Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Yeah, that's what it's like. But say sorry anyway, would you?'
'Sorry?' He looked deeply insulted. 'I am not man who say the
sorry to such boys. Why must I be sorry for
them
? It is
they
who are
being sorry to
me
.' He paused, then stood up, facing me. 'No people
dying here without the dom fire, hmm? I say
give fire, not give fire
. If
I
not
give fire . . .' He spat, punctuating his next point: 'Peoples dying
so full of the fears. I never am having to say sorry, you see? No one
ever harm dom raja. The god, he give them life, isn't it? Dom raja,
he give the death. Which one more important, hmmm?'
'Life?'
He smiled, turning away and strolling toward a freshly lit pyre. As
he walked, he was saying, 'You will see the thing different, my writer
friend. Then you come back here, I think. If not,' he coughed
stupendously, 'you burn one day, also. In your native place, or here -
what difference?'
'Exactly!' I shouted after him.
'Difference is,' he said, pausing, yet not looking back, 'in your
place it perhaps easy to forget the true things. So when you walk
from fire into arms of Siva you start to die again, all over again . . .'
'What?'
'Because you will not see him - though
he
see
you
. Only blind
man he know what the eyes were for.' Twenty yards off, he turned.
'In Kashi
no one
forget what the eyes are for, isn't it? It is like this boy
Amar . . .'
'What is?'
'He wish to be blind, but the god keep him with eyes. You see, my
friend, it is not
my
fire that burn you here. No.' He chuckled. 'For
stupid man the fire is too much cold. Another man, he feel just the
dawn wind to be like fire. This is how
you
feel.'
He pressed his palms together briefly, nodded his blinding white
nimbus of hair, and then walked away.
