Raison d'être

In an anarchic metropolitan, Suraj was quietly brewing Kangra Masala Tea in the kitchen of his adobe restaurant, The Juniper Tree. The yellow petals of the calendula floated over that bronze elixir, which smelled rich with notes of black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper. The ayurvedic aroma of the tea often helped soothe his overwhelmed mind, but that Friday night, he could not stop brooding over the meaninglessness of life. The kitchen had two doors. A white, heavy metallic laboratory door with round glass windows, fixed in a terracotta jali, which separated the orchestrated calm of the kitchen from the clamour of the dining area. The other resembled a barn door and opened to the quiet lane behind the popular restaurant. Waiters entered and exited the kitchen through the laboratory door in a frenzy. The natural tones of terracotta accentuated the white-pearl colour palette of the kitchen. The chefs crafted each meal with impeccable discipline and finesse. Suraj strained the tea, hung his apron and escaped through the back door with the small white cup in his hand. He wanted those thoughts to stop, but the formidable questions of a meaningless existence had begun to spiral in his mind again. He did not know how to prevent them from deeply disturbing his solitude. He had the restaurant built exactly as he wanted, using earth, clay, wood, sand, and stone. He loved to walk on the black, unpolished stone path that led past the warm lights fixed in the gravelled floor where giant clay vessels were displayed, where the wooden benches found their resting place. The wavy textures and odd rhythms of the walls hidden behind the cover of frangipani and heliconia were an expression of his odd sensibility on existence. All the arched doorways and the windows cut into the earth-rammed walls offered a view of the old juniper tree, which was rooted in the centre of the restaurant. The tree spread the aroma of its berries across the courtyard. While sitting under the thatched roof built in a corner of the courtyard, those waiting their turn to enter the dining area could fall in love with the serenity the small pond dug beside the juniper tree emitted. A yellow stone stairway descended from the courtyard to the dining area inside a modern cob house built underground by digging out the earth. Three of the walls of the dining area were naturally ochre and roughly whitewashed to a textured finish. Old terracotta figurines and utensils were displayed on the shelves carved into these walls. The mud house also offered cosy floor seating for those who preferred it. The masoned terracotta jali balanced intimacy and privacy between the dining area and the kitchen.

The vents and wiring for the air conditioning were neatly hidden with customised jute hangings and covers. Two large glass windows were cut into two walls, and a narrow wooden pergola was built into a glass panel fixed in the middle of the ceiling for natural light. The wood represented tradition, and the glass modernity. Suraj’s life had turned out exactly as he wanted. The restaurant helped sustain something larger than life, but Suraj had burnt himself out bringing it to life.

As he sipped his tea and pensively stared at the dense fog gathering over the deserted street, he knew it led to nowhere. He felt lonely. He felt convinced that this street would bring him nothing. The pain caused by failures and losses within him felt terminal. It hurt him to hold on to this lack of identity, and it hurt to let it go. The world within him, as well as the world around him, had become one giant cosmos devoid of meaning. He would give it all away for something that could add meaning to his life.

He wondered how any of this could have happened, but he found no logic to his actions that led to this essence of nothingness that had become the meaning of his life. Doubts and contradictions consumed him. He found it impossible to break the habit of overthinking. It was dreadful. He was scattered, and the confusion drew a frown all over his face. Confusion fuelled his rage, and the rage further confused him. Something had gone horribly wrong, and he could not quite say what. What was it all about? Why was he alive? Why could he not see the beauty of his life? Why did he wear this frown on his face? “What’s it all about?” he kept whispering into the void with frustration.

This purposeless unrest he felt rise within him had a sense of urgency. He felt desperate for meaning. The tea tasted like home, but once it was over, he wanted to break the little white cup against the wall. Tea had not solved his angst; he felt discontented. With each blink in his eyes, sudden flashes of disconnected memories shrouded the meaning of his life.

The sky was black, and he felt the chill of the smoke in the air press against his skin. An eerie silence spread all around him. There was no sign of life as far as his eyes could see. Somehow, he placed the empty cup beside the barn door and quietly walked towards his new quest for meaning. He began drifting off into the night. But, before he could go very far, a familiar voice called out his name.

“I sensed you were troubled, so I came to check on you. It is almost closing time. I have told someone to cover for me, if needed,” said Shanti, one of the waiters at his restaurant and approached him. Suraj was short of breath. “I would like to go for a long walk,” he added as he continued to drift. “Can I join you?” Shanti asked in her quirky voice. Suraj sighed.

“I want to run away.”

“How far will you go?”

“I was thinking I’ll catch a plane to nowhere and never come back.”

Shanti burst out laughing. She knew his love for escapes well; that is how they had first met. Soon she realised he was experiencing one of those moments again. She saw him gazing anxiously into the distance. She held his hand and helped him walk a little.

