementary minds which go to make the majority of Communists are exasperating.
‘How can one not be the Truth, sir,’ I asked a little angrily. ‘Standing where do you judge falsehood?’
‘In truth, naturally,’ Hollington said.
‘And can truth judge truth?’
‘No,’ said Savithri.
‘Then when truth sees truth, as it were, what happens?’ Everyone was introspective — they were trying to understand.
‘One is truth,’ said Savithri, almost in a whisper, as though she feared others might hurt the Truth by saying things irreverent. And we fell into a large-eyed silence.
Meanwhile, the food came, and the drinks, and the function of masticating took a lot of our time. Savithri fiddled away with her bit of lamb or veal, for when she was thinking food did not go easily down her gullet.
‘So you say Communism is inevitable.’
‘Yes, like smallpox innoculation is inevitable.’
‘That’s new.’
‘Between the normality of birth and the normality of continuous existence there’s a difference,’ I continued. ‘In one you are given a chance to live, and in the other you are prevented from dying for a certain time, for the normal length of time; and so you take innoculations.’ Swanston looked at me, not knowing what I was driving at.