My mood is spoilt. Walking towards the table I ask Ernest, "where is Lingaraja, doesn't he need to eat?"
Ernest looks at me, "Arun, are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"No, you aren't."
"Why don't you trust me?"
Ernest says to Hari, "now you must tell him, please, he is getting angry. I leave you alone," and walks over to the breakfast buffet.
Hari looks at me and says, "Anna, I am the boy."
I say to Hari, "what are you talking about, Tambi? You're my brother!"
Hari touches my feet, "I'm the boy."
"What do you mean, where is Lingaraja?" Hari touches the part.
"What a shame! How can you do this to me?"
"I'm like Ernest, Anna. I love him."
What a shame! How could my younger brother deceive me like this? Hari has stolen my friend, Ernest has corrupted my younger brother, I could as well have done it myself. What does it help that Hari tells me, 'I'm like him!' He can't be like this, he is my brother. Suddenly I remember the countless occasions when Hari vanished from the room at night, 'necessary to piss,' 'impossible to sleep' and returned hours later 'I met Vishnu and we had a swim in the tank' and the many nights he let me walk home from the cinema alone, 'necessary to meet friends'. Utterly confused I ask Hari once more "and where is Lingaraja?"
Though Hari has tears in his eyes he can't suppress a sly smile when he repeats "he went off!", doesn't he have any shame left? I'm speechless, and silently get up to fill my plate at the buffet.
When I come back to our table Ernest says, "I am sorry, I didn't want to hurt you, I didn't know that he never told you. Hari is a wonderful boy, you shouldn't be angry!"
I understand. I am terribly ashamed. I don't know what to say.
Ernest says, "I like you as much as before, you couldn't have given me a nicer gift."
Hari tells me in Tamil, "I'm not in heat, Anna, I love him." What does it matter?
While Hari is running after the waiter to get tea, Ernest asks me, "is he really gay, do you think he really loves me?"
What can I answer but, "yes, of course," with great pleasure, Sahib Sir! Ernest goes on talking about how he expected a harmless college boy, somebody like Balu, sweet face, slim body, he talks like he has known such boys and bodies before, ready to love and be loved in exchange for money and for a limited time and now what a surprise it was to find instead somebody like Hari, a real friend, and he tells me, as if it were a joke, how when they went up to the room, what happened, the big surprise! I don't want to hear it.
What a shame! At least Ernest likes Hari, at least Ernest is satisfied. Maybe people are what they are, maybe what we think about them cannot change them, who cares! It's nobody's business. Suffering the Chettiar boys in the university cat-calling me 'baby' and 'darling' was much worse. It's all my fault. Ernest is not going to stay forever. Still I can't believe that Hari should be like this, like Ernest.
Ernest's says, "I need somebody I can love. Hari is wonderful, beautiful, sweet, already in your village I fell in love with him, I think he is gay, and I hope he likes me."
I don't listen but like dirty dust the words settle on my mind, making me unhappy. Ernest is no more the person I respected, before he was generous now everything is a deal for him. I didn't deliver, now he tries Hari. I hate Ernest, he sounds so demanding, petty, possessive. He paid for Hari, now he wants him. Ernest has become like an Indian, money is all which counts for him. If only I could muster the courage to kill him! Get the bloody carver from the meat counter and stab him, yelling like a thug 'Hari bol!'
In my mind thoughts and counterthoughts battle with each other like Yadavas and Pandavas. Mary and her Andhra lover come to my mind, maybe her life too is like this, nobody pities the stupid. I try to convince myself that it is a good thing that Hari has become Ernest's boy because Hari doesn't have much of a future academically. Far better if he stays with Ernest. I have to teach Hari how to treat a Vellakaran, never to contrary him. At least it would be one thing less to worry about, if Hari, so to speak, gets married off. In a way, it is preferable, although the shame is worse than death.
