Climbing Chamundi Hill (17 page)

We were able to resume the climb, but my pace was slow—slower than that of a sixty-seven-year-old. Up ahead
a young man was reaching into a tree as his girlfriend—or wife—supported his lower back. It was a large peepal tree with widespread branches running parallel to the hillside. Dozens of little plastic bags, each with two stones, were tied to the branches. High above was a huge beehive, the largest I had ever seen.

“What's all this?” I asked. “What are they doing with the little bags?”

The old man shrugged. “Love magic, I suppose. The two stones are two hearts, don't you think?” That made sense, up to a point.

“Why here? There are peepals everywhere. Is it the beehive?”

He shook his head, then shrugged again. “I doubt it. Look, this is not my field. For all I know it's because of the way the two trees are intertwined.” He pointed out a khejri tree growing next to the peepal. This was the first time in our climb that I had seen the old man indifferent to something—even scornful. It may have been the magical superstition or the silly search for securing love, I couldn't say.

Suddenly he said, “Let me tell you a story about love. It's not all you think it is.”

THE PURIFYING RIVER

My father once told me about a man he knew who lived in the town of Dandanagar located on the short northward turn of the Shivanadi River. This man, Vasu, had moved into the southern town from
the foothills of the Himalayas—a long way to the north. Vasu was a Brahmin who had been raised in a strict Brahminical home as the older of two boys. His life had been well planned by tradition and parental expectation, but he ruined his parents' dreams when he fell in love and then married a very beautiful woman of a lower caste. Naturally, Vasu had to abandon his role in the family business and leave home with his new wife, Kumati. The couple ended up in Dandanagar.

Life was not easy for the young couple. They had moved into town with few belongings, and Vasu was unable to practice his traditional trade. Instead, he doubled as petty bookkeeper and porter for a small trade firm that moved grain, oils, and other farm products between producers and vendors. Money was always tight, and Vasu lived with constant pain in his joints. However, their frugality and Kumati's efficient management of the household allowed them to live well above mere subsistence. They even managed to put a little money aside. Still, they could not shake the constant anxiety that shadowed their every move. They both feared that their love marriage, in the face of tradition, was somehow immoral and dangerous. Their continued love and physical attraction for each other only made the forebodings of doom more threatening.

But nothing happened. Kumati gave birth in quick succession to five healthy boys who grew up to be energetic and smart. Vasu compensated for his own youthful indiscretion by raising his boys in a very
rigorous Brahminical environment. He took them to services three times a day and insisted that they awake before sunrise in order to bathe in the river. “The river will purify your soul,” he assured them. Above all, both parents repeatedly warned their children about the importance of proper marriage.

Vasu would lecture his children using shopworn aphorisms. “The best kind of marriage must be planned by the parents in consultation with astrologers and a good pundit. Never let your senses wander, and keep your emotions under control at all times. Remember, a beautiful woman can ruin your life.” The wife would then chime in. “But if you must fall in love, learn to love your assigned wife.” Vasu would seal the lesson with more wisdom. “It is far better that you should not marry at all then marry against our instructions. In fact, in all things obedience to parents takes precedence!”

The boys listened attentively. Their sweet character prevented them from ever questioning their parents or bringing up the obvious discrepancy between their elders' own words and actions. Over the years, as the boys finished their schooling and took on different jobs, the parents forgot their fears and began to dream of early retirement, supported by their industrious sons. To make that reality come true they began to plan for the marriages of the five young men, but all five refused to discuss marriage. Whenever the subject came up, they either protested or turned mum. Still, because the parents knew it was their duty to marry off their
sons, the topic was seldom dropped for long, and eventually it became a source of tension in the household.

Then, one day, all five men disappeared. The youngest, Pancala, who was his mother's favorite, left a note telling his mother that they decided to make their own way in the world. He reassured her that he would not marry without her knowledge, but insisted on remaining free and begged her forgiveness.

“This is our punishment—it's finally come!” both parents cried. Their fears had materialized; they were now abandoned to a lonely old age. Sometime later a baby girl was born to them. She was unusually beautiful, and her parents called her Tilottama, but she was little consolation to the aging couple. Her parents raised her quickly, merely going through the motions and waiting for the day they could finally marry her off.

