Chapter 43
Maitreyi sat alone and listless in the courtyard of the cottage. There was no one to talk to.The afternoon was heavy with the sultry silence of summer. She missed Katyayani’s all-pervading presence. How would this hermitage have survived without her tenacious striving and alert eye? All these years she had worked relentlessly to keep the things moving. If she was hard on everyone, she was no less hard on herself. Never for a moment did she pause to think of what they were missing. Life was an interminable journey without rest. And Maitreyi and Katyayani were everything to everybody. The home-fires were kept burning, pupils received knowledge, and Yajnyawalkya's son had grown to be a fine, strong, and happy lad.
And still Katyayani was driven to go and beseech Yajnyawalkya to leave Videha for good, come back home and take charge of the hermitage. Why? Because Maitreyi found her strength ebbing away; because Maitreyi caved in, giving way to a momentary despondency! Maitreyi had driven Katyayani to act against her pride, when Maitreyi knew all along that that it was Katyayani's pride which had sustained her all along. It was a precious pride, exemplary in its own way. And what did Maitreyi do to that precious asset? How could she break it?
Maitreyi reproached herself for not being able to stay in support of Katyayani and share the burden of their lonely responsibility. It pained her to imagine that majestic woman declaring herself defeated.
As she sat there watching the noon taking on a milder hue, there was a knock at the gate. Maitreyi got up to see who it was. The man seemed to be a weary wayfarer, a mendicant perhaps! But a closer look suggested that he was a Vedic scholar in search of some place to rest his head.
Maitreyi looked at him inquiringly. The man seemed to know her. He greeted her deferentially and introduced himself as Artabhaga from the family of Jaratkaravas. Maitreyi had heard the name before, though she could not recollect when and where. However, she did not feel it proper to keep him standing there. She held the gate open to let him in.
Artabhaga looked around. This was Yajnyawalkya's abode and his hermitage. Even in his absence the place seemed to bask in the light of sanctity and serenity, as if its Master was keeping a watchful eye on it from afar. The Master seemed to be present everywhere. What was absent was fear and doubt. God seemed to have withdrawn there to rest in Himself, and Artabhaga longed to be with the God living there.
He watched Maitreyi as she moved in and out to make arrangements for his stay. She came with some food for him which she served on a plantain leaf.
Artabhaga sat down to eat, clean and refreshed by now. She was silent and unobtrusive while he ate. He seemed to relish the food and ate quietly, having made an offering of the first morsel to god.
Maitreyi was silently wondering about the purpose of his visit. Usually Vedic scholars announced themselves with great ceremony. He had no following. His inwardness reflected in the sound of his voice. But there was something about him which made her feel restful.
When he looked at her directly, she did not in fact know that he had already absorbed her presence watchfully. He hesitated for a moment before addressing her.
“May I call you sister?”
“You may. I am Yajnyawalkya's wife!”
There was no suggestion of a self-conscious pride and no suggestion of forced humility either. She waited then for him to continue. He did not know what to say or where to begin. Should he tell her how his path had crossed that of Yajnyawalkya years ago in Videha at the conference of scholars? Should he tell her how Yajnyawalkya and Shakalya had crossed words with each other in a fateful encounter? Should he tell her how he had wandered without peace and understanding thereafter all these years?
He looked at her uncritically. He wondered whether a self-revelation would not hurt her. He turned back the tide of his thoughts. There was not much time to lose. He had to say something to melt her silence.
What could he say? He relived the moment from the distant past when he had met Shakala, the father of Shakalya, in his lonely cottage, to deliver the news of his son's death.
What did he have to say to this blameless woman? Could he confess that he hated her husband? Could he say that her husband held the key to a gateway to the past?
What if she said that her husband owed no explanation to anyone except his own God?
Artabhaga cowered under the weight of his own questions. The sun had begun to cast long shadows now. Suddenly from nowhere, a boy came running and went straight to Maitreyi. Finding her engaged in conversation with a stranger, he stood near her and started watching Artabhaga curiously.
‘Yajnyawalkya’s son', Artabhaga thought to himself. The boy had his father's looks, but had eyes that were different. He seemed to get deep inside the person he was looking at with those eyes. Yajnyawalkya never looked 'at' a person. He always seemed to be looking at something invisible, something beyond the person.
Artabhaga found the boy looking at him intently. Then the boy went behind Maitreyi and continued to look at Artabhaga, this time with a friendly look to suggest that he had taken a fancy for him and that they could be friends. There was a glint in his eyes now which betokened a secret understanding that he wanted to share with Artabhaga. Artabhaga liked the boy instantly.
Maitreyi felt something going across between the two and turned around to look at the boy. The boy put on an expressionless face and started telling her something about the day's events.
.Artabhaga was amused. After so many years he felt lighthearted and calm. He swept aside for the time being the thoughts that had troubled him and brought him here to seek peace and understanding.
But still, he could not ignore the question in Maitreyi's eyes.
Maitreyi sent the boy away on some errand and turned to Artabhaga.
“It seems, you are not at peace with yourself. Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked rather hesitantly.
Artabhaga made no response. Maitreyi was intrigued by his silence.
