Bhairavi Page 2

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  This is a translation and not a retelling.

  The inconsistencies and omissions of the original have been retained. The original does not always mention the names at the outset and sometimes it isn’t clear who is being spoken of or even who is speaking. Characters are introduced as someone’s mother or brother or grandfather and it is only much later that their names are provided.

  The protagonist’s mother is sometimes called Rajrajeshwari and sometimes Rajeshwari. Rajeshwari’s father is referred to as her father or Chandan’s Nana for quite a while before we find out that his name is Mahim. Or that his former lover’s name is Rampyari. This was perhaps to show the universality of certain emotions or expressions or to tell readers that what they went through is more important than who they are. Having said that, there are some obvious inconsistencies in the character arcs too. That is probably because the stories were serialized. A certain claim is made about a character, which is later refuted. The guru is built up as this mysterious, handsome man but is reduced to a creepy middle-aged man by the end of the story. It is mentioned that Rajrajeshwari has trained herself to be docile but turns out to be anything but that. A little unsure like most single mothers but definitely no lamb.

  The original was not broken up into chapters. However, for the sake of readability, the story has been broken down into chapters.

  In the translation I try to stay as close to the original as possible, and most of all, it was my intention to help the reader soak in the nuances of Shivani’s incandescent prose. Dealing with these inconsistencies while doing the translation made it feel almost like a conversation with the original, as if I were asking the author—is this what you meant?

  Shivani’s writing is Sanskritized, interspersed with Urdu, Bangla and Kumaoni words—languages she had grown up with. Her prose is such that every word is a step that can lead you to a bend which can transport you from a desert to a sea. There’s a fair bit of anthropomorphism. Take for example this line in the very first paragraph of Bhairavi, where she writes while setting the scene:

  ‘Kya inn vrikshon ki patiyaan bhi, aranya ki mool

  bhayavahata se sahamkar hilna bhool gayi thi’n?’

  Translation: ‘Have their leaves too forgotten to stir

  in fear of the jungle?’

  Wherever possible, any deviations from the Sanskritized Hindi have been marked. Two characters, Maya Didi and Charan speak to each other in Bangla, a language Shivani was conversant in. Maya Didi in fact, speaks a dialect of Bangla. In the last conversation between Charan and Chandan, when Charan tells Chandan about her plans, she calls her husband ‘hujband’ while the rest of her dialogue is in regular Hindi. The texts the guru gave Chandan were in English but written in the Devnagari script. Marking these deviations interfered with the flow of the story and were hence not done.

  There is a lot of word play and humour in the writing that I have had to recast to generate the same sense in the translation.

  The untranslateable has been left as is and explained wherever possible. In other places, the hope is that the context will explain the meaning to readers.

  Ultimately, the hope behind undertaking the translation is to familiarize young readers with Shivani’s enduring stories and give them a taste of the craft and sensibility of this very popular writer.

  ONE

  It seemed as if the blue of the sky had ripped through the jungle to touch the earth. Old trees and fig trees stood silent and motionless like hermits. She had been staring at those trees for a while through the open window. Have their leaves too forgotten to stir in fear of the jungle? She tried to turn on her side. Every part of her body ached at the barest movement. A moan escaped her lips. On hearing the same pained breath from the day of the accident, an old fat woman jumped down from a bed in some dark corner of the room and bent over her.

  That old hag murmured ‘Jai Guru! Jai Guru!’ and put her face so close to her that the reek of tobacco hit her like that of a pungent incense stick and woke her from her stupor. Shrinking from the odour, she closed her eyes and pretended to be unconscious. The old sanyasini went back to her dark corner as she continued her babble.

  Uff! The sanyasini had such a terrible countenance. She was wearing a man’s dhoti tied so high that it hung just below her knees. She had wrapped the end around her enormous stomach. Her breasts and stomach seemed to hang in layers and her bare breasts were covered in blood-red sandalwood paste, the redness of which had also brightened up her face. On the one hand, the unbearable pain in her back and on the other, the abominable appearance of the sanyasini! Her eyes were closed but for how long could she escape her reality? Will she have to spend her entire pointless existence surrounded by such ugly runaways? And the impersonal stillness of the dark room was enough to strangle her. After all, she was not in a room but what felt like a cave in the shape of a closed goods train. One wall had been carved to fashion a small window. The window was also such that it would summon a fresh breath of air with great gusto and then the next minute shut its ramshackle doors with equal enthusiasm to block the next gust. At times, the strong smell of the incense burning in the room threatened to choke her; Chandan wanted to run away. But, how could she?