I imagine them living abroad in an apartment looking like our hotel rooms, living together as man and wife, with thick carpets, upholstered furniture, modern chairs and tables, table lamps and pictures on the walls, among rich friends, without worries, and I here, in India, in our house, trying to rent a tractor for a day, barely able to pay the laborers, sitting on the floor, eating with my hand, desperately poor, the farmer's son who studied music only to become a farmer too, writing letters to Hari, the same letters I wrote to Ernest, send me money, I am in urgent need of money.
Will I ever manage to get a job? At best I'll become a second-rate or third-rate musician, unhappy, drinking, with a woman but not married, playing the cheapest kind of film music, getting cheated and having to suffer it, humiliated and humiliating myself to survive, to get work, a life like a leaking boat on a fatal river of time.
I should kill myself but in front of my eyes there is a different picture, white rattan furniture on the lawn of the Gymkhana, myself in flashy yellow polycotton pants and a stylish green leather vest, Mary dressed like a film star sitting next to me, her cooling glasses fixed in her open black mane, I'm making the ice cubes clinker in my glass of gin tonic while I call out, "driver sahib…" What a consolation stupidity can be!
My eyes, all on their own, are picking up girls and women strolling in the garden, and though I am thoroughly depressed I am young, slim, strong, and by Ernest's grace, well dressed, enjoying my chance to look like a promising young man with foreign friends.
I watch Ernest and Hari eat and talk, they don't need me anymore. Has Hari turned into a pervert and a prostitute just to leave our misery behind? My future seems an endless struggle to survive, full of responsibilities I don't want to face, paralyzing obligations, vain ambitions, ridiculous successes and bitter failures. I want to believe that one day I'll sit in the Gymkhana and can't wait to hear the bearer answering my orders with 'yes, Master Ji!'
We go shopping again. I'm no more shy about what I want and Hari gets whatever his eyes touch. Hari buys for Ernest a small stone lingam with a lamp and all, as if they could repair with prayers what they ruined by advertising their depravity. I get myself a costly alarm clock. Ernest buys a new case for my violin, it's his Christmas gift for me, it helps a lot to overcome my shame.
We have a gloomy dinner where all I manage to talk about is how much money Ernest would save if he would send me home. It is not what I want, just another pain, what would I tell Father and Mother?
After the meal Ernest invites us into the newspaper shop in the lobby of the hotel, to see whether there is something we'd like to buy. Ernest immediately finds several stupid comic books which he buys for Hari because Ernest read them when he was a boy, then becoming aware that I haven't selected anything he buys me a Penthouse magazine. It is too expensive, I tell him, I don't want it, he doesn't listen. The waste of money makes me unhappy, he just wants me to forget that he and Hari destroyed our beautiful friendship and my life, Hari's life, our parents' lives.
Ernest pays more than hundred Rupees for the magazine and then hands it to me. It is wrapped in a clear plastic bag, I say bitterly, "thank you!" and we walk to the lift. I anticipate that Hari will sleep in Ernest's room, on the fourth floor I get out, saying "Good Night!" it is extremely awkward, to know what they are going to do, to see how glad they are to get rid of me.
I walk towards the door of my room, I don't dare look at people passing, what do they think?
I open the door, get in, say to myself "it is necessary to shower!" but instead I switch the TV on and then sit down on the bed, unpacking the magazine while I'm watching the end of the news, today's government lies and another terrible railway accident which easily could have been avoided if somebody would have cared, but nobody cares.
I'm alone, I have a big bed and a TV, if only they would show what I want to see. I switch on the fan, the A/C is on. There is a wardrobe with a full length mirror, I want to become like a Vellakaran, I feel so hot I drop my clothes on to the floor, undressing completely, walking around in the room naked, studying my body in the big mirror, acting like a Vellakaran. It's nice to sit naked on the edge of the bed and look at the TV people, they can't see me but their eyes seem to look at me.
I get up and look once more at myself in the mirror, it's like the mirror I always wanted to have. I would like to be a Vellakaran. I open the magazine, but first I have to piss.
The bathroom is hot and sultry. I'm so disgusted with myself and Hari and Ernest, whatever comes to my mind I'm willing to let myself do it. I want to debase myself completely, to become as dirty as a Vellakaran. Look what they do! And they're ruling the world!
