“God knows,” I said and passed on.
“Let her be with her parents a little longer, if she wishes—no harm in it, although to see you stick to home, I would wish she were here.”
Two weeks later Rajam came back from Coimbatore. I received her at the railway station and immediately my daughter ran forward and clung to my arms. I took them home in a tonga. All the way, in the carriage as we drove along, Rajam narrated the events that had taken place at Coimbatore on the eve of her departure. “My father was not too happy to let me go even last evening.”
“Oh—impossible man!” I cried.
“Just as we were leaving, our house-owner, you know that fat man, came in with some demand. My father lost his temper, and then the man shouted wildly, ‘Vacate my house immediately.’ Just as they were arguing, a black scorpion fell from the roof-tile where I stood, and I narrowly escaped being bitten. My father felt that these were inauspicious signs and wanted me to postpone my journey.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “That would have been impossible. Your father seems to be quarrelsome!”
“But you see me here, why blame him at all? I’d not have delayed my return. You seem to fret so much. I only stayed back for my sister’s sake. I am happy I could see her—that was all.”
Within a hundred days of her arrival, Rajam had departed from this world. She caught typhoid in early May and collapsed in the first week of June 1939. Looking back it seems as if she had had a premonition of her end, and had wanted to stay back with her parents and sister. I have described this part of my experience of her sickness and death in The English Teacher so fully that I do not, and perhaps cannot, go over it again. More than any other book, The English Teacher is autobiographical in content, very little part of it being fiction. The “English teacher” of the novel, Krishna, is a fictional character in the fictional city of Malgudi; but he goes through the same experience I had gone through, and he calls his wife Susila, and the child is Leela instead of Hema. The toll that typhoid took and all the desolation that followed, with a child to look after, and the psychic adjustments, are based on my own experience. That book falls in two parts—one is domestic life and the other half is “spiritual.” Many readers have gone through the first half with interest and the second half with bewilderment and even resentment, perhaps feeling that they have been baited with the domestic picture into tragedy, death, and nebulous, impossible speculations. The dedication of the book to the memory of my wife should to some extent give the reader a clue that the book may not be all fiction; still, most readers resist, naturally, as one always does, the transition from life to death and beyond.
The loss of my wife was sudden and not even remotely anticipated by me—although my father-in-law had had his doubts while looking into my horoscope earlier. But now I had to accept her death as a fact. One had to get used to the idea of death, even while living. If you have to accept life, you are inevitably committed to the notion of death also. And yet one cannot stop living, acting, working, planning—some instinct drives one on. Perhaps death may not be the end of everything as it seems—personality may have other structures and other planes of existence, and the decay of the physical body through disease or senility may mean nothing more than a change of vehicle. This outlook may be unscientific, but it helped me survive the death of my wife—though I had missed her so badly while she was away at Coimbatore. I could somehow manage to live after her death and, eventually, also attain a philosophical understanding.
But it was not easily attained. The course was full of hardship, doubts, and despair against a perpetual, unrelenting climate of loneliness. I never hoped that I could ever take any more interest in the business of living, much less in writing. But it was Graham Greene who said in his letter of condolence, “. . . I don’t suppose you will write for months, but eventually you will.” A hope corroborated by another friend, a mystic, Dr. Paul Brunton (to whom I shall refer again), who said one night at the end of an after-dinner walk, “You will write a book which is within you, all ready now, and it is bound to come out sooner or later, when you give yourself a chance to write.” These remarks I accepted without contradiction, but I felt clearly within my mind that I would never write a word again in my life. I had lost my anchorage. There was no meaning in existence. Dismal emptiness stretched before me. There were a hundred mementoes and reminders each day that were deeply tormenting. I could not bear to stay in the room I had once shared with my wife. I slept in the hall. I tried to cut away from every little reminder, but the scent of Dettol and of burnt margosa leaf permeated the walls and haunted me night and day. (The fumes of margosa, in addition to Dettol, were supposed to destroy all infection.) I found it impossible to wake up in the morning and get through the daily routine of washing, eating, clothing, and so on. I suffered from a horrible numbness. My mother and brothers felt distressed at the manner in which I was slipping down. I avoided company. Late in the evening I sallied out for a walk, smoked a few cigarettes, avoided all friends, and came back in time to put my daughter to sleep. I had to give her a great deal of my company in order to make up for her mother’s absence. She slept in a bed next to mine in the hall, and had adapted herself to the change in a most handsome manner. She never asked questions. Her uncles and grandmother at home were devoted to her, looked after her, and diverted her mind with visits to the zoo, shops, and movies; plenty of toys came to her by every mail. We kept the door of her mother’s room permanently closed. On the actual day of the funeral, the child had been sent away to the zoo early, before she could notice anything.
