It was a 7:30
on a pleasant October evening of Delhi and Shunya was waiting at the university
bus stop for a bus headed towards central secretariat. Soon, Shunya saw a girl
coming in an overcoat, like Audrey Hepburn coming from New York City of 1950s. Except
that girl, her silence, intense eyes, and sensual aura, the day had been pretty
uneventful for Shunya. She was one of Shunya’s classmates in his Master’s
program and they were going to an event of a book-launch at Max Mueller House.
The book titled ‘Cosmic Sensuality and a Post-Modern Woman’, written by one of
their socialite professors viz. Sushmita Roy, was supposed to be launched, and
release lots of wine, lust, passion and philosophy.
In the sprawling
lawns of Max Muller House, after a series of lousy lectures by Indian
bureaucrats and academicians, the audience was set free to get back to their
own universes. Shunya’s universe was wine, women, fresh cannabis and at that
moment, the pretty professor. Shunya was back into his own universe, pretty
much comfortable with semi-dry white wine, kohl-lined eyes of the Sushmita and
a small, light kiss which he showered on Sushmita’s cheeks like a ghost
appearing from nowhere to congratulate her on the book release. Soon, the
prospects of the further exploration of the ‘abstract’ curves of Sushmita and
deep alleys of her mind-body phenomenon seemed obscure with the arrival of
Andre, the German cultural consul, and the successful explorer cum adventurer
of the ‘abstract curves and deep alleys’.
Generally,
Delhi for most part of the year remains either extremely hot or extremely cold.
But that evening was one of the rare pleasant evenings of Delhi. After a few
drinks of a cool, semi-dry and peppery white wine, and the uncertainty of the
curves and sweet Bengali lips, Shunya went out for a dose of cannabis and the
cool breeze of the lawns. Shunya was not yet stoned, still he was figuring out
some illusions. It seemed as if Maria Schneider with her pouty red lips and
mystical eyes had suddenly appeared from the ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and was
gazing into his eyes through the haze of cannabis.
Shunya found
himself amidst the smokescreens of cannabis, dim yellow lights of the colonial
chandeliers, the red-burning end of his cigarette, musk and sandalwood like
rain-soaked wild smell of the cannabis and head feeling blessed with the semi-dry
Gewurztraminer. Random thoughts were coming
like a dancing wave of lust, and from a distant corner, someone with
dangerously deep blue and sleepy eyes, nicely sculptured bosoms and intense
pouty red lips was piercing through his existential and semi-mystic being. He
felt as if he was going to be possessed. He had never felt this stillness and silence
in his wildly restless mind. He had never felt so captivated, so mesmerized and
so completely drawn into an abyss of ‘haze’, red pouty lips, musky cannabis and
a warp of random thoughts ranging from transcendence to passionate lust.
“I am Yorditri
Chatterjee and I guess you are Shunya”, a melodious voice reminding of a sweet,
juicy rosogullahs filled the ears of Shunya. Shunya, speechless, stoned,
intoxicated and ‘blank’ simply felt like a passive yogi experiencing bright
colors and sounds appearing in a meditative trance. Yorditri was an exchange
student in linguistics department in Shunya’s graduate school, from the
Pantheon-Sorbonne University of Paris. Shunya had often seen the uptown French girl,
in the café of St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. But he never felt any curiosity
about the ‘silent French mystery’, except for the fact that she always reminded
him of ‘Last Tango in Paris’. For him and other Stephanians of his generation,
the exchange students were no match to the kurta-styled left-wing Stephanian
intellectuals. They were at the most seen as cannabis and rum buddies who could
be flaunted while going to Auliya sahib’s dargah and JNU campus.
Yorditri took
a deep breath inhaling the fresh cannabis, and smiled in the eyes and ears of
Shunya, like a ghost. She stepped away and tip-toed back to the ball room keeping
the same rhythm and pace as the breeze and chandeliers kept. Shunya followed
her inside the ball room. He asked her to dance and both got locked into an
intense and sensual tango for the next one hour. The glasses of wine followed
and with that, became passionate the embrace of tango. At about 10, the guests
had begun to leave, but Shunya and Yorditri were feeling as if they were locked
into each other for centuries. Soon Shunya and Yorditri found themselves in
Yorditri’s Opel Corsa, and on a long road towards Jaipur. Shunya lit a
cigarette and blew some wine soaked smoke into Yorditri’s face. Yorditri kissed
Shunya with her ‘pouty red lips’ and the kiss almost became as deep as death and
almost metaphysical by the end of it. Shunya was startled to find his instincts
and nature escaping him. Instead of a carnal, lusty soul, he felt an urge to
have a cup of tea at roadside dhaba with a stoned French beauty. The kiss had
made a connection of soul out of lips, lust, cannabis and wine.