Tomorrow I'll ask Ernest to buy me pants and a new bush shirt, and socks and shoes, Western style, I should cut my hair like Ernest wore it when he arrived, like an Anglo-Indian.
Through the concrete blinds of the bathroom I can see the drivers in the parking lot, sleeping in the cars or next to the cars on the pavement. They can't see me because of the blinds, or at least they could see only strips of me and only above the waist. I enjoy to look at them while I'm naked, I guess what they're dreaming, their limbs are betraying them.
I clean my teeth watching them, then have a shower. The shower is like a full monsoon rain, the best shower I have ever been allowed to use. I forget completely who I am. The water is falling on my body, flowing down on my skin. The free shampoo and soap the hotel provides smell wonderfully foreign, I'm sorry that Ernest is not sharing the room with me, he would like the smell. But probably Hari is having a shower too, Ernest doesn't need me anymore. Nobody needs me anymore. If only a woman were here with me, waiting for me in the room, on the bed, Mary, Sushila, Subhadra, or that shameless white girl!
I'll return to the room naked and she'll have a shower too, or we would shower together, like Sushila cooled me in the bathhouse. That would be best, to have a girl staying with me, to know she doesn't have to leave, to be able to do whatever I like to do. Maybe I should boldly ask Ernest. I could call for tea and then ask the waiter to get me a woman.
I dry myself with a fresh towel, comb and powder my body and my face, Ernest doesn't like if I powder my face, but now he won't see it. I'll have another shower in the morning. Ernest thinks it looks foolish, grey, not white, but everybody does it, it looks stylish, he likes Negroes because they're like animals.
I must become like a Vellakaran, I want to do every single shameless dirty thing they do, but without a woman there are few things I can do.
I look at the magazine. I knew that Penthouse is a sex magazine, I've seen such magazines in our village library. It is full of naked American women, today the pictures hit me with a heat I never felt before. I get up and check whether the door is securely locked. I lie down on the bed and rub my body against the soft mattress, I want to think of Mary's body but I can't imagine anything, it's just heat, a pain. I move my body as sensuously as possible, satisfying myself, not caring anymore about wasting my strength but it is not enough. With Subhadra I would now be satisfied and remaining next to her, kiss her breasts, she has a beautiful body, I was a fool to let her go, I had enough money in the bank. If Ernest would like women he would have kept her as a friend, would he marry an outcaste? He would have become friends with her, like with me, like now with Hari. To live with a woman you like must be wonderful, to wake up with her in the morning, to come home to her at night, not to suffer from the desire.
I stare at the pictures, they mean nothing, it means nothing, it is nothing. It's just a shame. I close the magazine, put my head face down on the pillow, I feel nothing, Ernest and Hari are now up there, it means nothing. The whole universe is an aimless, idling machine.
I switch the light off feeling empty, thirsty, too tired to get up and pour myself a glass of water from the thermos. I'm exhausted but it is not what I wanted. I want to do something so dirty that afterwards whatever Ernest does with Hari looks like a harmless joke in comparison. I remember what Vijay and I did on the beach, at that time I didn't care whether somebody watched us from the dark. Vijay wasn't Vijay but Rani or any woman I could imagine, I loved a woman. I love only women. At least that is what I thought I thought. Looking at it now I can see that it is possible to look at it with different eyes.
At least I'm not a homosexual like Ernest is, like Hari pretends to be, but in my mind I see Vijay's face, the two times he missed becoming Ernest's friend, Vijay looked genuinely sorry.
I get up and drink a tumbler full of water, sneering at myself in the mirror, what do you know? Why are you going on living? You're simply afraid of the pain of killing yourself. Naxalite! I spit at my reflection. What kind of Naxalite? I should run head first into the bathroom wall, with full speed it would be enough to split my skull, but what if I'm not dead? I don't want to suffer. I have another shower.
I'm not used to sleep alone, at home at the rare occasions when Hari went away for a day or two with a school sports team I would ask Madhu to come over and sleep with me or I would sleep downstairs with Father and Mother, it is not healthy to sleep alone.
