The Great Indian Novel (10 page)

This was about the time of Motihari, just after, in fact, and the ashram was already beginning to attract its fair share of hangers-on. You know the song, Ganapathi:

groupies with rupees and large solar topis,
bakers and fakers and enema-takers,
journalists who promoted his cause with their pen,
these were among his favourite men!

Pandu joined this motley crowd at Gangaji’s feet, listening to his ideas and marvelling at the disciples’ devotion to him. He learned of politics and Gangan philosophy:

of opposing caste
unto the last
(for Sudras are human, too)
of meditation
and sanitation
(and cleaning out the loo).

He learned to pray
the simple way
(for Ganga taught him how)
to help the weak
turn the other cheek
(and always protect the cow).

Soon he sounded more
like his mentor
(than any other chela)
Spoke Ganga’s words
ate Ganga’s curds
and became even paler.

He brooked no debate
on being celibate
(a trait that’s Sagittarian).
His passionate defence
of abstinence
turned others vegetarian.

Poetry, Ganapathi, but it’s not enough to sing of the transformation of Pandu under Ganga’s tutelage. No, one must turn to prose, the prose of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan biographies and the school textbooks. How about this, O long-nosed one? In discourse his speech became erudite, his tone measured. In debate he thought high and aimed low. He became adept at religion, generous in philanthropy and calm in continence. No? You don’t like it? Well, take it down anyway. We must move on: Pandu has begun quoting the
shastras
at unlikely moments, applying the most arcane of our ancient concepts to the circumstances of everyday life, and we must not leave these unrecorded.

Where shall we rejoin Pandu? He began, you see, to enliven his conversation with legend and fable - a myth, he thought, was as good as a smile - and his moral tales would curl the pages of the
Kama Sutra.
Shall we intrude upon him as he tells his red-eared Madri of lustful Vrihaspati, who forced his attentions upon his pregnant sister-in-law Mamta, and found his ejaculation blocked by the embryonic feet of his yet-to-be-born nephew? Or of the Brahmin youth who turned himself into a deer to enjoy the freedom to fornicate in the forest, until he was felled by a sharp-shooting prince on a solitary hunt? Or should we, instead, eavesdrop on our pale protagonist as he pontificates on the virtues of celibacy to his ever-sighing mate Kunti?

‘But sons I must have,’ said Pandu one day, after a close reading of the holy books. In addition to Gangaji he had been spending some time with his grandmother Satyavati and with, need I say it, me, and we all had, as well you know by now, Ganapathi, fairly flexible ideas on the subject. Flexible, but sanctified by scripture, as Pandu explained to his doe-eyed wife Kunti:

‘I have learned to live without sex, as Gangaji has done for so much longer, but I cannot, like him, hope for salvation in the next life without a son. His is a life of exceptional merit and purity and good works; he need never spill his seed, yet a thousand sons will step forward to light his funeral pyre. I am not so fortunate, Kunti. No ritual, no sacrifice, no offering, no vow will help me attain the moksha that is denied the sonless man.’

He gazed at his wife with sorrowful eyes - no, Ganapathi, make that with eyes full of sorrow - and spoke in the firm voice of a preceptor, detached from the subject of his discourse. ‘I have talked to our elders and read the scriptures, and they tell me there are twelve kinds of sons a man can have. Six of these may become his heirs: the son born to him in the normal course from his lawfully wedded wife; the son conceived by his wife from the seed of a good man acting without ignoble motive; the son similarly conceived, but from a man paid for this service; the posthumous son; the son born of a virgin mother; and finally, the son of an unchaste woman.’

Kunti listened speechlessly, with widening eyes. Her learned husband went remorselessly on. ‘The six who cannot become his heirs are: the son given by another; the adopted son; the son chosen at random from among orphans; the son born from a wife already pregnant at marriage; the son of a brother; and the son of a wife from a low caste. Since I need an heir it is clear that I cannot adopt a son; you must give me one.’

Kunti looked at him with what the poet - and don’t ask me which poet, Ganapathi, just write the poet - called a wild surmise. She was beginning to get his drift, and she was not sure she liked the way his wind was blowing.

‘I cannot, as you know, give myself a son through you. I do not know how to go about obtaining the services of a surrogate father. But I leave it to you, Kunti. Find a man who is either my equal or my superior, and get yourself pregnant by him.’

Kunti raised a hand to her mouth in horror. ‘Don’t ask me to do this,’ she pleaded. ‘Ever since we met I have remained completely faithful to you. You know people have already gossiped about me before we were married. Don’t give them an excuse to start again, my darling. Besides, I know we can have children together. Couldn’t we, whatever that doctor might say? If we’re really careful?’

‘No, we can’t,’ Pandu replied, ‘and you know I simply can’t afford to take the chance. Look, Kunti, it’s very good of you to want to stay faithful to me and I appreciate it, really I do. But you’ve got to realize that for a good Hindu it is far more important to have a son, indeed to have a few sons, than to put a chastity belt on his wife.’

