Converging on the River

 

I read A River Sutra by Gita Mehta sometime in the 90s and enjoyed it thoroughly. I had meant to buy multiple copies to give it to my friends as presents as it was one of the best books I had read that year (I don't remember which) but I didn't, and the bookshops which lined Telawi 5 in Bangsar quietly closed one by one, including the pharmacy/bookshop I bought this book from and somehow, not only did I not get around to it, I lost my only copy when I lent it to a friend who never returned it. It seems that friends who borrow your best, most treasured books, never return them.

So, imagine my amazement when some 25 years later, I stumbled across this rare jewel of a book in BookXcess? I thought, people have come to their senses and the book has been reissued (because I could never find it after). I bought two copies and gave away both as birthday presents, confident that I could simply return to BookXcess and buy another one for myself. But one month later, after I had picked up my first two copies, I went back and the book was sold out. And unlike some of the others on the Asian Lit shelves, it was not going to be restocked. That had been a one-time thing only.

I got this strange feeling of deja vu. Again, I had loved and lost, taking things too easy.

I asked the man at the counter and he said according to the records, there should be one copy left -- we scoured the Asian lit bookshelves, but couldn't find it. I went back a week later. Still no cigar. Giving up, I looked for the book on Book Depository and found it and ordered a copy. And then next time I went back to BookXcess and was not looking, there it was, on the shelf, the one copy that had been left. I bought it quickly (my Book Depository one had not arrived yet) and it was next on my list to read after the Cartier-Bresson biography. And somehow, it followed quite naturally.

Trying to remember what fascinated me so much when I first read it, I could only remember two stories -- one about a musician and the other about a Jain monk, heir to a fortune in the diamond business, who gave it up to become an ahimsa monk. The true meaning of ahimsa -- non-violence -- is where you don't only not eat meat, you sweep the ground in front you so as not to accidentally step on an insect and breathe through a mask so you don't accidentally inhale one.

Anyway, it starts with this man who was a government official, a childless widower, who decided to spend the last years of his life running a government bungalow on the banks of the Narmada, the holiest river in India. Although he ended his career a very influential man, it is obvious that he has not come face to face with life yet. And here, on the banks of the Narmada, he finally does. 

It is a place of convergence -- pilgrims come from all over India seeking different things -- peace, completion, happiness...

And this man who has laughed but not all of his laughter and wept but not all of his tears, is suddenly confronted with their stories, weaved in a poetic and evocative manner, and each story bears down hard on him. Real emotions rise; he is irritated and uncomfortable.

His best friend is a mullah, Tariq Mia, and old Sufi scholar who regards him with affection and amusement. He walks over every day to talk to Tariq and play chess and some of the stories come from Tariq.

The old legends are woven so beautifully into the text (not everyone can do this properly; I have read books that tried and failed signally) and then, after building it up to a climax of legend and magic, it ends of a prosaic note -- the end of all journeys and pilgrimages after all, is to descend from the mountain, go home and rejoin the human race.

This book is an easy read; you want to linger on some of the passages, but you realise that you've read it in no time at all. 

There are no more copies at BookXcess now and if you want to read it, you'll have to order your own. I read Gita Mehta's Karma Cola (I found a copy during one of the Payless book sales) and eagerly dove into it with the expectation that it would be another River Sutra. It wasn't. This book is unique and as I said, not everyone can write something like this -- effortless poetic prose with stories that haunt you and continue to haunt you long after you've closed the book.