I lie down naked on top of the bed, now nothing matters anymore, I want to become as dirty as they are.
I'm not able to sleep, or maybe I've slept half an hour but now I'm awake, unhappy, I hate myself. Ernest loves Hari, I'm no more good enough. I can't sleep and every thought makes me more depressed and empty and hot.
I look up once more the Thomases in the phone directory. I have to ask Ernest for her address! I would like to call her, to say what? What do I want from her? That she comes from this disgusting meat chewing, bones gnawing family doesn't repulse me anymore. She is beautiful and her voice seems to contain all this, her being annoyed with these dirty stupid relatives and being one of them. I'd like her to be my lover, I should try to meet her furtively. There is only one thing I want to do with her, what her voice seems to promise, too lazy to withdraw and too shy to stay.
I get up, decided to look for a woman, any woman. I dress quickly and get out like Hari, who has to leave the house when he can't sleep. I walk out of the hotel compound, then along the street, looking for a woman, thinking of Subhadra, trying to remember what she told me about where she would work next, a construction site in Adyar, as if I could find her now, walking around at night, as if, if I could find the correct site, she would be waiting there for me, all night, ready for me.
I walk along Royapettah High Road, it is too far and I begin to suspect myself of not looking for a woman to enjoy with but rather the man who proposed me during the International Youth Festival or another like him. I don't trust myself anymore. Would I say yes and enter the car? let him do what Ernest asked for, hoping that after abusing me, after defiling every single molecule of my body, after soiling my senses, my feelings, my consciousness, that he would satisfy his passion by killing me in the most revolting and painful fashion and then throwing my body out of the car speeding away, a body so mangled that the police can never attach a name to it. Or at least to excise by force that stupid part of honor which separates me from Ernest and Hari, but nobody wants me, no car is stopping for me, not even a riksha driver looking for passengers, nobody.
I walk on the dusty sidewalk and later on the edge of the road, the yellow streetlights give the black metalled road a dreamlike appearance. I feel like sleepwalking, I want to go back and sleep for real, I mustn't look for a woman, I must become like Ernest and Hari or I must walk in front of a lorry and get crushed.
I'm too tired to think and still words are hounding me, name, sex, age, father's name, native place, caste, subcaste, language, hair and eye color, special marks, all are barking at me like so many rabid dogs, I want to shout at them, 'fuck off'. I feel like on a bicycle the wheels of which have run into a deep rut and if I can't follow the groove I'll fall for sure and if I manage I'm doomed too.
After the river there is a sidewalk again, along the T. S. Gardens, I imagine what the man would have done to me, and in my imagination I let him do it. It becomes so vivid I have to close my eyes, to experience it fully, to submit myself and debase myself more. There is an empty concrete bench outside the entrance of the Gardens and I stretch myself out on it, to dream with closed eyes, to imagine myself doing whatever abject act I have ever heard of or I'm able to think of, and not only to do it but to want to do it. I make the man the most ugly person I've ever seen. The nicest part is when he enters me, the shock to feel him inside me, and though I'm cheating by feeling him as I imagine a woman feels a man, which I know better, this is the best part, the worst. When I get up I'm changed, 'cool', ready to say yes to anything, what a pity no car is stopping!
What didn't happen between the man and me is more real than if it would have happened, that it didn't happen doesn't matter, I wanted it and would have done it. In my memory it is more clear than if I had let him make me drunk and then half unconscious would have allowed him to satisfy himself with my lifeless body. I wanted to do it and in the future I will do it, I'll never say no again.
After the canal I become so tired that I want to wake up one of the many riksha-drivers sleeping on the roadside, but I have no money with me and the hotel has a sign outside
NO RIKSHAS
Who cares? I should wake up one and have him drive me back, get money from the room, send it out to him.
But I don't have the energy to wake one up and slowly, half-asleep, walk back, more than one hour, to the hotel. The more tired I get, the more my ideas seem to explain themselves to me, and when I see the tube lights of the hotel, the switched off marriage decoration above the entrance, I want Ernest to love me, to make me his equal, to love me more than he loves Hari. I'm ready to do for this whatever is necessary, to get drunk or to turn back and walk this time all the way to Adyar, to get initiated for real.
