The Mystic Masseur Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stewart showed Ganesh some day statuettes he had made of Hindu gods and goddesses and Ganesh was astonished, not by the artistry, but by the fact that Mr Stewart had made them at all.
    Mr Stewart pointed to a water-colour on the wall. ‘I’ve been working on that picture for years. Once or twice a year I get a new idea for it and it has to be drawn all over again.’
    The water-colour, done in blues and yellows and browns, depicted a number of brown hands reaching out for a yellow light in the top left-hand corner.
    ‘This, I think, is rather interesting.’ Ganesh followed Mr Stewart’s finger and saw a blue shrunk hand curling backwards from the yellow light. ‘Some see Illumination,’ Mr Stewart explained. ‘But they do sometimes get burnt and withdraw.’
    ‘Why all the hands brown?’
    ‘Hindu hands. Only people really striving after the indefinite today. You look worried.’
    ‘Yes, I worried.’
    ‘About life?’
    ‘I think so,’ Ganesh said. ‘Yes, I think I worried about life.’
    ‘Doubts?’ Mr Stewart probed.
    Ganesh only smiled because he didn’t know what Mr Stewart meant.
    Mr Stewart sat down on the bed next to him and said, ‘What do you do?’
    Ganesh laughed. ‘Nothing at all. I guess I just doing a lot of thinking.’
    ‘Meditating?’
    ‘Yes, meditating.’
    Mr Stewart jumped up and clasped his hands before the water-colour. ‘Typical!’ he said, and closed his eyes as if in ecstasy. ‘Typical!’
    Then he opened his eyes and said, ‘But now – tea.’
    He had taken a lot of trouble to prepare tea. There were sandwiches of three sorts, biscuits, and cakes. And although Ganesh was beginning to like Mr Stewart and wanted to eat his food, all his Hindu instincts rose high and he was nauseated to bite into a cold egg-and-cress sandwich.
    Mr Stewart saw. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘It’s too hot, anyway.’
    ‘Oh, I like it. But I more thirsty than hungry, that’s all.’
    They talked, and talked. Mr Stewart was anxious to learn all of Ganesh’s problems.
    ‘Don’t think you are wasting your time meditating,’ he said. ‘I know the things that are worrying you, and I think one day you may find the answer. One day you may even bring it all out in a book. If I weren’t so terribly afraid of getting involved I might have written a book myself. But you must find your own spiritual rhythm before you start doing anything. You must stop being worried about life.’
    ‘All right,’ Ganesh said.
    Mr Stewart talked like a man who had saved up conversation for years. He told Ganesh all about his life, his experiences in the First World War, his disillusionment, his rejection of Christianity. Ganesh was entranced. Apart from the insistence that he was a Kashmiri Hindu, Mr Stewart was as sane as any of the masters at the Queen’s Royal College; and as the afternoon wore on, his blue eyes ceased to be frightening and looked sad.
    ‘Why you don’t go to India then?’ Ganesh asked.
    ‘Politics. Don’t want to get involved in any way. You can’t imagine how soothing it is here. One day you may go to London – I pray not – and you will see how sick you can get gazing from your taxi at the stupid, cruel faces of the mob on the pavements. You can’t help being involved there. Here there is no such need.’
    The tropical night fell suddenly and Mr Stewart lit an oil lamp. The hut felt very small and very sad, and Ganesh was sorry that soon he had to go and leave Mr Stewart to his loneliness.
    ‘You must write your thoughts,’ Mr Stewart said. ‘They may help other people. You know, I felt all along that I was going to meet someone like you.’
    Before Ganesh left, Mr Stewart presented him with twenty copies of The Science of Thought Review.
    ‘They have given me a great deal of comfort,’ he said. ‘And you may find them useful.’
    Ganesh said in surprise, ‘But is not an Indian magazine, Mr Stewart. It say here that it print in England.’
    ‘Yes, in England,’ Mr