THE SECOND PART

(From Chalam by Chalam)

Translated from Telugu by SRINIVAS RAYAPROL

FOREWORD

Chalam prefaces the book about himself with the following sentences:

“I have always hated autobiography. If I must write about myself, it’d mean that I considered myself important enough, that I have achieved something and that if I don’t tell the world about it, the world would be a poorer place for it.”

So he wrote, not about himself, but about a man called Chalam. A patchwork quilt of reminiscences, thoughts, trivial and twilight musings. It reads excellently and has its own value. The part which is translated here deals with his exit from this world into the world of God–in this case, the Ashram of Sri RaMana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai, near Madras.

I believe Chalam is now in his eighties. Other biographical details are not very important. He lives in his own Ashram at Tiruvannamalai at the feet of Him who had literally dragged him there. One of these days he will die. But it really does not matter. Over fifty years ago, he was a many-splendoured revolutionary who was anti-social, anti-establishment, anti-tradition. In those days they wouldn’t let young boys and girls read his books. He believed in free love and sex and any other freedom that was necessary for a man to breathe his own kind of air. And what Chalam believed, he lived. He wrote a kind of Telugu prose that is still vibrant. He wrote several short stories, novels, plays, sketches, etc., and was verily the corrupter of the young mind in the grand tradition of Socrates, Rimbaud, Henry Miller, etc.

Sri Sri wrote somewhere:

“The X in SEX was what

Chalam’s pen sought.”

WOMAN! That mystic, beautiful creation of God. She was Chalam’s Goddess. He found her in his mother, his wife, his mistress, his sister, his daughter, himself and finally in his God.

Anyone who knows anything of Telugu knows Chalam. The following translation is only for the benefit of those who cannot read him in Telugu. And it is my own small tribute to a major human being.

–SRINIVAS

Before I came here, I had decided to make a complete break with my home-town. The Telugu people, the Telugu land, I would have no more of them. So I burnt my papers, my letters, my books. Everything. And I told myself that even if someone wrote to me, I would not reply. You see that’s how bored and fed up I was with them. My people! Of course I owed something to some of them, that I loved, that had cared for me in the old days. Like Sivam for instance. I owed him a story. And he’d reminded me of it. So I wrote him a long short-story. “NIGHT” it is called. But that is the last story I wrote. I haven’t written anything since.

If I say that God is doing his bit, it is that he is taking me away into His world. Another world altogether. Quite different some people have asked me, “What have you been doing these many years that you have come here?” Some have maligned me that I have fled the world and am in hiding here. But what I mean to say is that if I’d told you what is happening here, you wouldn’t understand me. Nor even believe me.

We left the Telugu world and came away to Arunachala. But there was really nobody who was my friend or one who’d loved me that I’d left behind. May be one or two. And they too said it was good we had left. I have nothing to do with that place now. Nor those people.

A few days after we had come here, Bhagavan left this mortal coil. But he’d told me that he would be here always. Even if I could not see his body. And I believe in those words. And so I am here. With him. Always, myself and Nartaki would be wandering on the streets, and in the open spaces. I am happing doing that. Dolly would also be with us. She has turned out to be such a sweet child. There is this strange thing about her face that makes us happy just to look at her. That is how we spent our days. Going places. Buying things on the wayside. Wandering around to new places amidst new faces. It was a lot of fun.

But all the while the fire is burning inside of me. The pain of it. Oh, the excruciating feeling in which Bhagavan has left me, Bhagavan that has forsaken me, He that loves me so. But what could He do? The more I thought about this the more I began to have faith. In Fate, in my Karma. So I had to suffer. Endlessly. So I told myself. And I created my little moments of joy in this endless suffering. To fill the time and spent my days.

As long as I could, morning and evening I’d lie down beside Bhagavan’s Samadh along with the other disciples. I had no belief in God. Only in Bhagavan. I know his love for me. He knew no more than to love. What else could he do? So I thought. But my future looked bleak. Daily the days would drag by. My happiness was with Dolly, Nartaki. Try as I could, I could not believe in God. In this life full of suffering only Dolly and Nartaki have blessed me with real happiness. Nothing else. This world, these people, this very atmosphere, they are all my enemies.