  That day, her helpless sob struck against the low roof of the cave turning it into an echo, and that terrible-looking Vaishnavi bent over her tear-stained face and then ran outside. After a while she heard many voices, but clenching her jaw, she lay there with her eyes closed. The low moonlight that had seeped through the clouds fell on her haggard face. If you looked closely, you could see the tearstains at the corners of her large eyes.

  ‘See, she has regained consciousness. Had she not, would the tears have been there? I heard her moan twice.’ The same sanyasini was saying, ‘I think she might have internal injuries. It has been eight days; she hasn’t taken even a sip of water. We should borrow a car and take her to the hospital in the city…’

  ‘No!’ A stern voice rang out like a blow on a kettledrum, ‘she will not die.’ ‘Jai Guru, Jai Guru!’ the sanyasini started saying, ‘Can the words of the guru ever turn out to be false? Here, take the chillum that Charan has just filled, you should rest. I am sitting near her anyway, when you have said she won’t die, then there is nothing to fear.’

  ‘Why Charan? Have you forgotten to fill the chillum?’ Exhausted, the guru demanded a drag of the chillum from Charan.

  ‘How can she forget? Actually, we beat her up today.’ The sanyasini put her large palms on the bed.

  ‘Why? Has she stolen my stash again?’

  ‘What else! I had counted the five lots that I had made. When I went to fill your chillum today, I found only three and realized what must have happened. When I stared at her in the light of the day, she turned red and the thief was caught. Hasn’t even turned seventeen and she wants to smoke marijuana, and the guru’s at that. I pinched her back three times and so hard that the guru’s trident has formed there.’

  ‘Ok, ok, go and sleep now, it is not good to assault anyone, Maya! Go, sleep now, Raghav has called me. Some Ramdasi Kirtaniya, has come from Burdwan. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  The guru’s voice was heavy with intoxication.

  The sound of fading footsteps assured Chandan of the guru’s departure even though her eyes were closed. The Vaishnavi got up from the bed and as soon as she did so, the bed that had sagged under her weight regained its balance. The lightweight Chandan who had felt like she had been under water came up for air. After a bit, the sound of the Vaishnavi’s snores reassured her and she opened her eyes. The room was awash with moonlight, as if dipped in it. A blast of cool air alerted her senses. She inspected the room carefully for the first time. Such a low ceiling! She felt like she could touch the wooden beam if she only stretched her hand. Several saffron potlis hung from the smoke-blackened wood of the thick beams; saffron dhotis and a few rudraksha necklaces with big beads and black smooth rudraksha earrings hung from nails on the wall. On seeing the
m, she realized that she was amidst hermits. Her eyes suddenly went to the trident smeared with vermillion. The light from the diya wavered in the wind, as did the little rag-like red and white flags. And right under the trident she could make out the shape of skulls.

  Chandan shivered in fear. She almost lost her consciousness that she had regained with such difficulty. Was this the cave of a kapalik, some dreaded Shaivaite who meditates on corpses, or the ashram of a shamshan-saadhak, a Shaivaite who meditates in graveyards?

  The snores of the sanyasini appeared to be striking some really high notes. Drenched in cold sweat, poor Chandan lay awake on her bed all night. She was not sure when she finally dozed off just before dawn. She had just fallen asleep when she felt a hand on her face. She opened her eyes without wanting to. A face as black as that of an African was moving towards her. On seeing the red, burning eyes in the black face, she might have let out a scream, but the laughter from the pearl-white teeth calmed her. This laughter proposed friendship.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ On hearing the mirth-laden question, her helpless body broke into sobs and shivers.

  ‘Chhi, don’t cry like this or you’ll fall sick. Wait, I have just warmed some milk, just try to get in a few gulps somehow.’

