I am going to die before the
night is out.
I know it. I can feel it. There
is a strange stillness in the air that heralds the end of
life for me. Leaves rustle without wind. Wings of birds flutter
ominously as they nestle amongst each other in sleep. The
thin curtain shimmers as though hiding something sinister
behind it. A dog howls at the moon, it seems to me like it
is baying for the dead. The day’s dust has finally settled
even as the sun is readying to rise again. And I have just
broken the vow.
#
In the remotest interiors of
India, there exists an unremarkable village with common people
doing very ordinary things. The place is not very large,
is neither near the highway nor the sea, has neither natural
scenic beauty nor historical importance, no popular film
star has made a home in it, neither is it the haunt of a
notorious bandit, it does not even have pukka roads
leading to anywhere worthwhile. In all respects, it is a
normal village like any other with its solitary grocery store,
its eccentric headman, the usual farms and fields and the
regular mix of the competent and incompetents. In spite of
this relative anonymity, Madkijamb lays proud claim to a
significant statistic in the annals of government records:
it has the highest percentage of alcoholics per square kilometre
in the entire country. Every man in every family drinks and
has been drinking since times immemorial. Alcohol runs in
our blood. Here a man’s worth is measured by the litres he
can down at a sitting. The village boasts a thriving hooch
industry whose collective business acumen could make the
best of Harvard blush with envy. The stuff is brewed and
consumed by the gallon in this humble spot. This fact has
put the village on the map. Indeed, ask any district collector
and he will confidently lick his finger, close one eye and
point out the precise location of my village. And not least
because he has been a customer in the past.
However, all this changed after
the summer solstice this year. I can pinpoint the time with
such accuracy because most of the crop had been harvested
and the market was in full swing. One evening, a sadhu came
to our village and asked to speak to the headman. This sadhu,
whose name we later learnt was Shesh Baba, looked like an
ordinary ascetic from afar, the kind who wear a saffron loin
cloth and little else save for the ubiquitous vermillion
gashes that adorn their foreheads like marks of superiority.
He was closeted with our headman in his hut for over an hour,
during which he was served the usual fare of dry roti and
pulses, minus the alcohol, of course. Everyone knows that sadhus
don’t drink. They can’t even touch the stuff, it is paap,
sin. A shame really, we rather pride ourselves on our hospitality
here. Our pious headman himself ‘consumes in moderation’ as
he is so fond of reminding everyone. I have my doubts, though.
Why, only two full-moons back, Kashiram, my neighbour, claims
he saw a whole pitcher full of liquor…but hark, I digress.
When they eventually emerged
from the hut wearing an air of uncontainable excitement,
the village panchayat was called for an emergency
meeting and the crier made his rounds on the following day
with an unprecedented announcement. (His throat, I am proud
to say, stays smooth and supple because of my hooch. Wonderful
timbre!)
“Hear ye all! You are informed
that Shesh Baba, a sadhu of great imminence who has
studied the scriptures in the great Himalayas for nine years
and attained enlightenment, has come to live amongst us for
a while. He has a sure-fire cure for alcoholism. If you want
to kick the habit, visit the Baba a week from today with
five rupees and some fruit and he will help you.”
It was just as I had suspected:
the sadhu had turned our headman’s head! If such a
thing was indeed possible, that tenacious man would know
no peace until each and every person had been converted into
a teetotaller.
The village was abuzz with
the news. The question was everywhere: whether to risk pouring
hard-earned money down the drain or to gain from losing a
crippling habit. It disgusts me to admit that even I, Vitthal,
the supplier of the best hooch in the village and a born
cynic, was taken in and participated in this discussion with
great enthusiasm during our sacred evening blackjack ritual,
the cards lying ignored and untouched. The issue appeared
destined to remain undecided one way or the other.
However, the following week,
much to our surprise, several men were discovered gathered
outside the Baba’s hut, covertly whispering and waiting for
the great man to meet them. Many others like me were smarter,
we waited for the first batch of eager beavers to show some
concrete results before we parted with our precious fivers.
