Joys of Jayanagar

By John A. Karkala

" The story relates to the adventures of two academic professionals. One born and bread in arctic Finland, and other born and bread in tropical India. By accidents of karma in previous existence, they get glued up and buttered in New York.

In their romantic dream of 'Wonder that was India, they return to his homeland to settle down in Bangalore. Their confrontation with contemporary Indian social reality results in conflict of sensibilities. They endure little ironies, agonies, and ecstasies.

The narrative has literary flavor against the background of globalizing cultural mythologies, classical and modern, in three continents. The juxtaposing of myths, legends, symbols, and some 'sacred cows and bulls' in good natured humor, makes it a challeging reading."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462818709

John A. Karkala

Dr. John A, Karkakala, born in India, was educated at Bombay, London, and Columbia Universities. He served in India's Foreign Missions in London, Geneva and UN in New York for seven years. As Professor of Comparative Eurasian Lit., he taught at the State University of NY, and Columbia University. Currently he is a member of two Columbia University Seminars - Shakespeare, and South Asia. He has published two novels, a volume of poetry, literary portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru; essays on Indo-English Lit., and Bibliography of Indo-English Lit. 1800-1966,jointly with Leena A, Karkala, Adjunct Prof. of English, NY Institute of Technology. His Anthology of Indian Literature, from Vedas to Gitanjali, published by Penguin Books, was adopted as text in several colleges in USA and Canada and English medium colleges in Asia.

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Copyright © 2009 by John A. Karkala.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

1 GANGAMMA’S HOUSE

2 CROSSING THE GHATS

3 MOTI MAHAL

4 RAJ MANDIR

5 UDUPI LIONS

6 MISSION TO MIYAR

7 SARASVATHI TEMPLE

8 POST OFFICE

9 THE VISITORS

About the Author

1 GANGAMMA’S HOUSE

__Time is not running, I tell my wife,—but we are running out of Time.

She is silent.

—Perhaps it is time to return to the root.

The blue horizon over the eye of the Mohonk Mountain in New York echoes.

She does not contradict. Nature doesn’t. She only asserts in her own way with a purpose.

When, in the jar of our being, barriers of Time and Geography melt away into experience, life becomes a continuous presence. Though we reckon Timelessness with units of duration and accept that mythification as a satisfying illusion, what is recollected at times perhaps at best has the reality of the waves on the surface of the ocean. That leaves us with the question Where am I? unanswered. Thus, life progresses from seed to pod, like the river that flows backwards to its source.

—Yes, she says, indulgently loosening her hair with her fingers.

So, in the year 5071 of Kali Yuga, according to Udupi Panchanga, we start on another voyage of discovery into the womb of Time. That is, in the Chinese year 4668 the Year of the Dog (very auspicious they say) which we see celebrated with dragon dance on the torch lit streets of Chinatown in San Francisco. Or as some people count, roughly about one thousand nine hundred and seventy years after the supposed birth of Rishi Yesu of the desert in the valley of the Jordan, sister of Sacred Ganga, my wife and I return to my homeland in ancient Jambudwipa for the third time.

There is restlessness in living in suitcases. Hotel rooms do not give the serenity of a home, whatever hovel that may be. There is safety in a place of one’s own where one can feel free to scratch where one likes. To avoid such uneasiness which we endured on our two previous visits, we rent the upper floor of a large house Janaki in Jayanagara in Bangalore. In those breezy bare rooms of Janaki’s spacious upstairs we settle down to tickle our fancy and enjoy our hibernating ten weeks on the bountiful lap of Bharat Mata.

—This time I am going to be a tourist in India, I tell playfully to my wife, Niilakshi, a blue-eyed Scandinavian blonde whom I married in New York.

—What is the difference? she asks.—They don’t want you anyway.

Niilakshi accompanied me twice before to my home country. Every time she discovers that her husband is getting more and more estranged from his country and its peoples. The confrontation between the learned professor teaching abroad about Indian culture and tradition as expressed in its great books, and the contemporary English-Educated Indians often leads to futile discussions and abrupt partings. For the English educated Indians, thanks to Thomas Babington Macaulay’s notorious prophesy, literature means, even twenty-five years after independence, British literature in which they soak themselves as if that is scripture. When someone unwittingly dares to mention about ‘Indian Classics’ that non-existent term in their vocabulary immediately sets them on a frowning sneer: What Indian classics? Though memories of such earlier encounters are still fresh with us, having outgrown the disenchantment of returning to settle down in India, we now look upon those incidents with light-hearted humor.

In spite of these forbidding omens, we decide to take leave of absence during the Spring semester from the State University in New York where my wife and I are teaching, and visit the land of my fore-mothers.