“Let’s find you someplace peaceful to sit down,” she caringly put her arm around his shoulder as they walked deeper into the white winter night. They must have walked for about an hour in silence. Without purpose or direction, they walked as far as they could. Shanti sat Suraj down on the footpath opposite someone’s bungalow.

His voice trembled when he asked her, “What is the meaning of life, not mine, not yours, but all life? Why the hell are we all here? What is the reason we are in this union with life?

“It is so that I can look you in the eye and save your miserable soul from drowning in the reflection of your own face in the pool of your tears,” she replied and blessed him with a kiss on his head.

Many years ago, far from home, Shanti was on her way to work one day when someone hit the back of her head with a stick and knocked her unconscious. When she came back to her senses, she did not remember anything. She found her wrists and ankles tied to a chair. The room was clean, but the window did not have a view. The masked man who forcefully fed her three times a day told her this was only temporary and she would soon be free. One day, she woke up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. The sun was beating down, and she felt dead inside. She wanted to live. The first thing her heart told her was to reach the Ganga. For a few years, she lived an outlandish life on the Ganga ghats. She begged, but she lived. She never went back home. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she did not recognise who she saw. The life she once lived was no longer hers to claim. But she did not want to die. She wanted to live.

Suraj had wandered off to Shiva’s city to heal from heartbreak. The city, which is balanced on Shiva’s trident, was a spiritual mystery he wanted to experience.  It was winter. It was before sunrise. From a corner of that Ganga ghat, smoking her chillum, Shanti had been watching Suraj gaze deeply at the river. She was not afraid of him. She jumped on him from the dark depths of her mind and began to ask him all kinds of questions about who he was and where he had come from. She had no reason why she did what she did; she just did it. She offered to show him around if he paid. She knew the narrow lanes well. He agreed. They waited for the sunrise, which arrived with a sense of ritual.

The priests arrived on the ghats, kicking away the wandering dogs, to unlock their temples and recite the scriptures. Birds animated lifeless trees with songs. Cows came to life. Every living being in the city arrived on the ghats to greet the river and the sun with prayers.

Even the ascetics who were in the comfortable embrace of their blankets awoke from the darkness which is known as sleep.

Suraj rose from his seat on the floor as the reflections of the city lights on the river disappeared. All he possessed was a backpack and a few delusions about love.  With the sun rise rose holy smoke swirling in the air where Suraj and Shanti had been sitting shoulder to shoulder, dazed and confused about life. Sunrise brought with it the many pilgrims who dipped themselves in the Ganga to cleanse themselves of sins. Bells began to toll, and the mantras captured the whole atmosphere. The scent of sandalwood incense sticks uplifted the mood of the ghat. The sunrise colored the river in gold. Ripples in the water could soothe the mind if one meditated deep enough to listen. The young ones arrived to perform advanced yoga.

“Can we take you for a ride, sir? We will take five hundred only” The boatmen started to invite tourists onto their boats. Some agreed and disappeared into the mystical horizon.

When she saw that Suraj was bewildered, Shanti suggested she begin her tour. She was no more than an ascetic there. Over the years, the map of the place had replaced a large chunk of all her traumatic memories. She could find her way around here with her eyes closed, she swore. However, she could not find a way back to her old self, no matter how hard she tried. Eventually, she had stopped trying and embraced this new identity that Mother Ganga had gifted her.  

“Could it be possible that all life was merely a glimpse of the unknown?” he wondered. “Could it be possible that the purpose of life was to bring what is in darkness to the light?” he doubted. He found an odd satisfaction in watching all life hang in a kind of balance by some invisible string, but he needed to see the network of logic. He could not see it, no matter how hard he tried.

For the next four or five hours, something bound these two souls together; perhaps it was their pain and suffering.

Orange flames were rising from the pyres. A long string of crowds was pacing on the ghats like ants because the water was low. Small doors and smaller windows that were at least a few centuries old gave a view into the lives of ordinary people who were living a rather extraordinary life. The trees grew in the oddest of places, and their shapes were drawn out of fairytales. A mosque and innumerable temples told over ten thousand tales if one had the time to listen. Erotic sculptures decorated the walls at times. Engraved verses and scenes from holy scriptures brought time to a standstill.

He ate a dosa at a tiny restaurant, and she ate two. As soon as they stepped out, they were approached by an old man.

“Would you like to eat a paan?”

“Please buy garlands for her,” requested another boy in nothing more than a blue half-pant.

With garlands made of marigolds around their necks and roses in their hair, they saw people getting massaged vigorously and sunbathing and laughed together for hours at how pilgrims look once barbers shave their heads by the Ganga.

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