And the results were concrete
indeed. Within a hundred days, all these men had given up
the bottle and were now devout disciples of Shesh Baba, going
about the whole village to recruit more participants on his
behalf. They were not without their skeptics, though, who
grilled them at every chance they got on the details of this
miraculous recovery from the brink of ruin. But the reformed
were tight-lipped about the remedy’s finer points or their
master’s considerable skills. He cures you, is all
they said, firmly and politely and then changed the subject
to how happy they were now and how they were enjoying a new
lease on life.
The rest of the village didn’t
know what to believe. Opinion was divided on whether the sadhu practised
bad black magic or whether he knew of a drug so potent that
it could cure this disease without side effects. I watched
and wondered like the others. If this continued, the hooch
industry would soon be a thing of the past. No more accidental
deaths due to consumption of inferior liquor, no more drunken
brawls and domestic violence, no more capable men wasted
away in their youth.
Inevitably, my wife raised
the topic one day.
“Listen, father of Bandya,
why don’t you give it a try?” she asked tentatively as she
massaged my tired legs with castor oil.
“Give what a try?” I asked
irritated, taking a deep draw of the hookah. Lately I had
found myself snapping at people for the unlikeliest of reasons.
Besides, her ingratiating tone grated on my nerves.
“You know, Shesh Baba’s miracle
cure,” she continued undaunted.
“What! And waste good money?
Don’t be silly, woman,” I snarled at her. “Go and warm some
milk for the boy now.”
But my wife is made of sterner
stuff. Another couple of evenings and she had persuaded me
to visit the sadhu. Nagged till I gave in.
“I heard Sunita’s man got straightened
out in only ten days. And Juhi’s fellow took hardly a fortnight.
Just go and see what it is. At least there is no harm. It
will be a blessing if you stop burning money on booze.” She
even offered to pay for the cure from her own little savings.
Naturally my ego wouldn’t let me take money from a woman.
Nevertheless I found myself
at the doorstep of the old man, nervous, excited and not
a little curious. Normally we are a very free community and
keep our doors open for others to come and go as they please
without fear of thieves and robbers. After all, what is there
to steal in a poor farmer’s hut? But this was the first time
I had seen the inside of his. He had been installed in the
old fisherwoman’s house near the river, that had lain vacant
since her death last year. She had been one of the few women
in Madkijamb who drank. Like a fish.
The hut was large and comfortable
and had been unoccupied long enough to fully flush out the
clingy fishy odour. The walls were now covered with several
pictures of deities, a few of them unknown to me, all adorned
with fresh flowers. The smell of incense was heavy in the
air. The windows were curtain-less and a thick tapestry separated
the main room from the hearth. A bell tinkled somewhere inside
and a disciple (was that Pundlik, the milkman?) ushered me
to where the sadhu sat, the floor in front of him
bare except for a straw mat laid out for the visitor.
Likewise I was seeing the sadhu up
close for the first time as he didn’t make an appearance
around the village very frequently. Shesh Baba made for an
impressive sight. In addition to the saffron lungi and
sacred thread worn from shoulder to navel, his body was covered
with ash that he had rubbed into his skin, it appeared grey
and mottled. His eyes, hooded under shaggy eyebrows, were
bright and very beady. His finger nails were dirty and unevenly
clipped so that it looked as if each of his arms ended in
a chipped rake. His hair was caked with dirt too, overgrown
and matted. Surprisingly there wasn’t a single white hair
in sight, although he must have been well over sixty. He
had a wild moustache and a long unruly beard that he kept
tied with a string. Between the two of them, they pretty
much covered the entire lower half of his face. I bowed low
to him and offered the gifts silently. He dismissed them
with a wave, faintly contemptuous as if it was beneath his
dignity to accept them—I took this to mean that I should
put them down in a corner—and beckoned me to sit.
There was a brief silence as
he examined me from head to toe as though I were an interesting
specimen of insect. “So, you want to give up drinking?” he
began.
I nodded.
“Are you sure, absolutely certain,
that you want to give up your beloved alcohol?” he asked
me with a penetrating look.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I was taken aback for a moment,
but gathered my wits and rallied around. “Because an alcoholic
harms his health, his society and ultimately his country.
Because I have many responsibilities on my shoulders, many
tasks to accomplish. Drunk I can do nothing but sober all
is possible. I want have a good life. I want to give a good
life to my family. I want to become a Big Man.”
“Do you believe you will be
cured?”