. . .

Ever since we surrendered to Janaki’s tantalizing shelter in Jayanagara, we are keeping to our seclusion. We occupy ourselves with visits to shops and market places, or at times to temples or historical ruins, and enjoy these excursions. For we dread meeting the so-called academic people.

—We welcome foreign scholars, but not over-educated Indians from abroad; they are a problem.

That was how I was greeted by the Vice-Chancellor of the University in my home State. That was five years ago when I returned to India for the first time.

‘Over-education’ echoes in my mind as I sit still in the first floor front balcony of our Janaki. Those five years have not softened the sharpness of that uncouth comment by the uncivil servant who at that time happened to head the institution of higher learning and culture. He is no longer there, I hear, but gone to another state of existence appropriate to his cumulative Karma.

. . . Over-education has been my problem, they say. Everyone obviously gets into his problems by his own doings. Karma is not hundred years behind or a hundred kilometers away. It is just behind, following ‘like the wheel on the hoofs of the bull that is yoked to a cart.’ Bhagavan Buddha explained it all thirteen times two thousand five hundred full moons-ago, and it still sounds modern. While modern men pick up stones and sand on the surface of the moon to bring them to their home, who knows the karma consequence of this moon-madness or the scientific progress. When a society produces egg-heads what do they fetch? Among other things, ruthlessness and pollution. One makes war in Vietnam and blasts that nation’s tradition and its people, and the karma consequence follows in the war on war at home and the rot catching the war-making nations’ most precious and tender stock. One needs moonlight to see the connection between the ruthless of My Lai massacre by the gunpowder industry and the savagery of the dope and drug business. We may have forgotten to read or understand the Dhammapada the sayings of the Prophet of Righteousness but the karma causality has not ceased to be operative in human affairs. Who can avoid the consequences of one’s own actions? Who can see the connection between the brown seed of action and the distant branches and green leaves of the tree of consequences. But they follow inevitably. Just so, I am over-educated for India by seeking education abroad; that is what the Vice-Chancellor said. He is dead, of course. Where is he now? If he is reborn as a human, perhaps he is educated in a primary school, or maybe, he is in the company of millions of others who are educated by Nature’s own process. Yet I wonder who is an educated man? If education were to make a man better than he is, does one really get educated today, or our education only makes us blind to the vision of a greater life, driving us into a cocoon of a kind, and the conflict of cultures. What really is the problem: Over-education or under-education! . . .

Reflections take one no-where and everywhere.

I watch the Jasmine vine lustily growing on Janaki’s balcony and profusely expressing the joys of its existence in a loving embrace to the brick wall. Experiencing life in its abundance, this jasmine vine expresses itself in green leaves and white fragrant flowers by its own nature. In what does man express himself with all his educational experiences? Ambition, frustration, work, endless work, gain, profit, civilization. Yet the joy of living escapes him. I, Balekere Jiiva Anand, is a struggling man like a fish out of water, an exile from my own native land, foreigner at home, and outsider abroad. But this lucky jasmine vine has not lost her nature for all these thousands of years, She is not seeking to be something what she is not. She is only perfecting the shape of her leaves and the fragrance of her flowers. My life evaporates instead of expressing itself, for I am over-educated and rootless . . . .

—What are you mumbling? asks Niilakshi from the living room.

Niilakshi is writing a letter to a German lady who has been to Scandinavia some years ago, and who is now in Jayanagara teaching German to Indians in a college. She has suggested that when she returns to the Teutonic homeland, Niilakshi could take her place,

—Mixing sand and cement . . .

—What for? Niilakshi asks in surprise.

—One helps the other to stick together. They are building a garden wall in the opposite compound.

Those unlettered natural philosophers know how to build and make beautiful gardens. They are knowledgeable and understand Siva’s rhythm in stone and flowers. That coconut tree grows and the wind blows naturally, and the sand stands firm in concrete in the rectangular form. Man alone is infirm, becomes over-educated. Man is always an exile, runs away from his nature into dream sensation and builds civilization on the ruins of others. Men build; men destroy; surviving men build again; but sometimes there may be no survivors. Dream sensation will be overtaken by Life sensation, and grass will grow over the ruins. Yet build they must. The itch to do is irresistible.

—What are you going to do today? asks Niilakshi.

My blank book is on my lap and my uncapped pen is in my hand, and my thoughts are uncaught in the net of words in the ocean of Time.

Niilakshi has finished writing her letter to Mrs. Weber. She says she finishes everything she begins. Woman does. Man is the only unfinished business the creator (whatever his name be in language) has left on this earth.

Man struggles to build. He builds a house and woman lives in it. She is the house. She has no need to build. She knows and man learns.