The guard only lets me in after I show him my key. In the lift I understand that this pain is called jealousy. I'm jealous of somebody doing something with somebody which I don't want to do. See the beauty of it! But I'm still bent on debasing myself until I become their equal.
To know that the disease has a name doesn't lessen the pain. My decision to become like them or worse will not open their door.
I shed my clothes while I walk to the bathroom. I get into the shower, pissing while I open both taps fully, 'henceforth' I'll be nothing, I'll care about nothing, every desire, every whim, every fancy is like a flight of sounds, not more, men's lives are like fleeting sounds, as ugly or beautiful, as important or futile. Madras, Chidambaram, Purayur and abroad are only different moods in a black velvet universe of starry sounds. I, Ernest, Hari, Madhu, Father, Mother, Sushila, Subhadra, Mary are all like sounds, our love is like a sound, beginning beautiful, becoming fainter and fainter until it gradually merges and drowns in, if I think of all the love which has been loved in the universe since the beginning of time, what must have become by now an Ocean of Love.
While I let the water run over me to wash the night away a thought enters my mind, I decide immediately that this must be the first proof that 'henceforth' I will do whatever comes to my mind. I dry myself, put on a clean lungi, take my blanket and the violin and go out to look for the stairs leading to the roof.
I find a fire exit, the stairs are dirty and there are the sweepers tools and empty bottles, tins and cans, old papers, what sweepers collect. I don't care and climb the stairs over the rubbish, open boldly the door to the roof and look for a place where I will see the sun raising.
I spread the blanket and sit down. Praying is a waste of time, I tune and begin to play a scale, I don't care whether anybody is hearing me or not, nobody will suspect me on the roof, I don't want to wake anybody up and I don't care if all wake up, this is what I'm living for, what I'm going to do, now I'm doing it. Everything else is noise, dust, dirt, I'm playing to be playing, while I play all is okay. In front of me I see my life running towards the funeral pyre, I will play without asking why.
Kites, eagles and vultures are circling in the morning sky, below the roof and the building the earth is supporting me. Morning noises are complementing my playing, responding to it, or my playing responds to them, that probably nobody is listening makes it a simile of my life, of my loving and not being loved, of my living in vain.
To live like the Master is the greatest courage. Marching bravely towards death, playing beautiful music, the Birkenhead Drill. Violin and bow are the bow and arrows with which to fight like Arjun; to stand proud until I fall is all asked for. Lord Krishna takes my place and tears well up in my eyes, my nose begins to run, I can't breath anymore but I play on, finishing with a flourish while all around in the six directions the universe fills with Lord Krishna's reflections, to play is all, all is His play.
I want to die and I will die, there is nothing left but play like a warrior, like a woman giving birth to her child not caring for her own life, the music is the child, I'm the woman. I face the raising sun. Crores have done it before, crores will do it after me, and in this moment crores are reciting the Gayatri, so am I.
…
I wipe my face with the edge of the lungi, open and spread my blanket fully and lie down like a dead body, closing my eyes, to be dead for a moment. I will play, time will pass quickly and then I can stretch out like this for good and forget myself.
How can I tell the beauty of my Lord
Without losing myself?
What is the drop of my existence
In the ocean of the Lord?
I fall asleep for a few minutes, but then the sun becomes too hot, and I get up, nothing will ever matter again, I will live like the Master, like Arjun. It is the worst night and the most beautiful morning of my life.
I have a quick shower and then fall sleep once more naked on the big bed, confused, feeling like left over from a night which stupidly spared me, a night which should have killed me, but then saved me because to live is worse than death.
When I wake up I'm a different person. I must do something mad, I have several ideas, but either it is too childish, or too repulsive, or too crazy, or I have done it a long time ago. In the end I hit the mark (I can't write what I did) and do something which is not really special but kind of debases me sufficiently to be worse than Ernest and Hari.