I hesitated. He pounced upon
it at once.
“Wretch! Disbeliever! You must
have faith otherwise it won’t work.”
I gulped and nodded. He continued.
“You will have nightmares,
hot and cold flashes, you will feel weak and dispirited and
lose the will to live, you will feel suicidal and murderous,
you will have pain and ache like you’ve never had before.
Are you ready to undergo all this suffering to rid yourself
of your vile habit?” he probed again, insistent.
I was puzzled by this show
of dissuasion. Why was he warning me off? Was he trying to
test me? I resolved to give him no room for doubt.
“Yes, I am ready.” I said confidently.
“Hmm. Very well then. You will
experience agonies while the treatment lasts but if you endure,
a fresh new life will be yours.”
I nodded and said nothing.
He seemed satisfied and sat back, no longer subjecting me
to a keen scrutiny.
I waited. Now was the crux.
Would he give me a magic pill? Would he make me do a mysterious
dance? Perhaps teach me a secret mantra to recite
one thousand times a day? Hit me over the head with his religious
broom and hold my hand over the holy fire till I screamed?
I wouldn’t mind the mantra, I decided. In fact, the mantra was
likeliest. No wonder people forgot about drinking. Who would
have the time or energy to drink after repeating a long sentence
a thousand times every day?
Shesh Baba pulled something
out from a bag and put it around my neck. It was a necklace
of small black rosary beads, fine enough to hide under a
singlet. The beads felt smooth and leathery to my coarse
calloused hands.
He took some white powder and
sprinkled it over me, muttering cryptic chants under his
breath. With a booming voice and glaring eyes, he then made
a proclamation. “Wear this necklace at all times. And vow
that from the next lunar waxing cycle, you will never let
a drop of liquor pass through your lips. If you do, the necklace
will turn into a snake and bite you! You will die!”
I goggled. I trembled. My immediate
urge was to wrench the blighted thing from my neck and fling
it away. My fingers strayed towards my collar but the Baba’s
next words stayed them. “You cannot remove the necklace until
the time is right. From now on, it will be your constant
companion night and day. On no account must it be separated
from your body. And no one must ever know about its magic
properties. If you tell anybody, the consequences will be
dire.”
He let me stew uncomfortably
in this new information for a while before handing me a fistful
of raisins. “Here eat this. And may God be with you.” This
was my cue to exit and having taken the vow and gulped down
the raisins (which were sour), I dutifully thanked him and
returned home. My wife’s curiosity knew no bounds and she
plied me with questions persistently, undeterred by the fact
that I answered none. To speak was to invite death. I told
her shortly that I was forbidden to reveal anything, but
her bombardment carried on late into the night.
The next few weeks passed in
a blur. Like the sadhu had predicted, it was agony.
I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep, hallucinations tormented
me all the time, on occasion I even failed to recognize my
own son. The withdrawal symptoms gave me fever, made me break
out in cold sweat and set my body on fire. Spasms rocked
my limbs, made them rigid and unyielding. I couldn’t think
straight and made a mess of my work on the fields. I was
weak as a newborn babe and mad as a bull at my helplessness.
Perhaps this was a foolish and hasty decision. What had I
got myself into? Each time I caught sight of the necklace
around my neck, I saw a snake waiting patiently to come to
life. Generations of family drunkards had built and handed
down an alcoholic constitution over centuries; now it was
being subject to sudden and brutal penance as my mortal body
purged itself of the toxins.
My abstention lasted three
weeks. Twenty-two days and twenty-two nights had passed since
I had even touched the bottle. If my life had been hell,
my family’s had been no easier. My wife had discovered the
necklace one night, but had intuitively sensed that it had
something to do with the cure and hadn’t asked any questions.
She kept my son out of my way, the poor mite cowered and
simpered whenever I came upon him. Neighbours had begun to
keep their doors closed. Village elders had frowned with
disapproval as they observed my slow recuperation progress. It
is a particularly bad case with Vitthal, said everyone
with a regretful shake of their heads. Poor fellow! they
pitied me. Until tonight.
Tonight I had seen a half-full
bottle left carelessly on Kashiram’s verandah. Innocently
it stood there, inviting, tempting. I was delirious with
thirst. Cold water would not slake it. Surely one sip wouldn’t
hurt? Surely it would be alright? Surely I had suffered enough
for my sins? I prayed silently to my saviour for wisdom.
