A few days ago, I was invited as a guest to a school function. It wasn’t something I particularly wished to attend. Not that I was against going, but amid the hundred things I involve myself in, such events usually end up at the bottom of my list. Yet I went, persuaded by an older poet-friend.
This poet-friend of mine is a celebrated figure, admired across the state, and quite the party-lover too. Whenever you accompany him to an event, it almost always ends in a lavish celebration. He had originally agreed to visit the school with another poet, but when that friend fell ill and was hospitalised, he had to find a replacement in haste. I declined at first, but he persisted. His friendship and affection are a mighty force, generous, all-embracing, and with a special warmth reserved for me. So, with a reluctant heart, I agreed.
The school was on the city’s outskirts, owned by a politician turned businessman. He had once contested elections but was now content to remain close to those in power. Those in power and those out, the ruling party and the opposition, all were kin to him. Moreover, he was a grand industrialist, deeply invested in Bengaluru’s real estate ventures. A score of schools and colleges, numerous shops – including a mega-store for granite sales, and a few pubs, he juggled many businesses at once. And to all this, as he proudly claimed, he was a lover of literature.
We were received with great warmth. The owner himself oversaw our welcome. He admitted he had never heard of me, for I am a novelist. “I used to read stories in my college days,” he said, “but once work took over, reading quietly slipped away.” My elder poet-friend, however, was well known to him. Between the phone calls that came to him almost every minute, he managed to recall two of my poet-friend’s songs.
Addressing children from classes one to ten is always a genuine challenge. Since the school owner had asked us to give the children some “good advice,” I spoke about how reading literature beyond textbooks can expand one’s consciousness. My poet-friend spoke about how poetry and music uplift the mind. Later, the school owner whispered to us and clarified that by “good advice,” he had actually meant asking the children to stay away from drugs.
After the school function, the industrialist-school-owner took us in his multi-crore car to his office, not his regular workplace but a second one, a kind of party office. The dinner, the wine, all of it spoke of wealth.
Once we were settled in his office, he said, “Sir, please recite a poem,” addressing my poet-friend.
“Oh, let us just talk,” my friend said hesitantly. “Why poetry now?”
“No, sir,” the man smiled, “I insist. It’s my yearly ritual to hear one poem directly from a poet.”
My senior poet-friend, being a veteran of such evenings, had already guessed it would come to this. He had kept an unpublished poem folded neatly in his pocket. As he took it out, he asked for light. The school owner rang a bell, and two men instantly appeared. One politely adjusted a floor lamp from the corner of the room, holding its beam steady upon the handwritten sheet and standing by in reverent silence. My poet-friend put on his glasses and read in a voice slurred by age and liquor. The poem was a meditation on a figure from ancient Greek myth, cursed with eternal life yet doomed to roll a stone uphill forever.
When the poem ended, the lamp was carried back to the corner, the attendants disappeared, and the businessman pressed his eyes with his fingers before joining his palms respectfully to my elder poet-friend.
“In so many businesses,” he said, “we commit countless wrongs, knowingly or unknowingly. Hearing a poem directly from a poet like this once a year cleanses the soul.”
We sat in silence. The evening felt complete. He rang the bell again, ordered dinner for the two of us along with more wine, and then immediately left for another engagement.
Whatever else it meant, the idea that twelve lines about an eternal boulder from Greece could purify a politician-businessman’s soul, while leaving us steeped in the impurity of wine, felt oddly refreshing. My poet-friend seemed pleased. Perhaps he felt that his poem was a modern version of the churning rod of Amritamanthana.
Returning home, I thought, yes, that is what everyone longs for in every age: some form of cleansing. Before dying, one must somehow feel washed of the stains of living. I remembered standing at Gangotri once, watching the Bhagirathi River flow like chiselled ice. When I hesitated about bathing, a priest nearby said, “ Maa Ganga is kind. Don’t get into the river. Just sprinkle four drops on your head. It is the same as a full immersion.” What a marvellous arrangement. I realised then that the human mind never stops inventing new paths to purify the soul, each more mysterious than the last.