Heat and Dust Read Online Free PDF Page A

expressions on their faces as if cleansed of all sin and desire. Afterwards they had sung hymns in Hindi which were also about the flowing ocean of love. The young man and his girl had come away from this meeting with such exalted feelings that they could not speak for a long time; but when they could, they agreed that, in order to find the spiritual enrichment they desired, they must set off for India without delay.
    The ascetic said he too had come for a spiritual purpose.In his case, the original attraction had come through the Hindu scriptures, and when he arrived in India, he had not been disappointed. It seemed to him that the spirit of these scriptures was still manifest in the great temples of the South. For months he had lived there, like an Indian pilgrim, purifying himself and often so rapt in contemplation that the world around him had faded away completely. He too developed dysentery and ringworm but was not bothered by them because of living on such a high plane; similarly, he was not bothered by the disappearance of his few possessions from the temple compound where he lived. He found a guru to give him initiation and to strip him of all personal characteristics and the rest of his possessions including his name. He was given a new Indian name, Chidananda (his two companions called him Chid). From now on he was to have nothing except his beads and the begging bowl in which he had to collect his daily food from charitable people. In practice, however, he found this did not work too well, and he had often to write home for money to be sent by telegraphic order. On the instruction of his guru, he had set off on a pilgrimage right across India with the holy cave of Amarnath as his ultimate goal. He had already been wandering for many months. His chief affliction was people running after and jeering at him; the children were especially troublesome and often threw stones and other missiles. He found it impossible to live simply under trees as instructed by his guru but had to seek shelter at night in cheap hotel rooms where he had to bargain quite hard in order to be quoted a reasonable price.
    The watchman returned, holding up three fingers to signify that the charge for staying on the verandah had now been reduced to three rupees. The Englishman again pointed at the locked doors. But negotiations had begun, andnow it was not long before the watchman fetched his keys. Actually, it turned out to be more pleasant on the verandah. It was musty and dark inside the bungalow; the place smelled dead. In fact, we did find a dead squirrel on the floor of what must have been a dining room (there was still a sideboard with mirrors and a portrait of George V inset). It was a gloomy, brooding house and could never have been anything else. From the back verandah there was a view of the Christian graveyard: and I saw rearing above all the other graves the marble angel that the Saunders had ordered from Italy as a monument over their baby’s grave. Suddenly it struck me that this dark house must have been the one in which Dr. Saunders, the Medical Superintendent, had lived. I had not realised that Mrs. Saunders had been able to look out at her baby’s grave right from her own back verandah.
    Of course at that time the marble angel had been new and intact – shining white with wings outspread and holding a marble baby in its arms. Now it is a headless, wingless torso with a baby that has lost its nose and one foot. All the graves are in very bad condition – weed-choked, and stripped of whatever marble and railings could be removed. It is strange how, once graves are broken and overgrown in this way, then the people in them are truly dead. The Indian Christian graves at the front of the cemetery, which are still kept up by relatives, seem by contrast strangely alive, contemporary.
    1923
    Olivia had always been strongly affected by graveyards. In England too she had liked to wander through them, reading the