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My Unfinished Novel
An extract from the first chapter.
Chapter
- 1 : Shankar.
Shankar stared at the book, struggling with the esoteric words which were
supposed to lock away the secrets of philosophy, and got nowhere. What was this
strange knowledge that seekers for ages had supposed to have sought in vain,
something that he had been assured were locked up between the pages of the book
he now held, of which he could get no clue whatsoever? Was there really
something hidden in the difficult words of this book or was it all just words?
Were his efforts all in vain or was he actually getting somewhere? He just
couldn't figure it out. At that moment he hated Venkatesh with the intensity of
passion that only an eighteen year old could feel.
How wonderful it had all seemed the other day when old Venkatesh was
holding forth on one of his long evening sessions that Shankar had come to enjoy
so much. It had seemed wonderful to hear the magic that only Venkatesh could
weave out of what were just words. Yesterday George Santayana was the ultimate
in philosophy and knowledge that could ever be. Today he was just a series of
fairly comprehensible words strung together in incomprehensible sentences.
Shankar sighed and threw the book away on the grass. The day was too wonderful
to break his head over what he obviously couldn't make head or tail of . He cast
a contented look at a beautiful cloud formation and thought about Vandana
instead. How beautiful she was. That green dress had suited her wonderfully. But
she had been as amused as her father at his ideas about the natural selection of
Y chromosomes. He wished she would take him and his ideas more seriously. It had
been a good idea though there was no scientific proof for the positions he was
holding. But old Venkatesh had treated it with the disdain with which he treated
everything modern and scientific. Vandana had hung upon her fathers words with
her usual rapt attention, a look of adoration decorating her comely features.
Shankar frowned with vexation, as he remembered the look that he would do
anything for, for which he read so many things that he didn't really want to
read. But it had never come his way yet. Did she really appreciate her father's
thinking so much? Or was it just blind adoration of her father? Was it just
evidence of father fixation which was unpalatable for him to imagine, rather
than true admiration for a man who truly was remarkable? The thought made him
flush with shame to be thinking such uncharitable thoughts of his loved one.
Surely one should respect and admire the object of one's adoration, not direct
such ugly suspicious thoughts at her. It seemed to undermine and degrade a love
which, for the most part, was an inspiration and an ennobling influence on him. It
was a love that sent him on enraptured flights of fancy, strong feelings that
made his chest throb with emotion and made him feel as if his head would burst.
Yet being with her coalesced all of these feelings into a strongly channelised
purposeful personality which was an expression of his own competitive,
analytical and intelligent person, divorced of emotion and passion. He became a
thinking machine, arguing and analysing everything into an unpalatable mass of
common sense. Where was the poetry, the beauty and wonder which he felt when he
was alone, where was the tenderness inside of him, his love, his oh so strong
and wonderful love? He could feel the sense of wonder and beauty that her father
could create with just a soft spoken voice that spoke with a thrilling tremor in
it, a magical voice that could transform commonplace ideas into messianic
wisdom, full of the enchantment of a dream that is just within grasping
distance. He himself would speak with clinical precision, treating the argument
like a well executed military maneuver, winning the battle in his own mind only
to lose the war completely in front of everybody else. Why did everybody treat
him like a clever child who knew a lot of facts which he could not put together
due to lack of wisdom? Why did nobody treat him with respect or take his ideas
seriously, especially she whose opinion mattered the most to him? The matter
infuriated him beyond reason, bursts of impotent rage at his own helplessness.
Perhaps every eighteen year old passes through a phase of feeling that he knows
everything, has all the answers and if only the world would listen to him, the
problems and vexations of civilisation could all be put right in a jiffy. He had
yet to undertake the seriousness of life, to have to act upon one's beliefs and
try to make all ones ideas work, which bring the disillusionment of failure and
a lack of trust in the infallibility of one's ideas. For now he was all
confidence, putting the responsibility of his failures on the stupidity of his
audience.
For a while he ruminated in bafflement but then he remembered
a rather funny joke that he had cracked. Everyone had laughed at that. And
Vandana’s mother always seemed to take him seriously, possibly because she
rather liked to regard him as a future son in law. It
invariably bucked him up to have someone at least in his corner, who
rooted for him and took his side. After a while a smile came over his lips and
inexplicably he fell asleep.
It was evening by the time he got up. The sun's rays were slanting and
lit up the old ruins of Haus Khas beside which he was lying on the grass. The
sylvan settings of the park around him and the medieval architecture of the
Muslims combined to produce a strange feeling of enchantment in him. He thought
of noble men in chain mail, fighters mounted on horseback, the clash of steel,
people of long ago and tales of romantic adventure read in childhood. "I
could remain here for ever" he thought and wished Vandana was here with him
to share the magical moment. But she always said no on the few occasions when he
had asked her to.
He glanced at his watch and scrambled up with an oath as he remembered the tutorial for which he had to prepare. Dusting off his long lanky limbs he strode up to his motorcycle and set off for home.