If you wish to search for Tara,
Come to the pyres of Tarapith.
The Mother plays here night and day,
Foxes dance with serpents.
With meat and wine and liquor.
It is here that Tara’s secrets
Are revealed.
Tapan had now lit his homa fire, and soon the flames were shooting up into the darkness. Ironically, it is the Tantrics, who have inverted so much of Hindu ritual, that have remained uniquely faithful to the Vedic fire sacrifices lost almost everywhere else in modern Hinduism; and like the Brahmins they emphasise the need to perform their rituals correctly and exactly.
The businessman, who introduced himself as Mr. Basu, gathered his family around Tapan’s fire, as casual, eager and relaxed and as at ease as their British equivalents would be on Guy Fawkes Night.
“We are praying for the improvement of our domestic life,” he explained, “and for our business also.”
“We want peace in the home,” added his wife, “and children doing well at school.”
Tapan began to chant mantras, occasionally ringing the bell he kept in his left hand. With his right, every so often he threw a spoonful of ghee on the fire, which made the flames shoot up higher than ever. I took a seat beside Manisha, a little back from the Basu family, and asked her about Tapan’s story.
“Tapan Sadhu is a Brahmin, a Chatterjee,” she said. “Like me, he was called by the goddess when he was a householder in Calcutta. Like me, he left behind a family.”
“Is his wife still alive?” I asked.
“She died recently,” said Manisha. “He had been married to her for fifteen years before the call came from Ma.” She paused. “He happened to be in Calcutta, so he went to her funeral. But his son would not speak to him.”
At this point, Tapan, who had been half-listening as he tended his fire, left the Basus, who had begun to sing some kirtans. He came and squatted beside us, at the foot of the trident, next to the skull. I asked him what had happened.
“It gave me great pain,” he said, shaking his head. “My son was very angry with me. He said I had never taken any interest in him, and never been in touch.”
“Was that true?”
“It was partly true,” said Tapan. “After I answered the call of the Mother, I never found a way of connecting back with them.” He sighed, and threw a piece of kindling into the fire. “Now my son feels obliged to the people who brought him up, not to me. He says they are the people who supported him. He doesn’t want to try to understand my point of view.”
“How did you come to hear about your wife’s death?” I asked.
“I was in Calcutta with some disciples when a call came from my brother saying, ‘Your wife has expired.’ I went straight to the crematorium, and as I walked in, there was my son. I recognised him immediately, after nearly twenty years. How could I not recognise my own son? But even as I was heading towards him, I heard my niece’s husband commenting, ‘Look at him! After all these years he hasn’t been here, and now she’s dead he reappears.’ My son wouldn’t even look at me, and his wife’s family formed a sort of wall between me and him. Without saying anything, they gave me the feeling I should not approach him.”
In the light of the fire, Tapan Sadhu suddenly looked old and vulnerable.
“This was my own kith and kin,” he said. “They were preventing me from talking to my son.”
Tapan fell silent again, staring into the flames.
“They are not spiritual, and probably don’t even believe in God,” he said eventually. “They belong to a very different world. My niece is a professor, and her husband does electrocardiograms. My son is now an accountant with Tata. He was very smartly dressed, in a blazer. A good-looking boy. But they all reject the world I live in. I don’t think I can ever explain it to him.”
“Now he is married,” said Manisha, “maybe his wife will change his mind?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Tapan Sadhu, stroking his beard. “What signs are there? My son is dominated by the people around him. He is not strong enough to think independently.”
The Basus were still singing around the fire. Tapan looked to see if they needed him, but they seemed engrossed in their chants.
“So what did you do?” I asked.
“I stayed at the back. After the ceremony was finished I left. I won’t ever go back.”
“As long as there is life in you,” said Manisha, “you should be full of hope.”
“This life of renunciation, of sanyas, is a life of joy,” said Tapan. “But in the life of every sadhu, some pain is there. The longer you live as a sadhu, the more you enjoy the life, and the more you forget your past. Then something happens to remind you, and you weep.”