Shunya’s
exploration or enlightenment, whatever it was, but he found himself having cup
of roadside over boiled and milky ginger tea with a girl, who came from a
culture almost unknown to Shunya in his traditional, small town-hindu
upbringing. The girl, who was, to begin with, no more than red pouty lips and a
passionate invitation to quench his lust, was felt…….., as if that connection
transcending space and time had existed for centuries.
“What is
Chatterjee doing with Yorditri?” asked Shunya. Yorditri, finding the strange
gingery concoction a bit funny; smiled and said, “My father Rudranath Chatterjee
was an Indologist and an archaeologist who came to Paris 25 years ago. He
taught and researched on old Shakta and Shaivite traditions for years. Then he
made love to his secretary Jeanne and I was born. They married on my 15th
birthday. My mom, already under influence of ancient Hindu epics and practices
of Tantra, became Osho sanyasi and left us exactly a year after their marriage.
My mother’s sanyaas was perceived as betrayal by my father. Since then,
everything in my family became European. I saw my father smoking Cuban cigars,
reflecting deep on the logical deduction and linguistics. He found a new
secretary who soon graduated to the position of a girlfriend. I was left stuck
in the vacuum. I had grown up with a French mother who recited Ramayana and
stories of Krishna to me. I saw a traditional Bengali Brahmin turned into a
beef eating atheist. Who was I? Why did I exist? Such questions became the questions of life
and death. Anxiety, anger and restlessness reigned supreme and once a doting
father became as dry as treatises of Kant. With that, I got used to define
myself with a daily dose of cocaine. With all those drugs and intoxicated lusty
nights, I found myself more and more lost, and drawn into the abyss of
depression, death and decay. The quest for my roots and the search for the
cause of my existence became a torture. Then, one day I saw my dad talking to
someone on a phone call for hours. In the night, I could hear some unfamiliar
old Hindi songs. I went to his study and could see his tearful eyes. Next
morning, when I went again to his study, I found the old man again in his dhoti
and kurta which had gone into hibernation for years. He called me and told me
about a secret which he was going to share with me. It was not just a secret.
It was a story, a story of internal journey or rather evolution which comes at
the cost of heavy sacrifices and separations. The previous night my, hitherto
unknown grandmother had died in her centuries old house at Tankapur village of
Jhansi. My father had not met her in last 30 years. The previous night his
younger brother had called him after 12 years to inform of the old lady’s
death.
I could feel a
sense of deep loss and remorse in my usually cold and logical father. I saw him
reciting the verses of Gita and Ramayana that night. After his recitals, he
told me to sit down with him. He fetched me a similar cup of gingery tea, and in
the sunny noon, he suddenly turned into a story-teller. It was the story of
Chatterjees, their European connections and their timeless dramatic journeys
across continents. It was the story of my identity.
Taraknath Chatterjee,
was born in Birbhum in an orthodox Brahmin family. He grew up studying ancient
Sanskrit epics, Shad darshan of
Hindu philosophy and the laws books of Medhatithi and Manu. In his free time,
he would often drown himself into the romanticism of Tagore. He grew up as a chaste
Brahmin with firm belief in the vows of abstinence, vegetarianism and trikaal sandhya
(Hindu ritual of praying three times or meditating three times in a day). At
the age of 18 he was married to Nandini, a young beautiful Bengali Brahmin girl
from the nearby village. Taraknath, then went to Calcutta for higher studies
and finished his Masters in History. His father wanted him to become a
Professor but his life had strange adventures in store for him. He soon joined
revolutionary terrorists and started planning bank robberies. But the British
government launched a crackdown on extremists after the Kakori train sabotage,
and all the members of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
were arrested. Luckily, he was not found guilty in any of the charges. By then
a kind of opportunism had set in among the cadres of freedom movement. On top
of it, the new bride of communism did not go well with his upbringing and
religious values. So, he decided to say good bye to politics and returned to
Calcutta. He was thinking of starting a publishing business, but soon he was
approached by Badrinath Joshi.
