The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (16 page)

"Ah-ha, I think. This surely is the man for me. This
Banerjee
is the one that I must seek. So at once, I take my savings and leave the
theatre company and make my way to
Rishikesh
, on the
banks of the Ganges, where
rumour
says that
Banerjee
is living.

"For six months I search for
Banerjee
. Where is
he? Where? Where is
Banerjee
? Ah yes, they say in
Rishikesh
,
Banerjee
has certainly
been in the town, but that is a while ago, and even then no one saw him.
And now?
Now
Banerjee
has gone to
another place. What other place? Ah well, they say, how
can
one
know that. How indeed? How can one know about the movements of such
a one as
Banerjee
.
Does he not live a life of absolute seclusion? Does he
not? And I say yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Of course.
That is
obvious. Even to me.

"I spend all my savings trying to find this
Banerjee
,
all except thirty-five rupees. But it is no good. However, I stay in
Rishikesh
and make a living by doing ordinary conjuring
tricks for small groups and for suchlike. These are the tricks I have learned
from Professor Moor and by nature my sleight of hand is very good.

"Then one day, there I am sitting in the small hotel in
Rishikesh
and again I hear talk of the yogi
Banerjee
. A
traveller
is saying
how he has heard that
Banerjee
is now living in the
jungle, not so very far away, but in the dense jungle and all alone.

"But where?

"The
traveller
is not sure where
. '
Possibly,' he says, 'it is over there, in that direction,
north of the town,' and he points with his finger.

"Well, that is enough for me. I go to the market and begin to bargain for
hiring a
tonga
, which is a horse and cart, and the
transaction is just being completed with the driver when up comes a man who has
been standing listening nearby and he says that he too is going in that
direction. He says can he come part of the way with me and share the cost. Of
course I am delighted, and off we go, the man and me sitting in the cart, and
the driver driving the horse. Off we go along a very small path which leads
right through the jungle.

"And then what truly fantastic luck should happen! I am talking to my
companion and I find that he is a disciple of none other than the great
Banerjee
himself and that he is going now on a visit to his
master. So straight out I tell him that I too would like to become a disciple
of the yogi.

"He turns and looks at me long and slow, and for perhaps three minutes he
does not speak. Then he says, quietly, 'No, that is impossible.'

"All right, I say to myself, we shall see. Then I ask if it is really true
that
Banerjee
levitates when he prays.

" 'Yes
,' he says. 'That is true. But no one is
allowed to observe the thing happening. No one is ever allowed to come near
Banerjee
when he is praying.'

"So we go on a little further in the
tonga
,
talking all the time about
Banerjee
, and I manage by
very careful casual questioning, to find out a number of small things about
him, such as what time of day he commences with his praying. Then soon the man
says, 'I will leave you here. This is where I dismount.'

"I drop him off and I pretend to drive on along my journey, but around a
corner I tell the driver to stop and wait. Quickly I jump down and I sneak back
along the road, looking for this man, the disciple of
Banerjee
.
He is not on the road. Already he has disappeared into the jungle.
But which way?
Which side of the road? I stand very still
and listen.

"I hear a sort of rustling in the undergrowth. That must be him, I tell
myself. If it is not him, then it is a tiger. But it is him. I see him ahead.
He is going forward through thick jungle. There is not even a little path where
he is walking, and he
is having
to push his way
between tall bamboos and every kind of heavy vegetation. I creep after him. I
keep about one hundred yards behind him because I am frightened he may hear me.
I can certainly hear him. It is impossible to proceed in silence through very
thick jungle, and when I lose sight of him, which is most of the time, I am
able to follow his sound.

"For about half an hour this tense game of follow-the-leader goes on. Then
suddenly, I can no longer hear the man in front of me. I stop and listen. The
jungle is silent. I am terrified that I may have lost him. I creep on a little
way, and all at once, through the thick undergrowth, I see before me a little
clearing, and in the middle of the clearing are two huts. They are small huts
built entirely of jungle leaves and branches. My heart jumps and I feel a great
surging of excitement inside me because this, I know for certain, is the place
of
Banerjee
, the yogi.

"The disciple has already disappeared. He must have gone into one of the
huts. All is quiet. So now I proceed to make a most careful inspection of the
trees and bushes and other things all around. There is a small water-hole
beside the nearest hut, and I see a prayer-mat beside it, and that, I say to
myself, is where
Banerjee
meditates and prays. Close
to this water-hole, not thirty yards away, there is a large tree, a great
spreading baobab tree with beautiful thick branches which spread in such a way
you can put a bed on them and lie on the bed and still not be seen from
underneath. That will be my tree, I say to myself. I shall hide in that tree,
and wait until
Banerjee
comes out to pray. Then I
will be able to see everything.

"But the disciple has told me that the time of prayer is not until five or
six in the evening, so I have several hours to wait. Therefore I at once walk
back through the jungle to the road and I speak to the
tonga
driver. I tell him he too must wait. For this,
I have to pay him extra money, but it doesn't matter because now I am so
excited I don't care about anything for the moment, not even money.

"And all through the great noontime heat of the jungle I wait beside the
tonga
, and on through the heavy wet heat of the afternoon,
and then, as five o'clock approaches, I make my way quietly back through the
jungle to the hut, my heart beating so fast I can feel it shaking my whole
body. I climb up my tree and I hide among the leaves in such a way that I can see
but cannot be seen. And I wait. I wait for forty-five minutes.