My mood is improving but Ernest's and Hari's happiness will be another test. I have to accept that they deserve to be happy. Ernest has done too much for me. Smile! Relax! All is meaningless, impermanent, painful, which is Ernest's way of looking at the world. Ernest is right, but it feels so mean, unfair and painful, I would prefer to take a drug, an explosion of violence to finish my existence, to fall into a dark void without awareness or memory, nobody remembering, nothing, but instead I have to pretend that I'm glad to see their wonderful friendship.
When finally soaped, re-soaped and showered I am leaving the room I am looking at the people in the lobby with the eyes of a man who has lost all illusions about himself, they are talking big words, but the truth is, most of them could have been seen in a most ridiculous, or disgusting, or immoral situation not more than a few hours ago. I imagine them naked on top of the fat women sitting next to them, they must be crazy, everybody is crazy, the difference between human beings and animals is that the humans are behaving like animals or worse.
Am I a different person? Nobody would believe me, I'm surprised myself that it is possible to be so utterly shameless. I feel like I've smoked bhang and sit down at the table dazed, without greeting.
Ernest says, "Did you play this morning? It sounded wonderful! Where were you? "
"On the roof. It always sounds better at the appropriate hour."
"I'm so proud of you!"
"I couldn't sleep."
Hari is grinning at me idiotically with such a childish pride and then makes this utterly foolish gesture music masters' stupid Brahmin servants make in Tamil films, inviting the public to applaud the master, and says in a high and whining voice, in comical Brahmin Tamil, with the most flattering intonation, "ordinary pan will not do for the Master!"
As if he were my effeminate, literary, coward, chappal-carrying and chappal-beaten Brahmin servant! I'm nearly choking with laughter.
Ernest asks, "what did he say!"
I'm laughing too hard to talk properly but manage to say in English, "ordinary pan will not do for the Master! That is what in the films the music masters' servant says."
Ernest doesn't get the joke, so what? I must deserve to sit at a table on the terrace of the Connemara Hotel, eating with glistening cutlery from luxurious plates. I look at Ernest, at Hari. One day I have to wait for my friends to become hungry in the hope that they will invite me to eat with them, another I'm on the Connemara terrace eating toast, drinking Lipton Red Label.
Ernest wants me to go shopping with them but I say, "I have to play."
I begin a difficult scale stopping immediately after they have left. I order tea and try to read the Indian Express, I've been a reasonably good player at twelve, now there is nothing left in violin-playing.
I play various scales, as if I would have to exercise regularly, as if my fingers would get stiff if I don't, all the while vainly thinking about how well I play and at the same time hating me for my stupid vanity. Isn't it much more probable that people hear how badly I play, how I lack all grace, how I just rush through difficulties to show off without any real beauty? 'What isn't in the heart cannot come to the fingers' and in the heart, 'my' heart, as if anything belonged to me, is nothing, not even the consolation nothing is supposed to provide.
The beauty of it is that I understand that all is nothing, there is not even nothing. I'm nothing, art is nothing, death is nothing, simply to vanish without leaving a trace is best. To burn myself, or to suffocate myself with a plastic bag. It doesn't matter anymore, Hari is provided for, why suffer any longer, at best I will become like the Master, years of meaningless pain, trying in vain to keep others from killing themselves with lousy adhocist arguments. Have Rajiv, Shamsuddin and Shivasamy all gone to their native places? Is the Master now alone in the house, only Lakshmi coming in the morning to prepare his meals? What has life given him? What can he possibly expect from life? I should go back and ask him bluntly, "what is the meaning of life? Why are you going on living? Why not kill myself?"
Returning from shopping Ernest and Hari bump into my room and unpack on my bed the things they bought, trying to cheer me up with cassettes and a new purse, handkerchiefs, things Hari knew I like or need. But all I want is Ernest to lie down with me, to hold him, to know that he still loves me. But it is not possible, from loving me he has changed into merely liking me, Hari too doesn't wish anymore to be close to me. The quickening of Hari's steps, the brightening of his face when they leave my room betrays his love for, his desire to be with, alone with Ernest.