Badrinath
Joshi was a Peshwa
of the state of Jhansi. Badrinath Joshi, a dark skinned man with an upturned
mustache was a shrewd, shy and mysterious Peshwa of Jhansi. He was impressed
with the religious temperament, self-control and vision of Taraknath. He had
found an appropriate successor in Taraknath. He offered him to serve as his
ADC(Aide de Comp) in Jhansi.
By the end of
1930s, Taraknath had acquired the trust, prestige and manners of a nobleman. In
the winters of 1940, the royal camp was stationed in the Tarain.
The king along with his two half-polish daughters had come on a hunting expedition.
Taraknath, a non-violent Brahmin generally kept away from the violent pursuits.
He was found more often in the tents of Badrinath Ji and both would often
discuss the secrets of mystical monks of Nepal for hours in dark nights of
Tarain. On one such silent and scary night, occasionally disturbed by
thunderstorms, roaring man-eaters and drunken bouts of the princesses,
Taraknath was deep into his thoughts of finding a true siddha in
Tarai. He went out for a stroll lost deep into his flights of supernatural
siddhas. Suddenly, Taraknath was seeing a human form slithering like a 500 year
old venomous cobra. The human form was wearing a big turban and moving fast
towards the Badrinath Ji’s tent with his serpentine aura. He went closer and
now he could see the dense, bushy mustaches, blood-red eyes, a black tika and a
small iron case. Now he was sure that it was none other than Dilawar Khan, the
head of the mystic bands of kali-worshipping thugs.
Although, the
thugs had been officially wiped out from the sub-continent almost a century
ago, but the sub continental culture and religion always had safe shelters for
such esoteric regimes. This Indian subcontinent was like a magician, expert in
interweaving myths and realities with such dexterity that any attempt to
explore the truth was bound to disturb your neurons, unfold another
metaphysical illusion and a journey into the unknown. The thugs of yesteryears
could today be nagas or naths or Sufis or even man-eating tigers in imagination
of the common people, who always lived an existence on the edge of illusion,
transcendence and reality.
Taraknath was
stunned to find this cold-blooded killer-cum-mystic in the tent of Badrinath Ji.
He followed Dilawar Khan and tried to overhear the conversation between the
two. Badrinath Ji was chanting ‘om namo bhagwate vasudevaya’. He
finished his chant and ushered Dilawar in. He told Dilawar that the place was
not appropriate for the conversation so they should go out for a walk.
Taraknath followed the two dark human instincts. He walked for a mile chasing
them in the dead and dark night occasionally challenged by fire-flies and stick
insects in its regime of blackness, stillness and fear. After a mile, the ‘two dark instincts
stopped’ and with them the narrow track also stopped at the mouth of deep
valley below which icy Himalayan waters of Alaknanda were gushing forth with
wild force. Dilawar khan handed a meter-long golden wrist-band whose priceless
rubies, safires and diamonds were piercing through the dark night and giving an
appearance of a divine light emanating from Himalayan holiness. It seemed as if
they had produced a Jinnat
with its superhuman aura and radiance.
Dilawar Khan
asked for a safe passage to king’s ancestral treasure which had the ancient
statue of Goddess Kali. For a moment, Taraknath Ji could not make anything of
the statue story. Then he remembered the legend of a certain statue being
looted by the king’s great grandfather in one of his raids against the thugs,
and continuous efforts of the Thugs to reclaim it as it was divine. However, the
statue wasn’t just an object of religious devotion. It was an object of
priceless gold, supernatural myths and the pride of the cult of thugs.
All this
conversation was going on, and Taraknath Ji was still trying to find his
space-time coordinates in that night of legends, reality, secrets, greed and
illusions. The very next moment the ‘pious’ Badrinath Ji whipped out a dagger
with his nimble hands and stabbed Dilawar Khan who fell into the waters of Alak
Nanda, like a mystic taking Jal Samadhi. Badrinath Ji, calm and composed turned
around and saw another nimble and pious fellow. BadrinathJi shocked and scared,
confessed the truth that he was himself an old thug and was masquerading as
Peshwa to steal the statue. But the pleasures of the court spoiled his mind and
he betrayed the cause of his cult. He was making a deal with Dilawar in which
he promised the access to the statue in return of the cursed bracelet. The
bracelet was given by Nana Sahab Peshwa to
one of his Pindari soldier Mangal Rai before he fled to the jungles of Nepal
and became an ascetic. Since then, the king of Jhansi has been after that
bracelet in very secret ways, but the thugs kept it as a treasured secret.