She had been trained to keep away from her mother’s room since the day the fever had been diagnosed as typhoid. And now, more than ever, she was not supposed to go near that door. Yet two weeks later, the child gleefully confided to me, “I know she is not there. I pushed the door, it opened, and I peeped in.”
“They have taken her to the hospital,” I explained lamely.
She was just three years old, but displayed a considerateness which was precocious. She never questioned me or anyone about her mother again.
More painful than the bereavement was the suggestion from well-meaning but foolish men that I should remarry sooner or later. When someone spoke thus, I spat fire at them. I had had a Tamil pandit at college who met me at the market-place and said, “Lost your wife? How dreadful! You must remarry soon. When old clothes are gone, you have to buy new ones. When she has left you without a thought, why should you care?” He spoke as if my wife had deserted me. Many searing retorts welled up within me, but I suppressed them. A lawyer in our street peeped over our gate to say, “Sorry, mister. I have also suffered the same fate. You must and will get over it.” He had lost four wives in his matrimonial career and remarried each time, but at the moment was again a widower. “Your solution does not seem to have worked in your case,” I wanted to say, but again swallowed my remarks.
My sister at Madras suggested that I should go over there for a change of atmosphere and spend some days at her house, where my daughter could have the company of her children. Everyone urged me to go away from Mysore, from oppressive surroundings and reminders. So, one afternoon, I packed a trunk with our clothes and set off for Madras by the afternoon mail.
The need to keep up an appearance of cheerfulness and interest in living helped me a great deal. I had to amuse the child so that she might not turn round and suddenly demand her mother’s attention. She enjoyed the train journey and later was lost in the company of other children at Madras. Plenty of toys, dolls, playmates, and games—she was happy. In a few days, she had got into the routine of her aunt’s home on Cathedral Road, and did not see much of me. At night, when she felt sleepy, she needed to be put to bed by me; at other times she left me very much alone.
My sister had given me a room in her house, and I kept myself to it very much. I tried to read a little. I tried to resume my writing for The Hindu. There was a beach at the eastern end of Cathedral Road, and I managed to spend a long time each day w
alking through the sands and along the surf for a mile or two towards Santhome and back; the bright sun and blue sea in the evening, the stars and phosphorescent waves, the far-off lights of steamers on the horizon at night, the cool waves lapping up to the knee (I walked barefoot, tucking up my dhoti)—all this pulled me, so to speak, out of a shell of memories and speculations. When I ploughed my way back home through the sands, I felt tranquil. Every little experience at such moments heightened and refined my perceptions. Gradually, memories of funerals and details of the sick-room began to fade and in their place I tried to catch and retain the moments of elation I felt at the touch, sight, and sound of the sea.
Walking was my only occupation. I had no friends. I was not interested in movies, and I found all books tedious. I could walk endlessly, morning and evening. I found walking a great help; while one foot follows another, with a minimum watchfulness to avoid the traffic, one’s mind becomes more passive and receptive and acquires a rhythm in which one’s thoughts, philosophy, and conclusions get properly sorted out. I must have walked several miles each day. My ideas were changing and becoming clarified. I still could not bring myself to the point of writing. I was confirmed in my mind that I would not write any more. None of the elements that would normally stimulate one to write was there—no curiosity, no interest in people or my surroundings, no desire for achievement of any sort, or for a future, which seemed relevant only to the extent that it involved the child.