Artabhaga mumbled something under his breath. Maitreyi felt, she heard him say 'Yajnyawalkya'. She repeated the word aloud to make sure that she had heard him right. Artabhaga nodded dumbly, unable to say anything further.
Maitreyi felt something amiss. “What is it about Yajnyawalkya?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, unable to control her fear.
Artabhaga realized how unspecific he had made himself. He looked beseechingly at Maitreyi, as if wanting her to help him out. Then he blurted out, “ I have some questions to which he alone holds the answer.”
Maitreyi did not know what to say. She looked into his eyes, trying to read him. Could he be one of those wounded souls from Yajnyawalkya's past, asking to be healed? She was scared to open up the dark vaults of memory. She felt as if she heard the gorge of the sea rushing up from the distant horizons in the dark. She did not know what the tide was going to throw up or take back with it.
She looked at Artabhaga in mute anguish. Artabhaga felt a dark cloud descend upon her. She had the look of a child bracing up for a punishment it did not understand fully yet.
After all, by what right was he confronting her with the doubt in his mind? Was it not enough to have carried its burden on his own shoulders? Did he expect to unload the past at her door and walk away in relief? Was he going to be a free soul thereafter?
Artabhaga felt something breaking inside him. He felt he owed something to this woman. He would gladly have done anything to make her happy without letting her know it. If he had no power to bring smiles to her, he had no right to give her pain.
He was woken up by Maitreyi’s low voice coming as if from a deep interior.
“Are you one of the sages who were present long back at Janaka's assembly in Videha?”
Artabhaga perforce said, “Yes”.
“Were you then witness to what happened there?”
“What do you mean?”
There was silence again. Artabhaga saw the knowledge of the past clearly reflected on her face. There was no evasion.
She was present in a different dimension. Artabhaga did not know where to place her in his perspective of the past. She existed to herself, oblivious of Artabhaga's presence.
When she looked at him, it was as if she was wielding a power to weave a secret encasement around her husband. He felt, she knew his question and possessed the answer too. But it seemed she waited, like an oracle, for him to ask the right question.
Artabhaga looked inside his heart for the question. What could he say? ----“Why did Yajnyawalkya curse Shakalya? Why did he not leave him to his fate? Why didn't Yajnyawalkya change the course of events? Who was Yajnyawalkya? A god in human form? Why did he: Artabhaga: love Shakalya despite his foolhardiness? Why couldn't Artabhaga be Yajnyawalkya or Yajnyawalkya Artabhaga?
These questions had reverberated in his mind over time without answers.
Possibly, Maitreyi had not seen or known Shakalya. Shakalya was no angel; he was a misguided soul. He went the way of his own karma. Then why did Artabhaga grieve for him?
Artabhaga's mind swayed in diverse directions as he searched for the only right question that would yield answers to all. It was like asking Yajnyawalkya why he was Yajnyawalkya and asking Artabhaga why he was Artabhaga.
Maitreyi was somehow able to divine the question raging in the mind of this ascetic. He too knew it; but refused to divulge what he knew. There was no way she could help him. He also knew that he had no specific, outward justification for coming here. He had landed here on an impulse.
He was inwardly soaking in Maitreyi's presence and the serenity around her. He regretted the incomplete articulation of his undefined feelings for Yajnyawalkya, in a clumsy effort to make her aware of the turmoil in his mind. He was standing at a point from where he could neither go back nor go ahead. He could see from her silence that his presence irked her. It was as if he had desecrated her inner sanctuary. Outwardly she gave him no sign of offence. But it was there. An unnameable bonding was taking place between them, though not a very happy one.
Artabhaga closed his eyes to lock inside the images and memories from the past. With his eyes still closed, he spoke, almost to himself, “Shakalya is gone, but he has left behind a legacy of unresolved questions for me.”
Maitreyi remembered the day when Yajnyawalkya's disciple had fearfully described to her the tempestuous wordy battle between Yajnyawalkya and Shakalya, and its grim outcome. She could not establish a cause and effect relation between the words uttered by Yajnyawalkya and the
manner of Shakalya's death. She was a mute witness to the invisible forces at work which had trampled their lives underneath their march. Yajnyawalkya had steadily withdrawn from their world since then. He was lost to them after his return from Videha.
But Maitreyi could feel it with certainty that the cause of that transformation was Gargi, not Shakalya. Gargi's presence in Yajnyawalkya's life had brought them to this pass.
.What could she say to this man who seemed to have brought with him a shadow that had no body?
Artabhaga and Maitreyi had moved into remote worlds which they could not connect. Each carried a burden that was irredeemable. Maitreyi felt she could not take any more of the residue from the past. She knew, she had no power over the past and therefore no answer to Artabhaga's inarticulate question. She was forever at the still point of the wheel of time. Fate had ordained it that she should neither accept nor reject anything without gaining a complete insight. She had learnt that understanding is not a moment in time. It dawns upon you unannounced, after all your striving ends. She had sought nothing and found nothing.
“You cannot name the question that is going to fetch you the answer,” she said at last. It was like throwing a rope across from the bank of a river to rescue the one who is drowning.