Badrinath Ji confessed that he wanted to have the bracelet, statue, leadership
of thugs and the peshwahood, which led him to murder Dilawar khan. The humble,
pious and spiritual Taraknath Ji did not lose even a second in piercing
Badrinath Ji with his dagger, and returned with the cursed bracelet.
Next morning,
in the royal camp there was shock, surprise and suspicions. When the search
parties returned without much success, it was assumed that the man-eaters of
Tarain had a royal feast previous night. Raja Bhadra Bahadur Singh was already
getting suspicious of the activities and linkages of Badrinath Ji Bhatt with
the dreaded cult of thugi. Soon, Taraknath was appointed as Peshwa.
Now, Taraknath
was at the pinnacle of his power. He had uncontrolled authority over the state,
the trust of king, access to the cursed Kali statue and the priceless ancient
bracelet. On top of this, he had a loving, loyal and a pious wife who had given
birth to two healthy sons, Bhanudutt Chatterjee and Rudranath Chatterjee, and
one daughter Ambika. Things were going perfectly fine at a slow meditative
pace, and then one day after the New Year celebration with the British resident
Ronald Brown, the king asked Taraknath Ji to escort Catherine, his Polish Queen
to Tara Manzil, the palace built by the king in Roman architectural style for
his Polish queen.
Catherine was
born to a Polish dancer as a result of conspiracy plot hatched to round up a
Russian noble. After the murder of the adulterous noble Polish spy-cum dancer
Romana escaped with her illegitimate child Catherine, and ended up in France as
a Belle dancer. In those days, Shambhu Nath Trivedi, a famous experimentalist
in fusing the dances of the west and east was travelling Europe with his
troupe. Catherine, an expert belle dancer joined his troupe and ended up in
India. During one of the performances of the troupe, the king Bhadra Bahadur
Singh was captivated by the sensual charms and conspiring eyes of the belle
dancer and she became a queen. However, she had still kept her affiliations
with Europe intact and was very European in her ways.
While seeing
her off to Tara Manzil,
Catherine smiled. The smile was unique as it emanated in the ‘conspiring eyes’
and went straight into the groins of Taraknath Ji. When he said goodbye to
Catherine, he suddenly felt a grasp of maddening lips on his lips. For Taraknath
Ji, this heavenly sport of lip gymnastics was completely unknown as, so far his
lips were employed for chanting vedic mantras only. This bold, sensual and intoxicating
European invasion turned the world of Taraknath Ji upside down.
From the next
day Taraknath Ji’s religious vows became less and less rigorous. The orthodox
Brahmin was now exploring the domains of natyashastra
and depth of ‘conspiring eyes’ which soon became the center of Taraknath Ji’s
life and through him the state’s life. Then one day Catherine introduced, Karl
Bernhardt, an Italian Jewish jeweler, and a genius who had lost his fortunes in
gambling, wine and voluptuous royal ladies of Europe, to Taraknath Ji. Karl
Bernhardt, was a man of 1000 secrets and endless ways of charming. The
blue-eyed Italian was a man of several hats. He was a connoisseur of stones, a
magician, musician, poet, painter and an artillery man. A smooth
conservationist had all the skills and potential for becoming a conman. How he
knew Catherine was a mystery which could never be resolved. Catherine got him
appointed as artillery trainer in the court. With his smooth ways and charms,
he took no time in conquering the hearts and trust of the two princesses, the
king and Taraknath Ji. Taraknath Ji’s life was slowly getting deep into the
vortex of Catherine and Karl. Finally, Karl could convince Taraknath Ji to open
an armaments factory which would manufacture revolvers for the European
nobility. Taraknath Ji’s wife had said a strict no to this proposal as it was
against the Brahman dharma
but by then Taraknath Ji had remained Brahmin only in name. The European
invasion of lips had changed the identity of several centuries. And, he also
had to invest the hoard of treasure which he had found in Tarain.