One evening while returning home from the beach, a cousin of mine whom I had lost sight of long before, who worked in an import firm in George Town, accosted me at a street crossing and expressed his condolence, which I accepted mutely, and we stood there not knowing what to say further. He added, “I wanted to write to you, but somehow put it off. . . .” I listened with indifference. During the recent months I had been the recipient of so many sympathetic remarks that I was beginning to accept them with a professional casualness. I could listen to an hour’s sympathetic address stonily, without saying a word in reply. Depending upon the age of the speaker, I could sense what was coming: a hint—or blatant advice—to remarry, or rally oneself, grit one’s teeth, steep oneself in work, and so forth. The talk went on the expected lines, and as I was about to say “Thanks, good-bye,” and turn away, he said something that held me. “I have a friend, Raghunatha Rao, have you met him? You will find him interesting. He lives nearby, come with me. He is an interesting man.” At first I resisted his suggestion, but he was insistent and I yielded. I had nothing much to do one way or another. Dinner time was only at nine o’clock at my sister’s house, and my daughter would not look for me until after her cousins had gone to bed.
This street-corner encounter, though it looked so casual, led on to contacts and experiences which profoundly affected my future, and saved me from disintegration.
Raghunatha Rao lived in a little house in Mylapore, in a private road, behind the Royapetta tramline, under the shade of a coconut grove; so peaceful that one could hardly imagine that only one hundred yards away tram wheels screeched and ground the face of the earth. Mr. Rao was a robust-looking man, in his early forties perhaps, full of gusto and good cheer. He received us at the top step of his verandah, explaining, “You will excuse me for staying where I am. I like to ascend or descend as little as possible.” He took me in and introduced me to his wife in an inner room—a pale, slender person, extremely gentle in speech and movement. He introduced me as the author whose stories they liked—they particularly remembered two or three ghost stories that had appeared in The Hindu. His rippling good humor seemed contagious, and I stayed with him for an hour joking and laughing. Evidently my cousin must have hinted to him of my loss, and after coffee and conversation when we parted, he said, “Why don’t you come on Wednesday evening about six o’clock? We are conducting some psychic experiments and you may find them interesting.”
I was not sure that I wanted any of it. So I said, “Thanks. I’ll come if I am free,” and left it at that.
My cousin, who accompanied me, said, “Nice chap, he is interested in all sorts of things. He has suddenly got this new interest; and I make fun of his latest hobby, but he has a sense of humour. He is a lawyer, you know; but he is rich and doesn’t have to practise very much, and can afford to indulge his interests, mostly religious. Both husband and wife are alike.” He bade me good-night and added, “You may go any time you like to Rao, and you will like his company; don’t go if you don’t like to, on Wednesday.”
On Wednesday, I debated within myself if I should meet Rao or not; I had no faith in spiritualism, which seemed to oversimplify the whole problem of life and death with its trappings and lingo. In any case, on Wednesday I started out for the beach without any definite plan in mind, and on an impulse turned along the tramline and on to Rao’s house. He was happy and seated me in the hall and engaged himself in casual talk. At about six-thirty his wife came in and said, “Ready.”
“Put another chair for our friend, he may want to watch, would you like to come in?”
They took me into a small chamber, with curtains drawn. A small round table with sheets of paper and a dozen pencils mended were kept on it. He showed me a chair, and sat opposite to me. His wife sat to his right. Before settling down he said, “We are only trying and experimenting—I have no definite views on this subject. I am generally sceptical, but when I was writing down something, some months ago, I felt that my hand was being forced by some other power, and I let it go, and there came out of it certain writing, which interested us. And so, at the same hour on the same day, we sit and try and certain scribblings occur, which sometimes turn out to be prayers or hymns. We have been going through this for several weeks now. When I sit up alone, nothing happens. But when my wife sits along with me, a lot of writing comes through. When we get a third person in, sometimes everything stops and the visitor will generally go away after making fun of us. But the presence of some persons who are psychically inclined may prove helpful. I wonder what your company is going to mean to us today. . . . Let us see.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. You just sit there and watch and don’t say anything when my hand starts writing. . . . Only keep an open mind. Don’t obstruct with negative thoughts. After all, only thirty minutes by the watch . . .”