  The girl came back with a square bowl filled with milk, helped Chandan sit up and touched the bowl of milk to her dry lips. Chandan emptied the bowl in one go. Then that black girl helped her lie down again with great care.

  ‘Just lie down quietly, understood?’ She laughed and said, ‘I’ll come back after sweeping and mopping the temple. It will take some time because the temple is a bit far away.’ She kept talking without even pausing to breathe. ‘I’ll come back with some bananas from the offerings for you. I am bolting the door from outside. Nobody is here today, the guru is out of town and Maya Didi has gone to her old akhada, she’ll come back tomorrow. Hope her boat drowns.’ She started laughing again.

  ‘You haven’t said a word, can you not speak?’ This time, the black girl bit her lower lip. This restless girl was only wearing a thin sari that she had tied high. The glimpses of her vibrant youth through the sari’s thin pleats made even Chandan, a woman, bashful. The wild child though had no time for bashfulness.

  ‘Ok, new Bhairaviji, were you really unconscious day and night all these days?’

  Chandan did not reply this time either.

  ‘Hai Ram, are you really mute? Ram re Ram! He made you such a breathtaking beauty but didn’t give you a voice. Praise the lord! Did you jump from the moving train because of this woe?’

  Chandan kept looking at her strange, unfamiliar companion helplessly.

  ‘Baap re baap! You surely don’t lack courage! The very sight of that black-faced engine scares me. And do you know where you landed?’

  She had heard that the sight of a snake bewitches birds. Just like that bird, Chandan was enthralled by the chatter of this wild girl.

  ‘Just half a gajj away from a funeral pyre. Had you landed there even a few minutes earlier, then you would have become Ghoshal Babu’s son’s sati.’ Wild Child finished talking and laughed loudly.

  On seeing Chandan quite still, she continued her monologue, ‘You are lucky that the guru was at the big cremation grounds in Shivpukur that day and was meditating under a tree. On seeing you coming flying down, the people who had come to attend Navendu Ghoshal’s son’s cremation ran away screaming “Ghost-Ghost”, so the guru carried you on his shoulders and knocked on the door at midnight; it was I who opened the door. At first, I got scared. The guru had never brought a corpse home to meditate on, then why did he get one today? Then, after putting you in bed, he started screaming for Maya. That wretched Maya is lost to the world after a few drags of marijuana. When she failed to wake up, he told me, “Look Charan, had she fallen near the pyre on Amavas, it would have been a gift to the ashram. A burning pyre and virgin Apoorva’s at that, who had died young. Even then, god has dropped this Bhairavi on us as an offering, in the middle of the cremation grounds and that too at the Shivpukur’s grand cremation grounds, where there is always a pyre burning, be it day or night. You have to look after her, understood?” And I sat by your side all night. To be honest, I had started thinking that I was keeping watch on a corpse. The guru often prays through corpses; I thought maybe he was thinking of worshipping through the medium of this young girl, but when I kept my hand on your chest, I realized you weren’t dead.’

  ‘Is this a math?’ Chandan asked in a low voice and the black girl hugged her. ‘So, you are not mute. Why did you make me think you couldn’t speak?’

  ‘When did you give me the chance to utter a word?’ Chandan laughed this time. She was speaking the truth. This talkative girl hadn’t given her a chance to speak. ‘What is your name?’ Chandan spoke again.

  ‘Charan, Charandasi. What’s yours?’ Her laugh lit up her dark face. The sweet smile on that large mouth travelled up her sharp nose and adorned her huge eyes as if with kohl.

  ‘Chandan.’

  ‘Matches with the colour of your skin. How are you so fair? Were your parents English?’

  ‘Why?’ Chandan started laughing. The simple question had distracted her from her backache.

  ‘This one time, Maya Didi had gone to Naimisharanya to meet her old friends from her old akhada. One guard used to bring his mad daughter there to have ash put on her. She was light-skinned like you. That guard was Nikhalis Sahab, his wife was absolutely black and the daughter so fair that even a touch would blemish her. Ok, I should go. If Maya Didi came by, she’d get angry with me.’ Tucking the end of her sari in her waist, she left.