Tilottama grew up with no real childhood and too little love. From her parents she learned that the heart would always be trumped by fate and that her only shield against misfortune was total obedience to the law. She became a moody girl, but her great beauty drew many offers of marriage. Vasu and Kumati finally found a wealthy old Brahmin who purchased the young bride, thereby guaranteeing her parents' coveted retirement.

Tilottama had to endure less than one full year of marriage before she became a widow. Her husband left her with substantial wealth, and in gratitude the young widow took his bones to Mathura to submerge
them in the holy river Ardhachandra, gaining for her benefactor a place in heaven. The river in which her husband crossed over to the next world became Tilottama's new home. She set up a comfortable household in a stone house under a gular tree near the bathing steps. There she spent long days reflecting on the morally stringent, loveless childhood that brought her to that place. She bathed often in the spiritually consoling water of the river, but it was a solemn and austere routine that brought little joy.

One day, having already changed into a fresh sari after a bath, Tilottama heard giggles and laughter downstream. Behind a cluster of tall reeds she noticed several young courtesans who were splashing in the water. There were seven or eight of them, dressed in colorful, soaking-wet saris and painted with red and golden oils that streaked down their faces. Three older women, the attendants, were standing on the shore, shooing away the boys and curious young men. Tilottama was struck by the sensuous abandon of the women in the river. She envied the grace and power of their movement as they pivoted and splashed, shaking their wet hair like cats.

One of the women waved playfully, her eyes sparkling like two drops of the river itself, and Tilottama smiled back. The woman threw her head back gaily, gesturing perhaps or just shaking water out of her loose hair. Then she returned to her friends. The young women were a troupe of performers from the royal temple—dancers and musicians in the service of Krishna. They also acted as
courtesans for the king and for aristocratic guests. When Tilottama found out that they visited the river regularly, she began to join them, at first hesitantly, but in time she increased her own abandon to the pleasures of the river.

The young women embraced Tilottama quickly as one of their own. They were very outspoken about her beauty, the purity of her complexion, and the richness of her black hair. They teasingly compared her thighs to the stems of the plaintain and praised her navel, which twisted in a clockwise fashion above her small belly with its three folds. The courtesans invited Tilottama to join them in the royal temple, desiring to show her the fine jewels and clothes that the generous king bestowed on them. As a wealthy woman, Tilottama was able to resist their invitations for months. However, the evenings in her home by the dark river were lonely, so Tilottama finally agreed to visit the courtesans and watch them perform. The hall did not look like the simple Shiva temple in which she used to make offerings as a child. It looked like a palace.

The music that her friends performed in the evening was romantic and sensuous. Tilottama was thrilled by the dancing of the two women who moved like Myanmar cats around the floor, casting sideways glances at reclining men with glistening eyes. She felt a surge of excitement as she watched her friends raise their chins and turn away from the men, who gently stroked their mustaches. She went home early that night, assaulted by the clashing flow
of emotions in her body. But before long she too became a dancer, and eventually a woman who mastered the arts of pleasing men.

A few years passed pleasurably as Tilottama forgot her austere lifestyle and her late husband. One day a handsome merchant named Pancala came into town accompanied by a large entourage of assistants, driving herds of livestock and bearing vast amounts of goods. He set up camp not far from the marketplace where he intended to trade. But first, as was his custom in every town he visited, he went to Mathura's many temples paying homage to the gods, offering generous gifts to the priests, and contributing to the charities of the temples. On his rounds of the temples he entered the royal Trigarteshvara Temple, where he saw Tilottama among the other courtesans.

Handsome and athletic, Pancala was already thirty years old, but still a bachelor. He was a man who invested all his time and energy in work; his short hours of leisure were spent in temples, listening to moral readings and participating in services that extol the life of virtue. But mostly women made him nervous. He was shy around them and felt too foolish to open his mouth.

Seeing Tilottama now, Pancala was dismayed to feel his heart racing and his face flush. In his thirty years he had never been in love, and the instant he had locked eyes with this beautiful stranger—a prostitute!—he lost all self-control. The very next day he began to visit the young courtesan's matron—he was too shy to seek Tilottama herself—and respect
fully offered clothes, bangles, jewels, and perfume. Gradually, with encouragement from the women, his courage grew, and he started to visit the courtesan herself. He allowed himself to drift on a stream of passion, which seemed to sweep her along as well. The two fell deeply in love and, renouncing their inhibitions, they began to spend their nights locked in boundless pleasure. Pancala seldom returned to his camp before the sun reached mid-sky; by nightfall he was gone again. In this blissful routine six months raced by.

