another rising from his lotus navel—blue he lay and in deep sleep. Grandfather wept profusely. One weeps in temples. Grandfather and Grandmother went then to Chalai Bazaar and bought Usha two ankle bands of silver. She looked so lovely she wanted to go back to the temple.
There’s only one depth and one extensivity and that’s (in) oneself. It’s like a kitten on a garden wall. It’s like the clock of the Secretariat seen through a mist of clouds—time moves on according to a moon (and the sun) but the offices go on working, people scribbling, smoking, typing, belching, scratching, farting big, fibbing, exuding asafoetida perspiration or the acrid smell of buttermilk—there will be peons to whom a rupee warrants well, but two warrant more, and up the staircase you go, one, two, and three, and each step is worth a rupee, on to the first floor. On the second floor the prices are higher. You pay ten rupees a step. And on the third, it’s like offerings to the Maharaja, you pay according to ceremony. And above it all sits time like a nether world recorder asking no questions. It revolves on itself and when the hour comes it strikes. And off it goes—something. What is it that is gone? What is time? What is death? In fact you could ask what is life. You issue a ration card. Your house number, numbers of the family, are all indicated: you are class A, B, C or D. You buy what you want and when you want, but only what is available. Governments are notoriously mismanaged. A railway car might have gone off to Coimbatore containing rice for Cannanore or Conjeevaram. What matters is that the station begins with a C. Cannanore, Conjeevaram, Coimbatore. It would almost make a nice mantra. Life is only such a mantra—you go on saying life life, or in Sanskrit
jeeva jeeva
(and in Sanskrit it sounds more real), so you go on living.
Jeeva
is life. So I live. There is a clock tower. Then there is the ration shop. Ration Office No. 66 is just above it. The Revenue Board is under the clock tower, and that is where I work. Down the road that goes to the hospital is Ration Office No. 66. That is where Govindan Nair works. His face is full now. I have a house. I have laid the foundation for myself—and through time. The Secretariat clock will go on chiming forever, and as long as it chimes, it will go on telling you the time forever; can you imagine a state without a government? You must have permanence. So permanence is the Secretariat with the clock tower. I hear the clock chime at night from my house. Thus I live a bit of eternity. My house has a garden wall. There is, as you know, a
bilva
tree by the wall. A hunter once broke twigs off the
bilva,
you will remember, and down the leaves fell on the oval emergence of the alabaster. Shiva was pleased with this unknowing worship. I look towards the garden wall. Lord, I am not even a hunter that in his nervousness lets down
bilva
leaves. Lord, what hope is there for me?
Govindan Nair always appears at such a moment. These are the sort of thoughts that run through me in the morning. I usually wash my face and feet. Then I go to the Home Friends for my coffee and
upma.
By the time I return the
Malayalarajyam
is on my veranda. I read it from beginning to end, about Hitler and the wars, Churchill and the speeches, and then I begin to scratch the curve of my feet. I have a house now, my own. Usha is lying inside. She will wake soon and say, ‘Father.’ What a mysterious word it is. ‘Father,’ she says. As if I were able to be the cause of anything. For father simply means cause of her. And the cause of cause, what is it? Is it not she? Could there be a father without a daughter? What would Usha be without me? What would this house be if I did not own it? It is not possible not to own it and yet it would somehow be mine? Air I own not, yet I breathe. I breathe myself. Do I own I?
Such are the terrible thoughts that oppress me. Govindan Nair is my guide. He lives across the wall, and
There’s only one depth and one extensivity and that’s (in) oneself. It’s like a kitten on a garden wall. It’s like the clock of the Secretariat seen through a mist of clouds—time moves on according to a moon (and the sun) but the offices go on working, people scribbling, smoking, typing, belching, scratching, farting big, fibbing, exuding asafoetida perspiration or the acrid smell of buttermilk—there will be peons to whom a rupee warrants well, but two warrant more, and up the staircase you go, one, two, and three, and each step is worth a rupee, on to the first floor. On the second floor the prices are higher. You pay ten rupees a step. And on the third, it’s like offerings to the Maharaja, you pay according to ceremony. And above it all sits time like a nether world recorder asking no questions. It revolves on itself and when the hour comes it strikes. And off it goes—something. What is it that is gone? What is time? What is death? In fact you could ask what is life. You issue a ration card. Your house number, numbers of the family, are all indicated: you are class A, B, C or D. You buy what you want and when you want, but only what is available. Governments are notoriously mismanaged. A railway car might have gone off to Coimbatore containing rice for Cannanore or Conjeevaram. What matters is that the station begins with a C. Cannanore, Conjeevaram, Coimbatore. It would almost make a nice mantra. Life is only such a mantra—you go on saying life life, or in Sanskrit
jeeva jeeva
(and in Sanskrit it sounds more real), so you go on living.
Jeeva
is life. So I live. There is a clock tower. Then there is the ration shop. Ration Office No. 66 is just above it. The Revenue Board is under the clock tower, and that is where I work. Down the road that goes to the hospital is Ration Office No. 66. That is where Govindan Nair works. His face is full now. I have a house. I have laid the foundation for myself—and through time. The Secretariat clock will go on chiming forever, and as long as it chimes, it will go on telling you the time forever; can you imagine a state without a government? You must have permanence. So permanence is the Secretariat with the clock tower. I hear the clock chime at night from my house. Thus I live a bit of eternity. My house has a garden wall. There is, as you know, a
bilva
tree by the wall. A hunter once broke twigs off the
bilva,
you will remember, and down the leaves fell on the oval emergence of the alabaster. Shiva was pleased with this unknowing worship. I look towards the garden wall. Lord, I am not even a hunter that in his nervousness lets down
bilva
leaves. Lord, what hope is there for me?
Govindan Nair always appears at such a moment. These are the sort of thoughts that run through me in the morning. I usually wash my face and feet. Then I go to the Home Friends for my coffee and
upma.
By the time I return the
Malayalarajyam
is on my veranda. I read it from beginning to end, about Hitler and the wars, Churchill and the speeches, and then I begin to scratch the curve of my feet. I have a house now, my own. Usha is lying inside. She will wake soon and say, ‘Father.’ What a mysterious word it is. ‘Father,’ she says. As if I were able to be the cause of anything. For father simply means cause of her. And the cause of cause, what is it? Is it not she? Could there be a father without a daughter? What would Usha be without me? What would this house be if I did not own it? It is not possible not to own it and yet it would somehow be mine? Air I own not, yet I breathe. I breathe myself. Do I own I?
Such are the terrible thoughts that oppress me. Govindan Nair is my guide. He lives across the wall, and
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