Niilakshi is dressed in a saari: she has kunkum on her forehead and flowers in her blonde hair, tied neatly at the back of her head,

Neighbors watch Niilakshi going out in sandals to post her letter at the corner of the street, and they marvel in silence

—She is no European lady, whispers Gangamma across the wall of her compound to Rajamma of the next house.—She is one of us.

I hear gossip down below in muffled sound.

Work, work, work: Siva’s eternal dance. My Kurukshetra is now in Jayanagara. What do I do? Whom do I fight? Ghosts! Ghosts within, ghosts without, ghosts from abroad, ghosts of my ancestors. Unfulfilled experience becomes our ghosts. The system that enslaves grows to be a powerful ghosts. Invisible battle. Inderjit, I challenge you.

—Namaskaram, says a woman’s head suddenly popping up, as if out of the ground. Woman is real and not a ghost. She comes up the stairs on Janaki’s balcony, walks across the floor in front of my eyes, and goes into the living room.

Tayamma is a young woman who comes everyday to clean the house. She sweeps the floor and washes it with wet cloth. Then she cleans the staircase to wipe away all traces of the footprints. Before nine o’clock she is supposed to bring a bucket of water from the main pipe that has an opening on the ground floor. That is for cooking. Though there is running water in the tap upstairs, that is somewhat stagnant water from the tank. Niilakshi prefers fresh water every day.

Then Tayamma washes the clothes in the old traditional Indian style, beating them over her head on a stone slap till they give a certain rhythmic sound. Niilakshi’s heart beat goes up and down when she hears the beat and whispers that cloth will be nothing but a rag after the first wash.

One day Niilakshi explains to Tayamma that it is not necessary to beat the clothes so heavily since they are not that dirty. Tayamma listens carefully and nods. What goes for communication between Niilakshi and Tayamma is a nod, a smile, a wink and guesswork. But Tayamma does not feel very happy with just rinsing the clothes with soap and water. That is not washing proper. She misses the beat and the vigorous exercise of swinging the wet thing in the air and the twisting of her trunk and the exhilaration of the exercise. When Niilakshi is not around, Tayamma returns to her own way of beating the clothes on the stone slab, as if in vengeance.

After washing, Tayamma has to clear away the dishes of morning breakfast and sometimes dishes from previous night’s dinner. She cleans them, and then cleans the kitchen, helping herself with left over coffee and toasts, a luxury in her life. Two hours of hard labor every day for seven days of the week for only fifteen rupees a month. She is hard working woman. She was introduced to us by Gauri, wife of Vinayak Khadse, an old acquaintance in New York when he was studying Business Administration. Now he is a regional manager of a company and is stationed in Jayanagara. So Tayamma works in two houses in the morning for four hours and earns thirty rupees a month.

—Who cleans Tayamma’s house, I wonder, socialist minded Niilakshi says one day, watching the woman sweep the balcony.

Perhaps the Gods are kind and they send Vayu or Vayuputras to sweep everything away from her dwelling place, whatever that be, a house, an apartment, or a hut, or a shade under a tree.

—What do you do during the day, Tayamma? I ask her one day to satisfy Niilakshi’s curiosity.

—I have a baby to take care of, she says with a proud smile.

—How old?

—One year. He is a boy, she adds coyly.—I have also a daughter who is three years old.

Her saari is old and tattered but it is clean. She has red flowers in her hair.

—What is your husband doing?

—My in-charge goes to the city market.

—What does he do there?

—He is a day kuuli. Sometimes he gets work, sometimes he doesn’t, she says with a sad face.—He has not been to school

Tayamma’s heart swells with emotions, recollecting her lot and the days when they starve with two children to feed. Tears that come half-way dissolve in her eyes as she tries to smile.

How does a kuuli maintain his family without a Job? And the woman could still smile in the face of poverty propelled by mother’s love and compassionate understanding of her husband’s lot. They too live, those hutment dwellers. They too are Indians, inheritors of the ancient tradition and the glory that was India. If they too are a part of the Brahman as the Upanishads say, where is the Indian social sense, Niilakshi wonders.

—When will India of the hutment dwellers have freedom?, asks Niilakshi pointedly.

So Tayamma’s In-Charge is a day kuuli, and some days he earns and some days he doesn’t, and the children starve, and when they get sick, whether they live or die, no one cares

—If people starve and beg, Tiru-Valluvar says,—then there is something wrong with the State and the Government. Those rulers are not rulers.

—When rulers are not rulers, they are robbers and thieves; for they rob the office from those who would have been good and just rulers and administrators ruling and taking care of all the people in the State. Therefore the robbers and thieves have to be eliminated. Blessed be Confucius! Peace be to you, Spirit