Blind Faith. Sagarika Ghose

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      Rain whispered in the cherry tree outside. In her room – where Mithu had often burst in smelling of chicken essence demanding explanations about men and music; where Anand had knocked softly when she had a fever and laid his palm on her hot forehead – was the painting that contained him. She kicked off her shoes, sat cross-legged on her bed and peered at it on the wall. Yes, the face in Anand’s painting was exactly like that of the man at the Purification Rally. She could see no difference.

      She had seen him every day for the last seven years. She had watched him looming above her Raggedy Anne. She had studied him in the evenings, glowing in the light of her bedside lamp. Her father’s gift to her on her twenty-first birthday had been his painting of the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious festival in the world.

      ‘What an experience, Maya,’ Anand had exulted. ‘How can I describe it so you will understand? Imagine a huge Hindu Woodstock … a spiritual Glastonbury… crowds of people! Thousands! Hundred thousands! The water with the sun overhead, mist along the banks, sadhus and nuns, tourists, yoga teachers, a giant celebration of being a nobody.’

      ‘A nobody?’ she had asked.

      ‘Sure, a nobody. That’s what we are. Non-entities next to a river that is millions of years old. One of India’s greatest contributions to world civilizations is the idea of the naked body. The naked body not as a pornographic product, but as a civilizational ideal, the most pristine surrender to being a nobody, a non-individual, nothing but a technological member of the Milky Way.’

      Anand had bought her a dog-eared copy of GS Ghurye’s Indian Sadhus written half a century ago. The sadhus and their ascetic reformist spirit was unique to India, Mia read. But while some are beautiful lotuses, the vast majority have become unhealthy scum. Only when the water begins to flow again and the people are awakened to life, then, and only then, will the scum be carried away. Until life returns to that long dead spirit of rebellion and renunciation, sadhus will remain monstrous distortions of the ascetic ideal.

      Sadly, no one was interested enough in the ascetic spirit to re-ignite the flame of philosophical protest that once burned so brightly. The relegation of almost the entire tradition of sadhus to hippies and dharma bums, to comic book depictions by India’s scornful elite, Anand said, was no less a tragedy than the intellectual conquest of India by the British. Indian historians write of workers, peasants and kings, but they never write of sadhus or the Kumbh Mela because their minds are imprisoned in scorn – scorn for themselves and a squeamishness about their own traditions.

      None of Anand’s paintings had been as talked about, as written about or as appreciated as this particular painting. It had been displayed at the Tate Modern. At the back of the painting, Anand had written in black paint: To my dearest little Maya, love from Papa. ‘Maya’ was an improvement on ‘Mia’ Anand had said. Mia was as pretty as a Hollywood heroine, but Maya meant god’s dream.

      The Kumbh Mela or the Festival of the Pitcher. Every four years, on the banks of the Ganga, thousands gathered to take a dip in the river in the conviction that the cleansing bath would wash away their sins. If they didn’t gain peace in the after-life or everlasting union with the almighty, at least there might be a raise in salary or favourable rates of interest in a new bank loan. In Anand’s depiction, a ghostly white river arched across the painting like a sky. Below the river sky, pilgrims, ascetics, elephants and cattle-drawn carts were drawn in painstaking detail. In the foreground was a face in magnified close-up, of a young bespectacled priest with black hair down to his shoulders and a thick beard down to his collarbones.

      And under the hair and beard, a careless slant of cheekbone and a thin line of jaw.

      ‘All well?’ Her SkyVision producer asked the next morning. ‘How are you feeling today?’

      ‘Fine. Sorry. Just a headache suddenly. Bit strange living with my mother after all these years…’

      ‘Get them today, won’t you?’

      ‘Definitely.’

      ‘Not yoga instructors…not Kashmiri protestors. So what is this Purification Journey all about? Should make a cute tailpiece.’

      ‘Yes.’ She felt his hand on her arm, ‘Never heard of them before, I must confess.’

      ‘Mia,’ He gripped her elbow. ‘We’re a little worried about you, darling. You’ve not been yourself lately. You need to get back into the swing of things. Your mind is all over the place; you’re simply not being able to concentrate. You forget something almost every day. Is there something wrong?’

      ‘ I’m fine,’ she shook herself free. ‘ I’m absolutely fine.’

      ‘If you carry on like this, you’ll need some help,’ he said firmly. ‘We all think so.’

      ‘Oh rubbish!’ she tossed over her shoulder. ‘Just been a bit preoccupied, that’s all.’

      ‘It’s your dad, isn’t it?’

      ‘Come on, it’s been a whole year.’

      ‘Then stop acting as if you’re going mad.’

      ‘Fuck off!’ she laughed. Mad! That tired term used by men to dismiss women, as the sisterhood says. Maybe Rochester locked his wife away because she was a real big cheese.

      ‘You’re losing it, child,’ his voice echoed after her as she ran through sparklingly empty corridors. ‘You need a break.’

      She confronted him again.

      He was standing among the group, standing very still, as if concentrating hard. The red-haired man was shouting, ‘We are in the process of getting ready for a new Inner War! The war to save our values! The war to save our ability to love! A war to save our families! To save ourselves from ourselves!’

      The men were all young. They were tall, spare, a ramp-row of trendy faith-healers in their white clothes; a chorus-line of groovy godmen.

      She walked up to him. When lightning waits behind a thundercloud, the cloud looks perfectly calm. Only when the lightning bursts out suddenly from behind, does the cloud shine jaggedly. The traffic that rumbled around Marble Arch was as loud as always. But when his voice sounded in her ear, for a moment, everything jangled louder than a fairground.

      ‘Yes?’

      Through his glasses, his eyes on her were sharp and interested. She felt angry that he looked only interested instead of instantly passionate. She felt the atmosphere between them grow charged with memories.

      ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘Can I help you?’ His voice sounded hoarse, as if he was speaking from the back of his throat.

      ‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘I’m a journalist. You know, a reporter? Television? SkyVision channel. I’ve come to interview you. There’s’ – she pointed to the bulky denim jacket – ‘the cameraman.’

      ‘Me? СКАЧАТЬ