"A watch?
Yes, I have on a wristwatch. I remember
it clearly. It was a watch I won in a raffle and I was proud to own it. On the
face of my watch it said the maker's name. The
Islamia
Watch Co.,
Ludhiana
. And so with my watch I am
careful to be timing everything that goes on because I want to remember every
single detail of this experience.

"I sit up in the tree, waiting.

"Then, all at once, a man is coming out of the hut. The man is tall and
thin. He is dressed in an orange-
coloured
dhoti and
he carries before him a tray with brass pots and incense-burners. He goes over
and sits down cross-legged on the mat by the water-hole, putting the tray on
the ground before him, and all the movements that he makes seem somehow very
calm and gentle. He leans forward and scoops a handful of water from the pool
and throws it over his shoulder. He takes the incense-burner and passes it back
and forth across his chest, slowly, in a gentle, flowing manner. He puts his
hands palm downward on his knees. He pauses. He takes a long breath through his
nostrils. I can see him take a long breath and suddenly I can see his face is
changing, there is a sort of brightness coming over all his face, a sort
of.
. . well, a sort of brightness on his skin and I can see
his face is changing.

"For fourteen minutes he remains quite still in that position, and then,
as I look at him, I see, quite positively I see his body lifting
slowly.
. . slowly. . . slowly off the ground. He is still
sitting cross-legged, the hands palm downward on the knees, and his whole body
is lifting slowly off the ground, up into the air. Now I can see daylight
underneath him. Twelve inches above the ground he is
sitting.
. . fifteen inches. . . eighteen. . . twenty. . . and soon he is at least two
feet above the prayer-mat.

"I stay quite still up there in the tree, watching, and I keep saying to
myself, now look carefully. There before you, thirty yards away, is a man
sitting in great serenity upon the air. Are you seeing him? Yes, I am seeing
him. But are you sure there is no illusion? Are you sure there is no deception?
Are you sure you are not imagining? Are you sure? Yes, I am sure, I say. I am
sure. I stare at him,
marvelling
. For a long while I
keep staring, and then the body is coming slowly down again towards the earth.
I see it coming. I see it moving gently downward, slowly downward, lowering to
the earth until again his buttocks rest upon the mat.

"Forty-six minutes by my watch the body has been suspended! I timed it.

"And then, for a long
long
while, for over two
hours, the man remains sitting absolutely still, like a stone person, with not
the slightest movement. To me, it does not seem that he is breathing. His eyes
are closed, and still there is this brightness on his face and also this
slightly smiling look, a thing I have not seen on any other face in all my life
since then.

"At last he stirs. He moves his hands. He stands up. He bends down again.
He picks up the tray and goes slowly back into the hut. I am wonderstruck. I
feel exalted. I forget all caution and I climb down quickly from the tree and
run straight over to the hut and rush in through the door.
Banerjee
is bending over, washing his feet and hands in a basin. His back is towards me,
but he hears me and he turns quickly and straightens up. There is great
surprise on his face and the first thing he says is, 'How long have you been
here?' He says it sharply, as if he is not pleased.

"At once I tell the whole truth, the whole story about being up in the
tree and watching him, and at the end I tell him there is nothing I want in
life except to become his disciple. Please will he let me become his disciple?

"Suddenly he seems to explode. He becomes furious and he begins shouting
at me: 'Get out!' he shouts. 'Get out of here! Get out! Get out! Get out!' and
in his fury he picks up a small brick and flings it at me and it strikes my
right leg just below the knee and tears the flesh. I have the scar still. I
will show it to you. There, you see, just below the knee.

"
Banerjee's
anger is terrible and I am very
frightened. I turn and run away. I run back through the jungle to where the
tonga
-driver is waiting, and we drive home to
Rishikesh
. But that night I regain my courage. I make for
myself a decision and it is this: that I will return every day to the hut of
Banerjee
, and I will keep on and on at him until at last he
has
to take me on as a disciple, just
to get himself some peace.

"This I do. Each day I go to see him and each day his anger pours out upon
me like a volcano, him shouting and yelling and me standing there frightened but
also obstinate and repeating always to him my wish to become a disciple. For
five days it is like this. Then, all at once, on my sixth visit,
Banerjee
seems to become quite calm, quite polite. He
explains he cannot himself take me on as a disciple. But he will give me a
note, he says, to another man, a friend, a great yogi, who lives in
Hardwar
. I am to go there and I will receive help and
instruction."

Imhrat
Khan paused and asked me if he might have a
glass of water. I fetched it for him. He took a long slow drink,
then
he went on with his story:

"This is in 1922 and I am nearly seventeen years old. So I go to
Hardwar
. And there I find the yogi, and because I have a
letter from the great
Banerjee
, he consents to give
me instruction.

"Now what is this instruction?

"It is, of course, the critical part of the whole thing. It is what I have
been yearning for and searching for, so you can be sure I am an eager pupil.

"The first instruction, the most elementary part, consists of having to
practise
the most difficult physical exercises, all of them
concerned with muscle control and breathing. But after some weeks of this, even
the eager pupil becomes impatient. I tell the yogi it is my mental powers I
wish to develop, not my physical ones.

"He replies, 'If you will develop control of your body, then the control
of your mind will be an automatic thing.' But I want both at once, and I keep
asking him, and in the end he says, 'Very well, I will give you some exercises
to help you to concentrate the conscious mind.'