THE MEETING
(Short-story
translated from Marathi)
G. A. KULKARNI
The princely looking young man stealthily came out of a side door of the palace and looked around with adventurous eyes. Down below on a slope, the city spread leisurely, and its roads looked like veins in a body. People, caught in the web of unknown pleasures and sorrows, moved on them like live drops. All this was new to the prince. This was the first time that he was out of his sheltered, shelled life filled with kind friends and loyal slaves; the first time that he had stepped into the wilderness of humanity. There was a new excitement on his young face, and he slowly walked towards the city.
Just outside the palace gate, he met an emaciated old man. His long hair had completely died out into whiteness, and there was a red wet wound in his wrinkled, ancient forehead. In those sunken eyes, there was such pain as no man had ever seen; there was such sorrow as no man could have borne. With his mere presence, the ancient man could have turned the Spring season into gray Autumn.
“Prince,
may I accompany you?” he asked. His voice was broken like a bird’s when its
heart is being torn by a hawk.
The
prince was chilled when he saw that image of extreme old age. For the first
time in his life, he had become aware that a human being could be so utterly
old. In his palace, he was always surrounded by friends who were as young and
gay as he was. He had the company of young, proud dancing girls whose anklets
created intoxicating rhythms when they danced for him. But this ancient man,
bent under sad years since almost time began, woke him up from his young dream
world. The new thrill in his body suddenly died, and as if he had lived twenty
years’ life in one moment, his youthful mind became lustreless
with the dullness of age.
Without
speaking, they walked on side by side. On the road-side, sat
one blind girl begging and tinkling her old brass pot. The prince
suddenly stopped as if he had stumbled, and on his mind rose
a red blood mark of pain. In the palace he was surrounded by children. But
their faces were like opening buds, their eyes brilliant with hopes for the
future; and their gold ornaments gave their lives a stread
refrain of joy and happiness.
“What
fathomless sorrow!” said the prince in a quivering voice, “This girl came out
of her mother’s womb’s darkness, merely to live in her own!”
“The sorrow indeed is fathomless,” said the old man in a dead, petrified voice,
“But still, one day that is going to end, and be over.”
The
prince moved with heavy feet, his mind numb with pain. The full crushing burden
of human life came and sat on his mind, and he yearned to go away from the
hectic, restless crowd. Without his knowing, his feet turned towards the
cemetery of the city. There was one lonely pyre burning, and a few persons were
sitting at some distance from it, their faces downcast with grief. The body on
the pyre looked completely rejected and helpless. As if all its life had become
merely one single piece of white cloth, the shroud was slowly burning and
becoming ashes. “Who was this man? Whose journey of life ended today?” unable
to repress his curiosity, the prince asked. His face was looking drawn and sad,
and in his voice there was infinite compassion.
“He was Lakshminandan, the merchant prince,” said one of the mourners.
“So
this-body was once Lakshminandan!” exclaimed the
prince in a broken voice, “I had heard about him. His hundred ships travelled
on seven seas with the merchandise of sandalwood, spices, and priceless jewels.
He had built innumerable food-houses that fed thousands who blessed his name.
He had built majestic ghats that tamed the
thousand-armed power of the
“Man’s
life may be filled with suffering and sorrow, but still, it
is going to end. One that is born, must, happily and
fortunately die, for Death is man’s greatest friend.” The ancient man said as
if a grave had opened and found voice.
The young man
became impatient. He turned towards his companion and said, “Old man, don’t
your eyes have tears of blood when they see such scenes? That innocent girl who
was cursed with darkness, even before she was born, the invisible ant-hill of
age that goes on growing relentlessly, even when we are still intoxicated with
youth, and lastly, this meaningless insignificant end and destruction! Don’t
you feel anything about these–that human life is all transitory, that it is
making its foolish journey on its two feet of pain and death?”
The
ancient man did not speak immediately. His eyes flared up as if seven burning
suns had simultaneously risen over limitless dark oceans. They looked tortured
with the accumulated memories of the past, but the next moment they became
lifeless as before.
He
said quietly, “Prince, you are extremely compassionate. Hundreds
of persons had seen such scenes before you. But how many
of them were so deeply moved with anguish? So far you lived in the fragrant
world of lotus petals. But some day, you will be sitting on the lotus of
knowledge and giving the light of your wisdom to the suffering man. But Prince,
look here. I have suffered so much pain, as you have not even in your young
happy days. Therefore listen to my words. All this that you have witnessed now,
is filled with pain and sorrow. But still there can be something even more
terrible than this. You are deeply disturbed the transitoriness
of life, by the shadow of destruction on everything. But happily, everything
has a destined and inevitable end. Your mind is flowing with compassion, because
you feel man’s life is so like a dew-drop. But man’s life is attractive and
tolerable, though briefly, precisely because it is going to end sometime.
Because of that, there is no fear of having unending pleasures that satiate and
kill, of sorrows that shatter and destroy. By the time one begins to feel
childhood to be shallow and immature, exciting youth comes and replaces it.
When one is about to be exhausted with the youthful orgies of flesh and
feeling, calm old age, with experience and peace, emptied of passions, comes.
When it becomes feeble, and helpless, Death comes and gently blows it out.
Young man, what more happy life should man yearn for?”
The
prince was astonished at the ancient man’s strangc
words. “There can be something more terrible than these!” he exclaimed with
wonder. Once again, the girl’s blind eyes, the dead man’s helpless insignificance,
his loneliness, all came before his eyes, and he felt that he was being tied to
a wheel of torture.
“Yes,
there can be something even more terrible than these,” the old man repeated,
“Here man’s happiness is temporary, of a passing moment. But then similarly,
even his is temporary too. Compared to it, eternity, immortality are immensely terrible. Prince, have you ever thought of the
misery that would brand man’s forehead, if; with all this pain and suffering,
he were also permanent and immortal?”
“But
ancient man, you too like other human beings, are tied to this wheel of change,
decay and destruction, to the wheel of transitory life! What do you know about
the pangs and poison of immortality?” the prince asked. “I am not tied to that
wheel. Prince, that happiness is eternally taken away
from me” the old man said in a dry, hollow voice, and stood up to go. “If I do not know about the pangs of immortality, prince, who else
should know? Look at me, Gautama, I am Ashwatthama.”
And
then the ancient man pushed the tattered, helpless body on its unending journey
of memories and pain.