But I am also beginning to realise that my loss of peace, my weaknesses, are all only on account of my desire. The beauty that I still crave for, the wealth that is beyond me, these longings, they are all there somewhere. But not for me. Not within my reach. Is that why I suffer? If you must have them, you must do penance, sacrifice, give up, so the books say. But I have no faith in them either. I do not really believe that I must give up these pleasures, these senses, become an ascetic to reach or these inaccessibles. Break this body, become like wood. Only then will this body bloom. No, I won’t accept it that way. I must flower slowly. And I will not die to be born again.

I used to believe that my life was a cul-de-sac. And the power to lead me out is not in my mind. But then it was as if Bhagavan had opened a new door out of it. And it was as if my dreams would be fulfilled. So I started on that path. But my body, my weak, unhealthy body was my worst enemy. And I looked around at Dolly and Nartaki who were clinging me. How can I leave them behind? Even if Bhagavan tells me to. I would rather go to Hell with them than to Heaven without them. I don’t need this bliss if it is not with Dolly or Nartaki. One day suddenly we’d all be dead. All together. Afterwards who’d be there to worry over us?

So an year passed. The money we’d brought with us was over. But that does not bother me.

All those days Shou was in a trance. Quite unmindful of everything. I’d look at her and hope would spark in me. Shou has less of this Fate thing. That is why she is so complete, so wise, so much at peace. That brightness. That bliss. They are all part of her. I have none of it. I am so much with Fate. I am nothing.

One day, it was August 15, 1951. Someone told me that it was a great day for us. Shou came to me that evening and said,

“I have seen Him. God has come to visit me.”

I wasn’t thrilled. Shou had a lot of people coming to visit her, Gandhi, Tagore, myself, Rishis, Buddha. They all visited her. But what the hell? What do I care who has come to visit Shou. What care I if a thousand suns burnt in the sky? Or if it rained gold? All I want for me is to get rid of this pain within me. This suffering inside me. And my inside filled with happiness and joy. That is what I want. Then and now.

So I nodded my head at Shou as if to say, “So?” I tell you I wasn’t even surprised. Nor happy. I just said, “Oh.” Just like that.

The next day Shou again came to me,

“Not only did He come to me, and speak to me. He asked me to tell you a few things.

I know what is within you. This pain, this confusion. You have no belief in God. But you came to Bhagavan, left everything to come here, without money, without any other hope, you have come here to Bhagavan.”

Yet, but I do believe in Bhagavan. Do I have faith? And I what is faith? In what plane does it hover, this faith. I can’t find it, search as I will.

Shou continues.

“Bhagavan has not left you. He has his eye on you. So he told me to look after you. ‘Don’t let them feel that there is no one to care for them. Go, make them feel wanted’. He has told me.”

Our money was over. What there was of it. And my health was at an end. Soon I would be dead. And then what would become of them? But at that moment God came and told her,

“Look, I have come now to take care of you. Leave everything to me. Don’t worry that you have no money. Or your health. Or anything. I’ll take care of everything. Tell your father to listen to me and everything will be all right for everyone.”

Or so Shou says.

“You will heed Him, yes?” she asks.

“Of course. What else can I do! If somebody cares for me, who am I to say no.” I reply rather indifferently.

“But I won’t believe he is God. If someone wants to help me, it is Okay with me. But not if you want me to cry God. I have been waiting all my life for Him. To fight Him. All these years I have been waiting for Him to come and make me believe, to create His faith in me. Till then let Him do what He will.”

“All right,” Shou says, “But first get well. And if you have to get well, you must do a few things that He wants you to.”

“Why not” I say.

“Give up meat and fish from today” she says.

“Ok, Why not? I have done sillier things before.”

“And tea and coffee and cigarettes too.”

“Right. Here, I am throwing my cigarette away.”

“And now I’ll teach you a few things. You know, simple exercises to discipline the body.”

I agree. But will my body bend now? I who am dissipated and deformed beyond degree. Can I make myself straight, I wonder.

But I did what I was told to do. And was surprised, at myself. At the way my body responded.