Then I laid my necklace carefully to one safe side and greedily
took a large sip.
The familiar raw hooch scorched
my tender throat and burnt my gullet. Suddenly I was seized
with panic. What had I done? I would die now! What would
become of my wife and child? How could I have been so weak?
Alas! Alas! In my fancy, I believed the alcohol was choking
me. I gasped and spluttered and threw the bottle away feebly.
As it shattered into a thousand fragments, I could see my
life and my dreams shattering with it.
#
It is nearly dawn. My wife
and son are sleeping peacefully, unaware of their fate. I
have kissed both of them and bade them softly goodbye. My
prayers are done. I have given myself up to God’s mercy.
The necklace is lying still under the window. It hasn’t come
to life yet, but now and again, I imagine that it moves.
Just a slight slither. Like a snake. My vision is blurring,
my heart is beating faster, the blood pounds dully in my
ears with a strange staccato. My stomach is queasy, my limbs
feel as heavy as Bala’s plough, and my conscience is cleaving
my head with enough force to create a new river bed for the
holy Ganges. Faintly remembered memories surface from the
warped passages of my mind and vanish again. Just a few more
hours now. A lifetime given away in a moment. Oh, cursed
that I am!
#
“Wake up! Don’t you want to
go to the fields today?” My wife’s shrill voice cuts through
the mists of sleep. It is music to my ears! I sit up groggily.
I’m alive! Unable to believe my luck, I pat myself all over
to assure myself that it is still, indeed, my own body. Did
I not have a drink of the hooch, then? Was it all only a
horrible ghastly vivid nightmare? I glance around and see
the broken pieces of the bottle. No, it was real, it all
actually happened. Yet I am not dead. What strange miracle
is this? Then I catch sight of the necklace lying where it
was. Or has it moved towards me a couple of inches? My mind
struggles to grasp the truth.
“You are unusually silent and
sluggish today. Is anything the matter? Is it the cure?” My
wife touches my clammy forehead with a cold hand, anxiously
taking my temperature. I wave away her solicitations and
thoughtfully get ready.
So here I am, drunk but still
alive. This means that Shesh Baba, the sadhu, is a
fraud. There is no miracle cure, after all. It all depends
on the person’s will-power to avoid drinking. The medicine
man prays on people’s fear and uses his hold on it to cure
them of an evil habit. It is wrong to manipulate the villagers’ superstitious
beliefs and take advantage of their naïveté, I tell myself.
On the other hand, if, for
once, superstition is coming to the aid of a good cause,
why throw a spanner in the works? Life is short enough,
counters my mind.
But it is also wrong to knowingly
keep quiet and not expose a fake, I argue.
What good will that do?
At least this way, the quality of life in our society has
improved, and the sadhu has earned a little for
his pretend mumbo-jumbo. Both benefit, says the calm
voice of reason.
Still, two wrongs don’t make
a right, I reply stubbornly.
Ah, returns the voice
quietly, but who is to say what is right?
And I can think of no reply.
That day in the fields I spend
a long time thinking things through. Over the next few weeks
I start growing my facial hair and take to eating less with
each passing day. Again, my body revolts against this gradual
shift in its established routine, but this time the inconveniences
are minor: little irritants like diarrhoea, dizziness and
bouts of fainting and more superficially a marked increase
in the itchiness around my face and neck areas. With loss
of weight, my skin loses its sheen, my eyes, their glow and
my nails become long and brittle. Slowly but surely a subtle
change is coming over me. I take to disappearing into surrounding
villages during the day while my fields lay neglected, the
crops wilted and dying. My wife must have noticed the alteration
in my appearance, but she doesn’t ask why and I don’t volunteer
any information. I still return home as tired each evening
as if I have been toiling on the fields and I don’t believe
she suspects anything yet. However, suddenly we have acquired
a more regular flow of funds than before and the kitchen
never seems to be without some fruit or the other. My family
don’t question this; I think they just take things as they
come with a grateful prayer to their unknown benefactor.
Three months from the day I
got cured, a new sadhu appears on the scene in a distant
village. He claims to be able to cure alcoholism.