During those thirty minutes, he held the pencil over the sheet of paper and it moved and filled the pages in large letters. “Your band of helpers are here, and welcome your visitor today. We are aware that he has suffered a recent bereavement, lost a person he loved. We can see that his heart is still very heavy and anguished. If we could help him, and others like him, to understand the nature of life and death, and relieve the pain at heart, we will have achieved our purpose. Death is only the vanishing point of the physical framework in which a personality is cast and functions; that same personality is unperceived before a conception, and will be lost sight of again at death, which we repeat is a vanishing point and not the end. . . .” Thus it went on sheet after sheet, at a pace of writing which was not normal—the pencil points broke off or tore through the paper. At one stage, the pencil said, “The lady is here, but will not communicate with her husband directly yet. By and by, perhaps, when she is calmer. She is somewhat agitated today, since this is her first effort to communicate with her husband. She is disturbed by the grief of her husband. We on this side are directly affected by the thoughts emanating in your plane, and do our best to set your minds at peace. Today, she feels happy that there is an opening created and she could make some effort to influence your thoughts. . . .The lady wants to assure you that she exists but in a different state, she wants you to lighten your mind too, and not to let gloom weigh you down. She says, now you are told I am here; by and by when you have attuned yourself, you will feel without proof or argument that I am at your side and that will transform your outlook. She advises you not to let anxiety develop about the child. She is well, and she will grow up well. I watch her. I now see her in a room, w
earing a blue skirt, and playing with another child; they have three dolls between them. The lady says good-bye until next week.”
Thirty minutes were over, and twenty-four hundred words had been written, which is an extraordinary speed of writing. If you could write by hand five thousand words an hour, a novel of eighty thousand words should be completed in sixteen hours! As a professional writer, I ought to envy anyone who can drive a pen at this speed! Rao himself was surprised, and confessed, “Don’t you imagine that this is my normal writing. It takes me a whole hour to fill the back of a postcard, and then I am stuck for ideas after the second line. . . . That’s the reason why I’m reluctant to answer letters and thus have lost the goodwill of many relatives and friends.”
Apart from the actual details of paper, pencil, and speed, I began to sense Rajam’s presence at that table. What she is supposed to have said or Rao’s pencil wrote was secondary. The actual presence felt at this sitting in the stillness and dimness of that little room had a profound effect on me. When I went home that evening, I felt lighter at heart. I remember there was a quarter moon in the sky—its light seemed deeper and more subtle than ever—the air seemed bracing—everything looked subtler and richer. When I went back to my room, the child, I noticed, was poring over a picture book, hardly looking up to note my arrival. I was happy to be ignored. I did not stop to verify what the colour of her dress was—whether blue or some other colour, whether she had been playing with three dolls or two at the time. All that factual side seemed to me immaterial. Even if Mr. Rao had had his own sources of enquiry and was dashing off the information at the sitting, even if Rao caught telepathically whatever went on in my or anyone else’s mind, it did not matter to me. Even if the whole thing was a grand fraud, it would not matter. What was important was the sensing of the presence in that room, which transformed my outlook. The medium, after all, was a human being, his mind and his writing could be subject to many shortcomings and trickeries, both conscious and unconscious. But I still valued the experience for its final effect on me. All through the week I looked forward to the next meeting. On Wednesday, I was there again at Rao’s house. And then again. Of course, much of the writing was of doubtful value or could even be rejected as sheer nonsense. At the same time there came through flashes of unquestionable evidence—such as reference to a piece of jewellery in a box of whose existence I was not aware, some incident or remarks at her brother’s house which could be verified. Although I felt indifferent about such research during her communications, she urged me to follow them up, and I pursued them for her sake. I came across surprising facts that way. Sometimes, unasked, she would give an answer to some personal problems passing in my mind on my way to Rao’s house. But, at first, I treated them as possible telepathic readings by Mr. Rao himself—some details would be startling, such as where I thought of such and such questions, and who was with me at that time. Even if all that were only Rao’s telepathic competence, it still seemed to me extraordinary. Telepathy? Well, what if? How did it reduce the value of the experience? Apart from it all, what really mattered to me ultimately was the specific directions that she gave step by step in order to help me attain clarity of mind and receptivity.