I remain in my room in front of the TV repeating myself that all suffering is meaningless. How ridiculous to be angry about two youngsters having it off together, as if it would be my business. Probably I'll do the same later, or why not now? Isn't everything, progress, opinions, morals, just a fashion?
I fall asleep or half and like in a dream the Master appears to me, I ask him, "what is the meaning of life?"
The Master laughs and orders tea and sweets and then quotes in Sanskrit…
That You Are
…making it sound as if I would be the meaning of his life, like another joke about my purported beauty, but then with an elegant gesture of his hand rips open the space between the atoms, showing me the resplendent darkness beyond time where art ends and beauty begins.
I want to concentrate on what I saw but the sound of the TV disturbs me. I try to listen but the politicians' lies are so hateful that I have to switch it off. I can't bear anymore to hear how grateful some foolish people are to a our useless state welfare minister for distributing little loans among them. As if it was his money!
First people pay taxes to the government and then they are grateful when the government actually spends a fraction of it for the people who paid the taxes. Age old wisdom taught them that all governments are thieves, that ministers and civil servants are only looking after themselves, that to be a gazetted official is a better, modern kind of Brahmin, that a minister is a living god, enjoying the fruits of former good acts, deserving it all, generous emoluments, bribes and tithes from bribes, government bungalows, government cars and drivers, all expenses paid, they deserve it like the poor deserve their poverty, like the Naxalites deserve to get shot in fake encounters.
The Truth is they deserve it. Hari deserves to be loved, Ernest deserves to be rich, Madhu deserves his voice, I deserve my stupidity.
I take the violin and sitting on the bed begin to play, aimlessly, not proud anymore of that blind rage which fools admire, for a moment I see different styles but then I become aware that beyond style there is clarity. I play the essence of the scale, without rage, without style, without art, it doesn't matter anymore, if there is beauty then there is, if not, maybe this is the beauty that there is no beauty. To me it appears that I'm playing well or at least without fault, doing my best is enough.
Sushila is coming to my mind. That Ernest prefers to be with Hari changes my desire into an empty heat. Somebody must either satisfy or destroy or satisfy and destroy or just destroy me. Instead of satisfying myself I begin to cry. If only Sushila would be here!
I call Ernest's room, Hari says, "Anna, we're just about to go and drink tea in the garden, why don't you join us?"
I leave the room, and walking towards the lift I catch the glance of the boy servant who brought me my tea. He looks at me as if he would appreciate how I played, and my vainness explodes, it is difficult to continue walking towards the lift without stumbling over my own feet, in the lift I press the wrong button, the one small bit of admiration, if it existed, if I'm not mistaken, makes me as ridiculously proud as if hundred people applauded at a concert.
My stupidity makes me happy, I'm still stupid, although I may play kind of with less mistakes or at least with less idiotic posing than some others, it means nothing, because I'm still the fool I was when I went to my first lesson with the violin Father borrowed from a neighbor, which I carried like the pennant of my victory, believing fast that between our house and the house of the teacher I would come across a person dumb enough to believe me a child prodigy.
I arrive in the garden full of the sudden joy of the nearly simultaneous revelation of how I will play (I don't want to write 'as a master'), and the fact that I'm still stupid, which is 'the beauty of it' and will hopefully keep me from reckoning myself a master, I will do my best, which is how to play.
I'd like to explain it to Ernest, but it would sound like another instance of 'Madhu sings and Arun brags'. Hari pours tea for me, saying, "Anna, we came to your door to call you but you were playing and we didn't want to disturb you…"
Ernest says, "I'm surprised how much you have improved. You were good when I left but now WOW! you're a genius!"
"I'm still as stupid as before, though I've improved a bit. The only surprise is how bad I must have played before when I believed myself to be Number One Young Carnatic Violinist. Without your help and advice I would still scratch around on my violin like an idiot, believing myself to be a great star, and in reality just copying."
I'm talking too much. Hari is smiling, he loves me best when big words are coming out of my little mouth, he listens grinning until I ask him, 'am I bragging again?"
"No, not at all, you've hardly begun!"
