To the Farthest Rock

By Mohan Rakesh

In 1952, at the age of twenty-seven, Mohan Rakesh undertook a journey to south India, travelling by bus, train and steamer along the western coast from Bombay to Kanyakumari. Young and ardent, he dreamt of the wide expanse of sea that would make up for a childhood spent in Amritsar's narrow lanes, and had visions of comely guides who would look kindly upon his wandering. But once he set out from Delhi on a train to Bombay, his visions slipped away and complex reality took over. To the Farthest Rock is a remarkable account of the hope and despair that characterized post-Independence India. Rakesh had only published a few short stories when he quit a teaching job in Shimla in order to travel, but readers who know his later work will recognize his skill with portraits of people and his exceptional ability to render fluctuations of feeling. Set against the verdant coastal landscape of Goa and Kerala, this absorbing travelogue is a fine introduction to the mind of one of Hindi's greatest novelists and playwrights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperPerennial
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9789350298541

Mohan Rakesh

Mohan Rakesh (1925-1972) was one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani literary movement of Hindi literature in the 1950s. He wrote the first modern Hindi play, Ashadh Ka Ek Din (1958), and made significant contribution to the forms of the novel, short story, travelogue, criticism, memoirs and drama. Carlo Coppola was the Editor Emeritus, Journal of South Asian Literature, 1963-2002. He has taught South Asian and Middle Eastern studies, literature and linguistics for decades.

Book preview

Wanderlust

A stretch of open beach. Outcrops of dark rock amid endless sand. A run-down hotel set back from the beach. A lone lantern in the hotel casting smoky light upon the sand.

Except for the sound of beating waves, silence prevails. I sit on the grounds of the hotel gazing at the horizon. I watch waves approach and recede leaving lines of foam behind. There is an old man sharing my creaky table, his face scored with lines. He sits with a newspaper, I with a cup of tea. The silence over the table is broken by pealing laughter. A girl of sixteen or seventeen approaches the old man and rests her arms on his shoulders. The old man is buried in the paper; he pays no attention to the girl. I raise the teacup to my lips, set it down again. One more wave recedes marking the sand with one more line of foam.

A mountain meadow. A grass hut to one side of rice paddies and corn fields. Smell of freshly cut wood. Evening settling down upon the hut.

I sit on a bench by the window. One or two people trudge along the hillside. Darkness falls. I turn my gaze to the piles of paper scattered about the room. There are loose sheets of paper on the table, on the bed, upon the floor. The loneliness becomes oppressive. I can’t stand the wood smell. My attention is drawn to the smoke from a cooking fire in a nearby hut. This smell I like. The hill path is empty, its outline sinking into darkness. A large bird flaps past

my window.

A dirt trail down a hill. I stop at a bend in the trail. A river valley spreads out below me like a crane’s white wings. The crane positions its head among dark pines. A pair of eyes glance at me from near a tree. There’s the river’s quickness in those eyes and the crane’s astonishment.

‘Where does the trail go?’ I ask.

The girl gets up from where she has been sitting. Her figure is without defect – a straight line and slender curves. She gazes at me without embarrassment.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Wherever the trail takes me.’

She laughs openly. Tree branches stir. The trees want to gather the sky to themselves. A leaf flutters down in eddies.

‘The trail goes to our village.’ The light from the setting sun glints on the edge of her sickle.

‘Where is your village?’

‘Down there.’ She points to the forested area where the crane’s head is hidden from view.

‘There’s nothing down there.’

‘There’s a whole village. Just beyond the trees.’

She hesitates a moment before setting off down the trail. I follow her while the colour of the river changes from white to lavender. Tree shadows lengthen. There are no roofs to be seen anywhere, no walls.

An old house made of unbaked bricks. The old man and old woman who dwell there tell me about their life. Pieces of straw float down from the ceiling while they talk. The old man breaks into the woman’s account of an event. ‘She doesn’t remember how it happened.’ The woman is annoyed and tells him to stop interrupting her. When only one of them tells the story, the other grows drowsy. The wind pushes the door open. There’s a fire burning outside and men quarrelling around the fire. Occasionally their quarrelling dies down. At such times one can hear the wind flowing through the grass in the deep forest. The wind pushes the door shut. My mind returns from forest grass to the lives that have been lived in that house.

Scenes such as these spring to mind whenever I think of going on a journey. Perhaps they come from travel books I read long ago. I have forgotten titles but impressions of the books remain. Why does the mind store such impressions? Why does the mind keep rummaging through them? Someone called this weakness ‘wanderlust’. It is my own limitation that I cannot find a Hindi equivalent for the English phrase ‘wanderlust’. A ‘restless disposition’? But lust is not disposition, surely? ‘Disposition’ lacks the urgency of ‘lust.’ The question remains: is the longing for travel a form of lust?

