BENARES

Kashi

'Dad, I don't want to stay. I came to take you with me. People don't live in museums.'

And our morning together began. Kashi was a vast museum of idols for the Mark Twain duplicate, my son. He was as ignorant about the depth of Kashi as he was intelligent about logic & law. He was manipulating me, subtly according to him, into packing my bags, selling my two-storey paper blue house to the first good offer I get & leave India.

'Wandering about in my age like an unsettled hippie is not healthy. I cannot be mentally happy leaving the place where my roots are.' 'What's wrong in that?' 'You used to say, 'Lord Indra gave the injunction to wander', miming me while I used to mime my father in reading his sermons to my son. How can I ever explain to him? Kasha, its tall silver flowing grass, its myths & its 1000 religions. No two pilgrims know quite the same story. They go away with different smiles & different lies. Here, religion is available in 2 Rs to 200 Rs in bookstalls, flowers & aashirwads. 'What's here in Bannaras for you Dad?' Palimpsest. I was altered, she was edited, colored with a strange sindoor, I did not like the color. It was not bright red, like her personality. It was maroon, like a foreign tradition imposed without consent.

It was difficult to answer his questions in logic. There is nothing logical in love. Love defies hormones & psychological theories. Why would I even love her is a question I have struggled with for 45 years. I could never be hers. She was beneath me in society. I was an educated modern man but living in a culture, as Thomas Hobbes took a jab with his social contract theory, you either mould yourself for them or keep carving your own shape with water. He brought me out of my reverie as I gazed at the street, longing for another glimpse of Neelima.