NARAYANI BAI

In my mind's eye a Temple, like a cloud

Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,

Rose out of darkness:

-William Wordsworth

A dear friend's daughter is getting married in a few days' time.. Ever since the city and the venue were finalised, he has been unceasingly coaxing and cajoling me to attend the marriage. It is in a town in Rajasthan..

Rajasthan as we all know is  famous for its majestic forts, intricately carved temples and decorated havelis. These are part of the architectural heritage not only of Rajasthan but of India.  And then we have the Thar Desert, the world's 17th largest desert, and the world's 9th largest subtropical desert extending into Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana and also across into Pakistan

The idea of travelling to Rajasthan always triggers a flood of memories. I have spent my early childhood there.  Indeed nothing brings  more joy  to us than the  memories of our childhood. Of course one cannot remember everything of one's childhood but certain events and memories are stored in the sub-conscious mind and flash quite frequently  through mind's eye.

Free association is a technique used in psychoanalysis (and also in psychodynamic theory) which was originally devised by Sigmund Freud out of the hypnotic method of his mentor and colleague, Josef Breuer. It is the mental process by which one word or image may spontaneously suggest another without any necessary logical connection.

In a flash I am transported to a small remote town in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, now famous world over for its educational institutions including the institute of technology and science. I remember the hot dry climate, the vast stretches of sand, the sand dunes,  the thinly populated residential area in the middle and the sand storms blowing across very frequently turning the sky to a dismal gray. I remember the frequent invasion of locusts, painting the sky yellow and my mom warning me  to stay indoors till this vast swarm withdrew.

I remember the bungalow in which we lived, its high ceilings with fans hanging to very long iron pipes. I remember a huge painting of Chanakya and Chandragupt  mounted on one of the walls in the drawing room. (A replica of this painting can be seen in Birla Mandir, New Delhi even today). I remember some of the defaced walls of my house that I sketched and scribbled on, to discover a painter in me. I remember the huge Kikar  tree (Vachellia nilotica ,widely known by the taxonomic synonym Acacia nilotica) in our front yard. I remember the Shivganga, a manmade canal flowing through a vast manicured garden with an idol of Shiva in the midstream, a fountain perennially gushing from its thick swathe of hair in a parabola. In hind sight this vast water-body makes the meaning of oasis more clear to me now than ever. I remember the shrubs laden with juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet or sour wild berry along the vast stretches, in the neighborhood and across the sand mounds, everywhere.

And I remember Narayanibai.

In those languid summer afternoons when everyone was indoors, when the sun would show the fiercest, when my mother would go to sleep or rest, when the neighbourhood was all quiet, she would tip toe to my house and softly call me out to come out to play and to join her for picking the berry.

Narayanibai was the daughter of the chowkidar of the Club situated across the road. I recall his name was Tulsi. Of him I only remember his tall frame and huge shrub like moustache nearly covering his whole face. It was difficult to figure out if he was smiling or scowling. Narayanibai was thinly built , rather tall for all  her 5/6 years or so but I can't exactly recall how old she was. She was not so fair. She would sport two neatly woven braids in her richly oiled hair and wide kajal in her eyes. I was either a bit younger  or her age. But by her demeanour she appeared to have taken me in her wings as a junior and almost extend a mother-like care and nurturing. Once when I fell sick preventing me from our outdoor activity, she would regularly come quietly and enquire about me from my mother and go away disappointed.

Day after day we would wander on the warm sands unmindful of the sun fiercely beating us down. Some time we would go to the children's corner of the Club and play on the slide, the swing or see-saw or a small merry go-round. At another time we would  just walk on the somewhat moist sand on the bank of Shivganga. She taught me to make castle of sands on the banks of Shivganga where the sand was a bit moist, by piling sand on one of the foot, tapping it firmly in place to set and slowly withdrawing the foot to leave a hollow underneath. Soon we would collect some wild shrub or twigs to create a garden and roads for our castle. How many castles would we have built together!

'Come along. We go picking berry'. Many a time I would refuse to go with her. And then how she would cajole me when I spurned her offer!. She would lure me by the best offer she could conceive of:  'I will eat the raw ones and I will give you the ripe ones'. (kachhe kachhe ham khayenge, pakke pakke tum khana!). Where did this devotion come from?

No. She couldn’t have heard of the story of Shabari and her 'pre-tasted' berries.

In my  sunset years, as the fading light leaves  the softness of a diffused twilight when the sun is below the horizon, I still wander aimlessly  on the shores of life. I still dream and I still search for sweet berries of peace, of contentment and of fulfillment. I still make castles in the sand, only to be swept away every time by the fierce waves of mundane living….

And I still remember Narayanibai.