A Suitable Boy(370)

Sanaki Baba appeared impressed. ‘Very good, very good,’ he said, smiling cheerfully. He turned to the Professor and said: ‘And how is your bride?’

The Baba intended this as a compliment to his wife of many years, a woman who usually visited him when her husband came. ‘Oh, she’s visiting her son-in-law in Bareilly,’ said the Professor. ‘She’s sorry she could not come.’

‘These arrangements for my camp are all right,’ said Sanaki Baba. ‘Only this water problem persists. There is the Ganga, and here – no water !’

The Professor, who appeared to be on the advisory administrative board of the Mela, replied half-unctuously, half-confidently: ‘It is all through your kindness and grace, Babaji, that things are basically running so smoothly. I will immediately go and see what can be done in this case.’ However, he made no immediate move, and sat staring with adoration at Sanaki Baba.





11.9


NOW Sanaki Baba turned to Dipankar and asked: ‘Where will you stay during the week of the Pul Mela?’

‘He is staying with me here in Brahmpur,’ said Mr Maitra.

‘And coming such a long distance each day?’ said Sanaki Baba. ‘No, no, you must stay here in this camp, and go for a bath in the Ganga three times every day. You just follow me!’ He laughed. ‘You see, I am wearing swimming clothes. It is because I am the swimming champion of the Mela. What a Mela this is. Each year it gets bigger. And every six years it explodes. There are thousands of babas. There is a Ramjap Baba, a Tota Baba, even an Engine-Driver Baba. Who knows the truth? Does anyone? I can see you are searching.’ He looked at Dipankar and continued kindly: ‘You will find it, but who knows when.’ To Mr Maitra he said: ‘You can leave him here. He will be good. What did you say your name is – Divyakar?’

‘Dipankar, Babaji.’

‘Dipankar.’ He said the word very lovingly, and Dipankar felt suddenly happy. ‘Dipankar, you must speak to me in English, because I must learn it. I speak only a little. Some foreign people have come to listen to my sermons, so I am learning how to preach and meditate in English too.’

Mr Maitra had been containing himself longer than he could bear. Now he burst out: ‘Baba, I can get no peace. What shall I do? Tell me a way.’

Sanaki Baba looked at him, smiling, and said: ‘I will tell you an unfailing way.’

Mr Maitra said: ‘Tell me now.’

Sanaki Baba said: ‘It is simple. You will get peace.’ He passed his hand backwards – his fingertips scraping the skin – over Mr Maitra’s forehead, and asked: ‘How does it feel?’

Mr Maitra smiled and said, ‘Good.’ Then he went on, pettishly: ‘I take the name of Rama and tell my beads as you advise. Then I feel calm, but afterwards, thoughts come crowding in.’ His heart was on his sleeve and he hardly cared that the Professor was listening. ‘My son – he does not want to live in Brahmpur. He took a three-year extension in his job, and I accepted that, but I did not know that he was building a house in Calcutta. He will live there when he retires, not here. Can I live like a pigeon cooped up in Calcutta? He is not the same boy. I am hurt.’

Sanaki Baba looked pleased. ‘Did I not tell you that none of your sons would come back? You did not believe me.’

‘Yes. What shall I do?’

‘What do you need them for? This is the stage of sannyaas, of renunciation.’

‘But I get no peace.’

‘Sannyaas itself is peace.’

But this did not satisfy Mr Maitra. ‘Tell me some method,’ he pleaded.

Sanaki Baba soothed him. ‘I will, I will,’ he said. ‘When you come next time.’

‘Why not today?’

Sanaki Baba looked around. ‘Some other day. Whenever you want to come, come.’

‘Will you be here?’

‘I will be here until the 20th.’

‘How about the 17th? the 18th?’

‘It will be very crowded because of the full moon bathing day,’ said Sanaki Baba, smiling. ‘Come on the morning of the 19th.’

‘Morning. What time?’

‘19th morning… eleven o’clock.’

Mr Maitra beamed with pleasure, having succeeded in getting an exact time for Peace. ‘I will come,’ he said delightedly.

‘Now where will you be going?’ asked Sanaki Baba. ‘You can leave Divyakar here.’

‘I am going to visit Ramjap Baba on the northern shore. I have a jeep, so we’ll cross Pontoon Bridge Number Four. Two years ago I visited him and he remembered me – he remembered me from twenty years before. He had a platform in the Ganga then, and you had to wade out to see him.’