“Or is it that you do not want to name it to me?” she said after a moment of reflection.
Artabhaga hung his head in defeat. There was no wall behind which he could hide himself from her. They seemed to be communicating ahead of words.
He simply nodded.
'You seem to be troubled by Shakalya's death, or perhaps intrigued by the forces which led him to it. I am no sage who can explain the working of fate. We have come a long way from that point in time. Does your life depend upon the answer to your question? Life in itself is a question, and in itself an answer. Will it cease and stop around the corner till you come back to it with the answer? Try to see the one inside you who is asking the question. That one alone has the answer to your question.”
Maitreyi paused. She felt she had spoken too much. Artabhaga looked at her in amazement. It was not easy to accept what she was saying. But he did not want to argue or refute her. It was soothing to let her speak, though she held no answer. He had kept Shakalya alive in himself all these years. Should he not release him and find peace for himself? Or was Shakalya alive to seek revenge through him?
Artabhaga felt that as he was pondering over what she was saying, she expected him to say something. He kept looking at her feet. Her toes twiddled uneasily as if they felt his gaze.
“I shall certainly think over what you are saying,” said he, without looking at her. Then realizing how shallow his words sounded, he looked up at her. She was looking at him as if she was an
invisible entity.
The flow of the conversation ended there. Maitreyi felt the flutter of a little bird called hope in the dark corner of her heart. She silenced that bird. All these years she had caged that bird called hope in her heart. It was time to release it now and let it find its home in the open sky. It may come back if it wished, on stronger wings, with the vision of the sky in its little eyes.
This stranger may find his answers, or continue to wander wherever his heart led him. She had no light for him. She was afraid to tread again the ground she had left behind. Yajnyawalkya had chosen his destiny. Let him go ahead on his path. She did not want to be tied down to the questions he had created in his past.
Artabhaga got up and turned his back on her. Maitreyi thought her harshness was rather out of place. She was pained to see him turn away. She was about to go inside to start the home-fire when Katyayani's son came running in again. He saw Maitreyi going in and the stranger standing by himself, gazing at the sky. There was something in their silence which he could not understand. He lingered there till his mother was out of sight. Then he went close to the stranger and tugged at his shawl.
Artabhaga turned around to find the boy looking at him curiously. The boy smiled, as if he did not like to see him sad.
“Did my mother scold you over something?” he asked.“She is very gentle to everyone .Why was she angry with you?”
Artabhaga held his hand in a gesture of acknowledgment and said, “Why do you think she was angry? She wasn't. I was sad because I hurt her.”
Artabhaga realized what a foolish confession it was! The boy gave him a look of incomprehension .Artabhaga felt the distance that time had created between Yajnyawalkya and his son..
He was Yajnyawalkya's son. Artabhaga had longed to see the world Yajnyawalkya had left behind. He patted the boy playfully. The touch of his hand reminded Artabhaga of the only time when Yajnyawalkya had held his hand in Janaka's assembly.
The boy held his hand and pulled him along, saying, “Come, I'll show you our stable-yard and my pony!”
As they were walking towards the stable-yard, Maitreyi came out and said, “You will stay in the hermitage tonight. I have made arrangements for your stay.”
Before Artabhaga could say anything, the boy said,” Yes, you will stay with us; I won't let you go.”
…....................
Artabhaga was to leave the hermitage today. But the boy was reluctant to let him go. The boy was quiet and reflective. In the midst of the exuberance natural to his age, he would suddenly have his moments of introversion; but his joy was always spontaneous and infectious.
As Artabhaga was getting ready to leave, the boy lingered around him on some pretext or the other. He was determined somehow to make Artabhaga a part of his world. He was of an age when the world beckons you with a treasure-house of untold mysteries. Artabhaga wondered if the boy didn’t miss his father. However, he preferred to watch him from a distance and liked to enter his world only to share his joy. But he could feel Maitreyi's watchful eye follow them everywhere, as if she was anxiously guarding a valued treasure. The boy was silently and patiently stealing moments of closeness with Artabhaga whenever she got busy with her chores. In one such moment he said, “I know, my mother does not want me to talk to you. She is afraid I may ask you about my father.”
Artabhaga was startled to hear the truth so plainly out of the boy's mouth. There was a sudden grown-up look on the boy's face as he said this.
“Before you go, tell me the truth. Do you know my father? Have you seen him, talked to him?”
Artabhaga looked at the boy—half child, half adult! What could he say to him? Did he know his father?
The boy watched him with innocent expectancy. Artabhaga stroked his head gently and said, “Yes, I know your father.”
“Are you likely to meet him anytime, anywhere? Tell me, what is he like?”
“Your father is a good soul. He is known to many, but there are very few who really know him.”
“I know what you mean!”
Artabhaga was surprised at this unexpected recognition from Yajnyawalkya's son.
“One day I hope to know him in the real sense,” said the boy. Artabhaga silently agreed. His own agony dissolved in the earnestness of the boy's dream. He added his own will to that of the boy and prayed to god that not his will, but that of the boy be granted
In the afternoon Artabhaga left the hermitage and set off on a journey to Videha..