Kunti, still shocked - for you know the conservatism of our Indian women, Ganapathi, they are for ever clinging to the traditions of the last century and ignoring those of the last millennium - waited for the inevitable exegesis from the
shastras.
It was not long in coming. Pandu readjusted his lotus position, tucking his feet more comfortably under his haunches, and went on in high-sounding tones. ‘You know, if you read our scriptures you will realize that there was a time when Indian women were free to make love with whomever they wished, without being considered immoral. There were even rules about it: the sages decreed that a married woman must sleep with her husband during her fertile period, but was free to take her pleasure elsewhere the rest of the time. In Kerala, the men of the Nair community only learn that their wives are free to receive them by seeing if another man’s slippers aren’t outside her door. Our present concept of morality isn’t really Hindu at all; it is a legacy both of the Muslim invasion and of the superimposition of Victorian prudery on a people already puritanized by purdah. One man married to one woman, both remaining faithful to each other, is a relatively new idea, which does not enjoy the traditional sanction of custom. (Which is why I myself have had no qualms about taking two wives.) So I really don’t mind you sleeping with another man to give me a son. It may seem funny to you, but the deeper I steep myself in our traditions, the more liberal I become.’

He could see she was not yet convinced. ‘Look, I’ll tell you something that might even shock you, but which, in fact, is in full accordance with our divine scriptures and ancient, traditions. It’s a closely guarded family secret that even I learned only when I became a man. Vichitravirya, my mother’s husband, isn’t really my father. Nor Dhritarashtra’s, for that matter. Our mothers slept with their husband’s half-brother, Ved Vyas, when their husband died, to ensure he would be graced with heirs.’ Pandu saw that this story, at last, had sunk in. ‘So you see? You’d just be following a family tradition. You’ve always done as I asked you to - so go and find yourself a good Brahmin and give me a son.’

Kunti’s resistance melted at last. ‘The truth is,’ she began, ‘I don’t really know how to tell you this, but I already
have
a son.’

‘What?’ It was Pandu’s turn to register offended astonishment. ‘You? Have a son? By whom? When? And how could you talk so glibly of having been faithful to me?’

‘Please don’t be angry, my dear husband,’ Kunti implored. ‘I only mentioned it because you brought up the subject this way. And I
have
been faithful to you. My son was born before we even met, before your family asked for my hand for you.’

Comprehension dawned on a paling Pandu. ‘Hyperion Helios,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘The travelling magnate. So the scandal-mongers were right after all.’

Kunti hung her beautiful head in acknowledgement.

‘And where is your son today?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kunti admitted miserably. ‘I was so ashamed when he was born - though I shouldn’t have been, for he was a lovely little boy, his golden skin glowing like the sun - that I put him in a small reed basket and floated him down the river.’

‘Down the river?’

‘Down the river.’

‘Then there isn’t much point in talking about him, is there?’ Pandu asked a little cruelly.

‘Someone must have found him,’ Kunti said defiantly. ‘I’m sure he is still alive. And I know I’ll recognize him the moment I see him again. His colour - it’s so extraordinary I’m sure no one else in these parts would have anything like it. And then there’s his birthmark - a bright little half-moon right in the centre of his forehead. There’s no way he could have got rid of that.’ She turned to Pandu. ‘If you want a son, I know we can find him,’ she pleaded. ‘Let us have inquiries made in the area.’

A wind blew, Ganapathi, at those words, stirring up leaves, dust, shadows, clothing; eyelashes flickered in disturbed hope; an age sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ Pandu replied. ‘It’s no use. A son born to you before we were even married, even if he were found, how can he be an heir of mine? No, you will simply have to find someone else, Kunti.’ A hard edge entered his voice. ‘And it shouldn’t be all that difficult for you. After all, you do have the experience.’

Kunti seemed about to say something; then her face assumed a set expression. ‘As you wish, my husband,’ she said. ‘You shall have your son.’

I remember, Ganapathi, I still remember the night our late Leader was born. It was a monsoon night, and the rain lashed down upon us, while a howling wind tore branches off trees and ripped roofs off shacks, turned our pathetic parasols inside out and drove the water into our homes. I entered the palace dripping, handed the shambles of my umbrella to the bowing servitor and mounted the stairs towards the women’s quarters. A female attendant came out of Gandhari’s room just as I reached the landing. Something about her expression led me to fear the worst. I asked her quietly, ‘How is she?’

‘Still in labour, sir.’

I nodded, both troubled and relieved. Still in labour: but it had been twenty-four hours already, time enough for me to receive the news and make my way through the mounting rage of the storm to the palace. And still she lay there; Gandhari the Grim lay there and sweated and suffered. I had a vision of that small, frail, delicately proportioned body stretched out and arched in the most grotesque of contortions, as a hundred lustily bawling sons fought their way out of her half-open womb . . .

And then, from behind Gandhari’s closed door just down the corridor, there emerged a single, long, wailing sound. We both stood transfixed. It was a baby’s cry and yet it was more than that; it was a rare, sharp, high-pitched cry like that of a donkey in heat, and as it echoed around the house a sound started up outside as if in response, a weird, animal moan, and then the sounds grew, as donkeys brayed in the distance, mares neighed in their pens, jackals howled in the forests, and through the cacophony we heard the beating of wings at the windows, the caw-caw-cawing of a cackle of crows, and penetrating through the shadows, the piercing shriek of the hooded vultures circling above the palace of Hastinapur.

‘What was that, sire?’ the woman servant asked, fear writ large on her face.

‘Dhritarashtra’s heir has been born,’ I said.

I was right. For when the doctor emerged from Gandhari’s room he was ashen with the strain. It had been the most difficult delivery of his life, he said, and it had taken a terrible toll on the brave young mother. She had survived, but she could never have children again. This one child would be her only offspring.

‘A boy, of course?’ Dhritarashtra, anxiously leaning on a cane, his dapper features strained with anticipation, asked the doctor. For weeks the midwives had said that all the signs pointed to a male heir: the shape of Gandhari’s breasts in the eighth month, the sling of her uterus in the ninth. ‘How is he?’