Karl began to
visit Taraknath Ji’s house and these visits became frequent with the passage of
time. Business plans were discussed, contractors were hired and things were
going at a rapid pace. Soon Taraknath Ji decided to resign from his Peshwahood
and devote fully to the industrial venture. By then Karl had become a
confidante of Taraknath Ji and there was no secret left to be shared between
the two. It was the summer of 1934 when finally the site for the factory was
spotted. It was in the outskirts of his village Tankapur, at about a mile from
the banks of river Rewa. Taraknath Ji had chosen this place instead of big city
because he had special attachment for river Rewa. He would always spend his
evening meditating on the banks of river Rewa. In the morning he would go to
the river to do his morning prayers and Surya Namaskar. Rewa was the source of his eternal, spiritual
and material prosperity. The evenings spent on the banks of Rewa sent him into
reflective moods and strengthened his faith in his supremely powerful destiny
and almighty.
Everything was
in order but then one night he heard of the murder of the queen Catherine. Next
morning, Karl was not to be found anywhere. With the queen something else was
also missing. There was no Kali statue and the ancient bracelet. Completely
shell-shocked and numb, Taraknath Ji went into maddening isolation for the next
one month. His dreams had been shattered and, his firm, stable and composed
mind was pierced mercilessly. When he came out, he resigned from the Peshwaship
and boarded a ship to Europe with his daughter Ambika, who he was most attached
to, to find Karl. He contacted his friends from British intelligence and on the
basis of vague and distorted leads he travelled from one city to another city in
Europe. His first station in Europe was Paris. He had heard that Karl had
become a theatre artist so he started frequenting the theatre groups of Paris
arts club. In a few months, he was himself acting in the post first world-war
surrealist plays, and the Renaissance plays like Robert Garnier’s Brademante.
He became a decently successful theatre artist and an occasional conqueror of
red Parisian lips. His Brahmin ways and the life-style had been left far
behind. There was no dhoti and no vows of abstinence. He was drinking Cabernet
Sauvignon and Nepoleon Brandy. Ambika, growing up with him in the elitist
Parisian artistic circle had become a creature who her mother would never be
able to recognize.
Still,
somewhere deep down inside, Taraknath Ji’s heart was stuck in Karl. He, then
heard that Karl was running a painting workshop in Vienna for the royal ladies.
He shifted to Vienna with Ambika. He lived there in poshest localities,
befriended royal ladies, counts and the nobility. He spent large sums of money
on countless parties, operas, painting schools, belle dances, in a hope to find
Karl, but without success. Then in 1937 he moved to Dresden in Germany. He
lived there for two years as he had heard that Karl had joined German communist
movement. He made inroads into the intellectual clubs, secret societies,
communist gatherings and communist groups in the universities of Berlin.
Finally, he heard that Karl was attending a secret society in Leipzig
University. He went there with Ambika, who was now 19 year old beautiful girl
who could charm and kill anyone with her Bengali eyes and European mannerisms.
In Leipzig, the meeting was raided by Gestapo, and with other communists
Taraknath Ji was also caught. However, he was released after a few months when
nothing was found against him.
During his
stay in Germany, Ambika had fallen in love with a Bulgarian Communist and later
a radical humanist, Apostolov. She eloped with Apostolov. It was rumored that
she was masquerading as a drama artist in UK but in reality was spying for
Germany, with her husband. After the German invasion on Russia, both of them
escaped to Russia.
With no
success and a loss of daughter, Taraknath Ji had become a sad and desolate man.
He had ruined all his savings in Europe. After wandering aimlessly for few more
years, he decided to go back to the ever-embracing arms of Rewa.
In 1949, when
he returned to India, things had completely changed. Jhansi was full of
protesters and Satyagrahis asking for the end of kingship. The ailing king
Bhadra Bhadur Singh was suffering from acute liver cirrhosis, and there were
rumors of revolt. The administration had virtually collapsed. In the royal
circles, across the nation, the new home minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel was
a new threat. Some royalties accused the British of treachery as the power was
being transferred to the democratically elected new government rather than the
old kings. The new leadership of Patel and Nehru had faith in socialist ideas,
and were an arch enemy of kings and princes. A faction of the Rajput
principalities in Rajasthan was even dreaming of secession from India, and they
had requested King Bhadra Bhadur Singh to join them. But Bhadra Bahadur Singh
had lost the mental, moral and physical courage to participate in any kind of
armed revolt. After the murder of Catherine, the two princesses were sent to
Europe from where they never came back. With the resignation of Taraknath Ji,
the administration collapsed gradually. The king had even lost the interest in
the affairs of the state. He used to spend most of his time in religious
pursuits but it was too late. The physical illness was getting severe with
every passing day and he could visualize the waning moon of his life.