  Chandan was left alone. She wanted to pass out again. An unknown fear kept her in its grip. How could she run away, even if she wanted to? Dense forests all around, the large cremation ground in front of her with its arms wide open, an unknown place, strange companions! And then, how could she run away in her weakened state? She tried to stand with the support of the headboard. Her legs started shaking after a couple of steps. She sat on the bed panting, but was happy that her backbone was not broken. Had it been damaged, could she have taken even a step steadily? She stood up again. This time she walked to the door using the wall as a support. Confident, she walked back to the bed with steady steps. Her back still hurt but the bone didn’t hurt like before. She would be able to regain her muscle strength by walking thus alone, she felt certain. On gathering this sweet fact, she lay down again, happy.

  Her eyes went suddenly to a basket tied in a dark-coloured cloth. The lid of the basket seemed to be moving as if by magic. The lid fell off all of a sudden as if by an unseen force and the small knots of the cloth were pushed undone as a black shimmery snake emerged with its fangs out, making smacking noises.

  Chandan sat coiled tight and trembling with fear. The snake started hissing and crawling about the room. Chandan couldn’t help letting out a scream. A statue came and stood at the doorstep on hearing her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ She was shocked to hear the question posed in English. Ash smeared all over the body, shoulder-length hair in dreadlocks, some of which were golden and some grey, bloodshot eyes and the body naked.

  ‘Why were you screaming?’

  This time the question was answered by the hiss of the snake.

  ‘Oh!’ The serious countenance of the man dissolved into laughter at that. What a strange laugh, as if someone had dropped a boulder from the top of a tall mountain. ‘Bhole’s voice seems to have scared you.’

  He walked in long strides to the basket. It appeared as if he had forgotten about Chandan’s presence.

  ‘Does my son need food? It seems that that greedy Charan has drunk his share of the milk again today.

  The brass bowl isn’t enough for my son. Isn’t that what you are complaining about?’ Chandan’s heart was racing. It wasn’t Charan who had drunk the milk in the brass bowl but her.

  ‘Let Charan come back.’ He was saying, ‘Bite her dark body today and make it darker, ok?’ Then, he picked up the
snake from the basket and started rubbing it over his naked chest and stroking it as if it really were his beloved child. He coiled the mock-complaining snake around his neck and reassuring it lovingly and stroking it, went outside.

  ‘I will feed my son sweet milk.’

  Will that naked man feed his son and bring him back here to sleep? And what if he planted his bloodshot eyes and his long locks with his fierce visage in front of the helpless, prone Chandan’s face? What would she do? The snake-charmer was no less fearsome than the snake. She hadn’t been able to see his face properly. All she had seen were the bloody eyes and the ash-smeared chest. Had there been another door in the cave, she would have exerted all her willpower to run away. But if she takes the door he had taken, she would perhaps bump right into him.

  He returned like a gust of unrelenting wind. In his hand was a bowl and around his neck, his darling son. He didn’t look even look at Chandan once. As soon as the milk was finished, he kept down the smooth, thick body of the snake with such care, as if he were taking off a diamond necklace. When he had placed his precious jewel in the basket, Chandan saw something surprising, even dramatic. The man bent over the snake and the creature who had his head in the bowl lifted it up, touched its lips to his master’s and then settled into the basket. This demonstration of love between man and his ‘enemy’ would remain the enduring image of that moment for Chandan. She kept staring at the sanyasi. The man tied the cloth around the basket and sat down cross-legged next to the trident. Then, he put the logs of wood lying around him in the shape of a triangle. He lit a stable fire and filled the room with smoke.

  She could see the stranger more clearly when the window was opened. His whole body was smeared in ash, he was exceptionally tall and his upright posture even while sitting, made him seem like a statue covered in dust. He seemed unaware of his surroundings and didn’t seem to be aware of Chandan’s presence despite being in the same room as her. His solemn face and seriousness were like a light tearing into the room. Chandan kept staring at him. His face was so serene, no intensity, not even a hint of the anger he had felt at Charan mere moments ago. The ash-smeared calm eyes had long eyelashes, like a girl’s. Even the eyelashes were coated with ash. Who was this mad yogi looking at? At his beloved snake, the cold ash or the skulls arranged like a pyramid near the trident?