Restless is the Mind
An excerpt from No End to the Journey
a novel by S. Shankar
Closest to the many pictures of Krishna set out on the bench sat Narayan who knew countless bhajans by memory and was the most adept of the singers. Him Gopalakrishnan liked. He was a small and modest man with sad eyes, a man with a habitually drooping demeanor. But his voice was rich and what he lacked in training he made up for with quiet and sincere fervor. He it was who always led during these sessions, enunciating with devotion-though still not, it was Gopalakrishnan's opinion, with the devotion of which Ganapathy had been capable-the first line that the others would then take up and repeat. If only, Gopalakrishnan thought to himself, looking around the room, the other singers were half as good. Here was Narayan's wife, basking in the glory of her husband, shamelessly raising her raspy voice higher than anyone else. And there, over on the other side of the room, sat Vasu in the midst of his cronies, his paunch hanging out from under his shirt. How loudly he was whispering to Sivaraman! Gopalakrishnan waited until Vasu caught his eye, gave Vasu a deliberate look, and then turned away to continue scanning the room, making note of who was talking without regard for the solemnity of the occasion and who singing with a flamboyance belied by actual ability.
Gopalakrishnan was still engaged in this indignant exercise when the bhajan came to a thundering conclusion. The singers followed Narayan's lead and rose and crested in a chant of "Radhey-Radhey-Radhey-Radhey-RAADHEY-GOVINDA-Brindavan-Chandra." In the lull that followed, Narayan conferred with the other bhajan adepts sitting around him. Gopalakrishnan saw they were encouraging Narayan to sing a song, not a bhajan, on his own. Narayan overcame his diffidence and reluctantly agreed. He announced the song-"Alaipaayuthey."
Immediately Gopalakrishnan began to listen attentively. The song was very popular. Gopalakrishnan knew it well because Ganapathy would sing it often. Stretched out on his mattress in the barsaati, splashing water on himself from the bucket in the bathroom, leaning aimlessly against the wall of the terrace-the mood could take Ganapathy at any moment and the song could burst from him whole or in fragments. Unlike Ganapathy, Gopalakrishnan did not consider himself a particular devotee of Krishna; yet he had learnt through his friend to love the intimate ardor of this particular song. Even in his present mood he could not resist it. Sitting next to him, his mother too perked up. One bony hand came alive to keep imprecise time on her lap. Her lips moved soundlessly in unison with Narayan, who began low and gentle.
Restless as the waves of the ocean, Kanna,
is my mind.
Ebbing and flowing
in the joyous, melodious
song of your flute,
my mind is a restless ocean.
You stand still as an unmovable statue,
unmindful of the passing of time,
O marvelous player of the flute,
while my mind is a restless ocean.
How Ganapathy had loved this song. No one could sing it like he could. Not even Narayan, who sang it so well. With what subtle feeling Ganapathy had expressed its sentiments, his voice moving restlessly, searchingly, on the word waves and then pausing so steadily, so firmly, on statue. In his mind, Gopalakrishnan could hear Ganapathy as if he were singing right there in that room in Paavalampatti.
Moon without blemish
burns hot and bright as day.
My brow furrows
from looking towards you in hope.
Your sweet flute song
comes blowing on the wind. Eyes roll helplessly-
dizzy, faint, I am overcome.
Now Narayan's voice quickened, abandoned restraint. The cymbals in his hands rang more swiftly. Perspiration dripped from his face. He inclined his head backward to free his voice and his sad eyes grew small and distant with an emotion Gopalakrishnan could not name. His resonant voice overflowed the unlikely body to which it belonged and poured into the room with desperate longing. Around the room competing conversations and distractions faded away. Gopalakrishnan too felt his heart fill and stretch as if to bursting.
You rejoiced so in planting your foot
firmly on my restless mind!
You embraced me in a wild place,
woke my senses, made me bloom!
Like sunlight gleaming
on the resounding ocean waves
gleamed the anklets on your feet!
Is this your wish?
That I cry out like this to you-
wild, my mind liquid with longing-
while still you frolic with your other women?
Is this deserved? proper? just?
Narayan had not raised his voice. Yet his song seemed to have grown louder-more urgent, more yearning. Presently it sank back into a quiet sigh of resignation and release.
Like the earrings that swing
as you play your flute,
my mind swings, suffers,
restless as the waves of the ocean.
Kanna, my mind
is restless as the ocean
in the joyous melodious
song of your flute.
Narayan concluded the song and a great murmur of approval stirred through the room. "Vah! Vah!" cried voices here and there. The man sitting next to Narayan clapped him loudly on his back. Through all the acclamation Narayan sat quietly, his body now a deflated bag of ordinariness. He wiped the sweat from his face with a hand towel and did not make any reply to the appreciative comments being put forward. He was surrounded, yet he was solitary. Gopalakrishnan looked at Narayan and felt kinship. A realization, a startling revelation, seemed to come to him. Suresh's face appeared in his mind. Suresh, Parvati, his mother. How he was surrounded. And yet alone, very alone. He turned abruptly to his mother and said, "I am going home." He stood up and hurried his way through the seated people, his head hanging low. He wanted to get away from all of it. He picked his way without regard through the crowd of people seated on the floor. Many turned irritated faces up at him as he brushed past them. He stepped by mistake on the long sari palloo of a woman he did not know well but hurried on without even the merest of apologies. By the time he was outside in the street in front of the tall open doors of the temple, he felt truly overcome. Dizzy, faint, weak. Restless as the waves of the ocean. Yes, that was how he felt.