At home,
Nandini, his wife now had a wrinkled face, fatigued eyes, countless white hair,
and an aura of piety which comes, often with wisdom and renunciation at the
dusk of a life lived in spiritual pursuits. Her two sons had finished their
bachelors from Allahabad University. They were those young lads who were going
to spend their youth in a free India, and hence they had passion, energy and
determination. Nandini’s fatigued eyes gleamed once again on seeing Taraknath
Ji. She once again felt young and romantic. Even the king and the other
minsters felt that their savior had come, and Taraknath Ji will fix the
problems of the administration. But, Taraknath Ji was a different man now. He
was as dead as iron extracted from the Ruhr valley and as cold as steel. He was
a man who felt that he had lost everything i.e. wealth, power, character,
ambition and a loving daughter. He had
learned the vedic mantras in the traditional Brahmin families of Birbhum,
history in Calcutta, treachery and politics from Badrinath Ji in Tarai, erotic
sensuality in the bosoms of Catherine, intellectual sophistry in the creative
circles of Paris and Vienna, and after this progressive evolution of his
psychophysical being there was still something missing and that was detachment
and renunciation. It took years of wanderings across the Indian subcontinent
and the journey of 1000s of miles to the continent of Europe that taught him
the true meaning of detachment.
He lived for
another 30 years. In those years of fading energy, oblivion, isolation, he was often
seen sitting on the banks of river Rewa. Sometimes he would cry, sometimes he
would sing songs which ranged from folk Bengali songs to the compositions of
Mozart and Beethoven. At times he was seen mediating near Rewa. He had become too
old, weak and almost emaciated. No one could ever tell he was once a Diwan and
a successful entrepreneur, No one could ever imagine on seeing that old dark
bag of bones with unshaven, poorly grown white beard had charmed and seduced classiest of the European
royal ladies and belle dancers of Paris. People say that his wife had almost
confined herself to her daily prayers, but she was with him until the end. For
her, he was still the old, powerful, shrewd and handsome Diwan. His sons, after
Allahabad never looked back. His daughter and Apostolov were last heard of as
prisoners on the concentration camps of Siberia and his younger son had moved
abroad for his higher studies.
Finally, it is
said that one day he went as usual to Rewa and never returned back.
It was five in
the morning and the outskirts of Delhi were getting colder signaling the
arrival of spine-chilling winters. The Sun that morning was a rare phenomenon
in the life of Shunya. He was having a glimpse of the wet and red morning son
after years. In that wet and red morning sunrise, a cute French girl sipping
tea and radiating fresh innocence through her eyes made Shunya feel like a
living man. He felt as if he was getting energy shots and the last six years of
his life were rolling like a film in front of him. He had spent those years in
the opiated, illusory and false world of wine, lust, arrogance and Stephanian
pseudo-intellectualism. Those six years of his dehumanization had taken life
and the sharpness of perceptions out of him. The sun of hope, brought by a
random encounter with a French exchange student had brought a focus, clarity of
thoughts and a realization, a kind of enlightenment in Shunya’s life.
Shunya went
back to his college. He lived in Mukarjee east residential hall of St. Stephens
College. That day, he lived his life like a normal man, finishing his
assignments and felling the difference of sunrise and sunset. Next morning he
and Yorditri went to Tankapur in an old ambassador taxi. Instead of her
grandfather’s house, she decided to visit the banks of Rewa. It was the dusk
and sun was setting. She saw Rewa, as young and as happy as it was in the days
of Taraknath Ji.
She could see
a foreigner sitting on the banks of Rewa. She went closer and found the Osho
Sanyasi Maa Jeanne smiling with the serenity of Rewa and trying to caress the
soul of Rewa in the mystic silence of the cosmos.