One evening, as Pancala went to the river to bathe, a sage observed him remove his clothes. The holy man, whose name was Sumantu, saw that the young man's skin was crawling with worms; they wriggled out of the pores in his skin and fell off—thousands of minute reddish creatures. The bather himself remained completely unaware of this, for the worms were only visible to the spiritual eye of the holy man. As soon as Pancala emerged from the holy water, the worms were entirely gone, but the next day they were back. This happened over the course of several days, until Sumantu called Pancala over in order to find out what kind of a man he was.

Pancala told the sage that he was a merchant from the Deccan. He came to Mathura to trade. Then he added, “I sleep in my camp at night and worship Shiva in the royal temple of Trigarteshvara.” The holy man, whose spiritual powers enabled him to see beyond shallow appearances—past, present, and future—told Pancala about the worms.

“I'm sure your intentions have always been good, young man, but unintentionally you have committed a great sin. It is only the power of this river that keeps that sin from destroying you! Go back to your camp and reflect on what that sin might be.”

That very same night Pancala rushed to his beloved. He knew so little about her! But Tilottama refused to speak about herself. For hours he badgered her, begged, and demanded to know, but in her shame the young woman remained quiet. Finally, when he threatened to drown himself in the river, she relented. She told him about her parents from the northern mountain region, about her five brothers who had left home before she was born, about her own short and lonely marriage, and finally how she became a prostitute. She sobbed in shame—she had never starved for food, merely companionship, she cried. In her self-pity she failed to notice that the young man—her brother—turned deathly pale. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head just before he fainted and collapsed.

Tilottama's sobbing and then her screams when her brother fell to the ground drew a crowd of worried attendants, who quickly revived Pancala. When asked why he had fainted, Pancala looked at his sister and whispered to her, “I am your brother.” The poor woman immediately forgot her petty shame. A white pallor came over her face like a blanket of snow, but she gathered herself long enough to run out of the room.

The sin of incest, even if committed inadver
tently, is frightful. It equals the great sins of killing a Brahmin or murdering a woman. Nothing short of self-immolation in the flames of a funeral pyre can remove that evil. Everyone knows this, including the brother and the sister, who avoided each other now, separately preparing for their own destruction. Tilottama gave away everything she owned: jewels, clothes, and real property. She left only enough to finance a large pyre at the riverbank. Her brother also donated his considerable wealth to charity and religious institutions. He bathed in the river in preparation for his fiery suicide, but first he prostrated himself before the feet of the holy man Sumantu and confessed his sin. “O guru with the vision of gods, you were right. I have committed incest with my sister, whom I had never known. The worms only you could see were the sign of my hidden guilt. I beg your permission to immolate myself in order to remove the stain from my family and avoid the tortures of hell.”

The holy man remained quiet, while Pancala waited. The young man was desperate to know how his violent death would repair the injury of a sin. What was the mechanism—the correlation between sin, pain, and redemption? However, his questions remained unspoken, and he assumed that the holy man had nothing to say to a defiled sinner. Brother and sister then walked firmly toward the burning pyres, determined to do the right thing, which neither understood. Just then a booming voice was heard from the crystal-clear sky. “Stop!”

Pancala looked around—there was no one there.

Then he saw that Sumantu, still sitting at his spot upstream, was motioning for the two of them to approach. They turned away from the flames and joined the sage, who finally spoke. “The voice you heard was the god of this great river. Obey it! Do not immolate yourselves! Although fire and its pain have always purified sinners, your sin has already been washed off in the holy waters of this river when you bathed for this ritual. That which the fire achieves through pain, this river accomplishes through compassion.”

Pancala looked at Sumantu in confusion; he had never heard of such a thing. But the old man nodded in reassurance. “You have to accept this fact, even if it contradicts what you know. But now you must remain by the river as a renouncer, without wealth or worldly attachments. Bathe daily and study with me, and you will go to final salvation. Your sister will discipline herself by this river in the same manner, and she too will someday move beyond the world of death and rebirth.”