“Go, sit in that corner,” Shot! said, “The rest He will do for you.”

And I would sit as she said. And my body would do these strange things which she bade me do. It was like somebody took hold of my body and made me do these things. Without effort. I wouldn’t stir an inch. Nor lift a finger. What do I know of these things now that had never done any of these things all these many years. And what does my gross body know that hadn’t done an ounce of unwilling work. To wake up at 4 with the dawn and bathe in cold water. But as I did these things my body would behave as if it was a separate part of me, a life in itself, without regard to me. Like it would be unbearably hot and burning at times. But He said He’d make me well. To leave my body in His hands. No fish or meat, he said. No salt or sour things. No vegetables. Nothing but a little curd and rice. Leave your bed and pillow and sleep on the mat on the floor. So I did. As He told me. It was tough. But I could feel the change. Like something being cleaned from inside of me.

In the beginning, He made me do the Asanas. It was as if with His hand on my back, I would do the most incredible of feats, that I had seen only in pictures in books. The yogis living in the mountains, naked, their bodies contorted in the most impossible postures. But this was my body now. My body, my bones. It felt like wax and someone was twisting it into shapes. He made me do some really incredible things. I couldn’t believe it was me, much less my body doing these things. Shou said it was God’s voice that made me do these things. That He was at the back of me. Now everything was going to be fine. I wondered what was going to happen to me. May be I was becoming great. I was going to be rich, famous. I thought so many different things while my body was being so transformed. But I had lost my headaches. That’s for sure. Since that day, those terrible headaches were no more. Goodbye Migraine.

At first he would tell Shou and Shou would tell me. That is how we used to communicate. But after a while He’d speak to me through Shou. And then there would be only Shou talking. Shou, God? I wasn’t sure which was which. Not that it mattered, one way or other. So I said Okay, Shou is my God. From then on, I do what Shou tells me to do. Everything in these last twenty years has been as Shou has willed my body to be. But we’d often argue with each other. This is how it’d go.

“Why did you have to go and create this world? Couldn’t you .it in your corner and do your thing like everyone else?

“I have not created anything.”

“Then what? What is all this?”

So there was nothing to argue. And I wouldn’t believe that this was only of my creation and fancy. If so why have you fooled me all these days? If so why I or you? Why should I realise you? What is this fate and love? There I would come to a stop. For I had lots of love for everybody. I loved people. My whole world was love for others. But love meant suffering, and being without it, and unhappiness, and jealousy and hatred and death and such. So I would argue. Endlessly.

“You have nothing but your mind. If you look at it with your mind, this is how it will be. Everything will appear quite bad. But if you try to destroy it, to weaken it,...well, if you try to make it clear, shall I say, then everything will be light. The world will be like a feather. So do that with your mind.”

He said.

“I can’t. If I could, I would have long ago” I escaped.

“But no. I’ll make you” said He relentlessly. And so it is. He is making me. Till today He is making me do What He said He would.

And now I know, a little, that it is true. That God is true. That Love and Truth, these are true. How I cannot say. Nor can I explain this creation. But I know it all now. What I mean is, my mind knows. Not my experience. If this mind is destroyed, if this body is broken, then it’ll be known. The whole truth. But who wants the truth, when this mind is lost, this body is gone. If I am not there, what care I for the truth? With whose eyes shall I see? I asked.

No, He said. He was kind. You do not know that state, He said. “You cannot understand God. Not unless your mind is dead.”

And I know that this is something which I cannot understand. That which I cannot measure with my mind or see without my eyes, there are so many of these impossible things in so many planes. So much is happening everywhere that I know nothing of. That is beyond my comprehension. That is why I cannot talk of these things lightly. I might be in the dark. But I believe I am seeing a little light now. Perhaps I’ll come out of this darkness at last. And I’ll one day understand everything that He wants me to. But if they ask me, what have you done, what have you achieved, I can say nothing. I am like what I was. They are looking for a change in me since I have come here. But I do not know what has happened to me. Except that I now believe. God is. Bhagavan is. Beyond that what does it matter what becomes of me? I will continue to be in my own darkness.

Back