Directionless Direction

I had no definite plan when I left home. I felt a restlessness driving me. I had long wanted to travel by coastal roads along the sea. Sometimes I had time, sometimes money, but seldom both together. Then I resigned from my teaching job and time and a little money became available. I set out for the seacoast immediately. My first thought was to journey to Kanyakumari and work my way up the Arabian Sea to Goa or Bombay. We had teachers from South India at my old school in Shimla. One of them recommended Kannur as a fine place to visit. Another told me that once I got to Quilon I would never want to leave. A friend in Delhi told me there was no place on earth as beautiful as Panjim in Goa. ‘You will find open beaches there,’ he said, ‘and unspoiled nature. Best of all – the living is cheap. Good food and good places to stay cost next to nothing.’ Cochin, Kannur, Mangalore, Goa. All of them unfamiliar! I wanted to visit the Nilgiri Hills and the backwaters of Aleppy. Most of all I wanted to visit Kanyakumari. Why should someone born on a narrow street in a crowded inland city feel such a pull to the sea?

I hadn’t decided where I would stop or for how long but I settled on going to Bombay first, then to Goa and then to Kanyakumari. I knew I wanted Kanyakumari to be my

final stop.

Abdul Jabbar Pathan

December 25 1952. It takes good fortune to find an empty upper berth in a Third Class railway compartment. I had just found such a berth and laid out my bedding. ‘No more headaches till I reach Bombay,’ I said to myself. ‘I can catch a good night’s sleep.’ But when night came I found myself reclining on a boat on Bhopal Lake in Bhopal, while an old boatman recited Urdu poetry.

My friend Avinash, who edits a Hindi daily in Bhopal, came to meet me at the train station. I thought we would sit and talk till the train was ready to leave but he bundled up my bedding, picked up my suitcase and got off the train. I had no choice but to follow him and spend a night in Bhopal.

It was past 11 p.m. when we went out for a stroll. We found ourselves by Bhopal Lake and wanted to take a boat ride. We found a boatman and negotiated a price. Soon we were in the middle of the lake. Avinash expressed satisfaction with the view of the water and the distant shore. ‘Only one thing is lacking,’ he said. ‘The evening would be complete if one of us could sing a song.’

‘I don’t have a voice for singing,’ the old boatman said. He ceased rowing as he spoke to us. ‘But I can recite Urdu poetry for you, and masha’ allah, they are fine verses.’

‘You must,’ we said enthusiastically. The boatman began to recite a ghazal in a fine voice. The oars lay still while the he rocked back and forth in the manner of a professional poet, letting the ghazal pour out. I lay back watching him. Although it was cold, he wore only a lungi around his middle. The hair on his chest was white, like the hair on his head. I had noticed his steel muscles rippling when he plied the oars. He recited a second ghazal when he finished the first. Then a third.

He fell silent after the third ghazal. We became aware of our surroundings once more – of the night, the cold, the small movements of the boat. The lake had condensed into the form of the boatman. It became an expanse again when his recitation ended.

‘Shall we head back?’ he inquired. ‘It’s growing cold and I forgot to bring my chadar.’

Avinash pulled off his jacket and said, ‘Put this on. We are not ready to return just yet. Do you happen to know any of Ghalib’s compositions?’

The old boatman did not demur. He put on Avinash’s jacket and began reciting one of Ghalib’s ghazals: ‘It has been ages since I welcomed my beloved to my home.’

We had been addressing him as ‘Boatman.’ At the end of his recitation of Ghalib I asked him his name. ‘My name is Abdul Jabbar Pathan,’ he replied, emphasizing the surname Pathan.

‘Abdul Jabbar,’ I said, ‘you have committed many beautiful things to memory. Beautiful and colourful things, I should say. I would not have expected somebody your age to enjoy romantic poetry.’

‘I am a man, Sir. God has gifted man a romantic disposition. He who lacks romantic feeling is not a man.’

‘Well said,’ Avinash laughed. ‘You must have broken many hearts in your time.’

Abdul Jabbar’s lips quivered under his white moustache. He smiled. ‘The breezes of youth flowed over me when I was young. I was reckless and I was stupid. But I have no regrets. Should I get my youth back I would be reckless and stupid all over again.’

‘And you have no occasion to be reckless now?’ Avinash persisted.

‘At my age?’ Abdul Jabbar asked. ‘I don’t lack courage. Tell me which villain you want killed and I will undertake the job. But I have sworn off carnal desires. Do you have the time to listen to something different?’

I thought we were in for Sufi preaching. Abdul Jabbar went on rowing and the slap-slap of oars against water rose from the silent lake. We gazed at him intently. He began to smile in a solemn way. ‘Can you hear it?’ he asked. ‘Hear what?’ I asked him. ‘This sound,’ he replied, ‘of oars entering the water. It may not strike you as special. I, too, was indifferent to