But today after Ernest heaping so much praise on me, Hari sits there grinning not because I'm bragging, but because I'm happy and while we drink tea, it is like Ernest and Hari, Arun and the violin. I'm satisfied with my progress, I was much worse before, when I thought I was a perfect master and only had to learn how to handle the public, how to manage the business of being a musician, while in reality I just copied this and that by ear, if it sounded nice I played it. And then when I was angry, I thought I was the supreme master, so now today I drink tea proudly presenting to myself Arun The Master III 'The Stupid Master'. I say, "you know what is the beauty of it? I'm still as stupid as before!"
Hari smiles and I can read his thought, 'don't mention it!' but he says nothing. I say, "it is true!"
Hari says, "Anna, if you tell the truth then how can you be stupid?"
I see the beauty of this too. Ernest begins to talk about a concert he wants us all to go to but then it begins to rain and Ernest decides we should go and buy umbrellas for all of us.
We drive to a hardware store, they sell chains too and I tell him, pointing at the chains and locks, "that's what you should have bought!"
Ernest and Hari look at me. To get rid of Hari, I say, "Tambi, please, ask whether they sell Deer brand umbrellas," and then continue to Ernest, "to chain me to the bed, to have your pleasure with me."
"That's not what I wanted."
"It would have been better."
Hari comes back, "Anna, they're out of stock."
"Ask what brands they have!"
"Why don't you look yourself what they have Anna?"
"Tambi, wait outside!"
Hari understands. He slips into his chappals and jumps from the stairs of the shop into the downpour.
I say to Ernest, "you should have done it!"
"No, everything is okay, don't worry!"
Ernest selects umbrellas with stylish rainbow colored plastic handles. Hari is standing outside, in the rain, his thin khadi shirt is soaked, Ernest hands him one of the umbrellas, Hari says, "I don't need it, my shirt is wet, I'd rather take it off."
I open an umbrella for Ernest and put my arm around him, repeating, "you should have done it!"
Hari asks Ernest, "what did he say?"
Ernest says, "we are talking about love."
Hari opens his new umbrella and begins to sing a film song,
The rain is washing my tears away
But it can't wash my love away
The clouds are speeding towards the plains
Is it raining in the city too?
It is a wonderful song and I translate it for Ernest, Hari is smiling, proud, dallying with the umbrella like a film star, holding it everywhere except above his head, dancing, jumping over the water-filled pot-holes in the road, singing,
My tears are dropping into the swelling river
My love is increasing like the swelling river
The water is rushing towards the plains
Is it raining in the city too?
Hari's wet shirt is clinging to his body, revealing his muscles and his nipples, he closes the umbrella to tuck up his dhoti, then opens the umbrella again,
Will the raindrops falling on your face remember you of a mountain girl?
Will the corpses floating in the river remember you of a mountain girl?
The river will carry my body towards the plains
Is it raining in the city too?
Hari is nearly crying. I tell him, " I let you walk with Ernest, Tambi, you don't need to drown yourself in a puddle."
Hari takes my place, holding the umbrella ridiculously high above Ernest's head, Hari acts the comic actor playing the stupid Brahmin servant, he asks Ernest in funny Tamil, "how is the whether up there? Down here the monsoon is not yet over."
Ernest asks Hari to call our driver, but before we can get into the car, they see a police and army store.
Hari tries police shorts and shirts, removing his wet clothes. We leave the store with a dry policeman with another pair of absurdly wide khaki half pants, khaki bush shirt, broad belt, shiny security buckle, police shoes and socks, Ernest doesn't seem to mind the expense. He asks for police underwear, but Hari tells him, "there is no need!"
Outside the shop Hari crosses the street and then to show Ernest how the shorts work, squats down to piss.
I sit in front, next to the driver, looking at the women in the street, hoping they'll notice me. Wanting to ask Ernest what else he needs, I turn and see Ernest's hand on Hari's naked knee. It is alright, I don't care, it's none of my business, but my mood is spoilt again, can't they wait until they are alone in Ernest's room?
E-mail mf.desoto@econophone.ch