|
ORIENTAL RUG ZINE
Rug Addiction,
Friendship, Life and Death (page 2)
While some sectors of India are rushing into the twenty-first century, already on-line and linked to the world intellectual and business community, life in a
roadless Indian village like Muslim’s is changed little from the Eighteenth century or earlier. The rhythms and concerns of life are the same: birth, marriage, children, death; the sowing and harvesting of crops. Possessions
are limited- a few clothes, a cow, three or four cooking pots, one or two blankets, nothing more. These are the possessions of a family of seven or eight like Muslim’s. The horizon is also limited, as are expectations. Few
travel beyond the nearest town. To marry off ones children and see them have children is the culmination of life and pretty much the limit of expectation for a man like Muslim.
It was exactly this point that Muslim was stuck on: Having four daughters, especially as your first four children, is such an insurmountable obstacle for a poor man like Muslim that it caused
him considerable anxiety, I’m sure. Each girl must be provided with a dowry and Muslim couldn’t even scrape together enough for one; how could he ever accumulate enough for four? We had often talked about this
situation and if I try to see life through Muslim’s eyes as I knew him, I think this was almost his sole concern. He was always ready to work and ready to help, always cheerful in spite of the
relative poverty and hardship of his life. If most of us have some demon, some perceived fear or inadequacy which we feel powerless to overcome, then in Muslim’s case it was simple and it was this.
I always tried to help Muslim as I could on each trip to India, although he never asked for anything. A few years ago I helped Muslim to buy a very
small plot of land in his village so he could build a slightly larger house. Things move very slowly in an Indian village if you don’t have power or caste. The land was purchased but the process of registering it in his name
was still pending.
In August of 1999 I went again to India. It was the time of the monsoon, a familiar time for me - hot but bearable - as long as the monsoon clouds role in
and bring the thunder and rain once a day. I did my work, immersing myself again in the splendid dream of color, design and knotted wool. My work completed, as I got ready to leave I pondered as before who needed what and
how much. I thought of Muslim, his help and friendship, his hard life and his family problem. We drove through the dark, humid Indian night, 35 miles across the river Ganges. We stopped on the bridge at Mirzapur and got out
and watched the deep dark waters of the Ganga in flood swell and rush by silently underneath. At Mirzapur station at midnight I put a wad of rupees in Muslim’s hand, not a lot for me, a lot for him, more than before. We
embraced and said khuda afez as the train pulled out.
I never saw Muslim again. He died three weeks later. They say he died of a
high fever. He was a strong man, almost in the prime of his life, how could he have died of a fever? We are inclined to think like that; yet in an Indian village
doctors are far away and expensive. He had gone to his village a few days after I left. They said he had gone there riding his bicycle even though he
wasn’t feeling well, forty miles over dirt roads and paths. They said he had been in a hurry to go there. After some thinking I understood. Muslim had no
bank account, poor people in India never do. He had no place to keep money safely and wanted to bring it to his wife in the village.
|
|
|
|
Muslim (on left) in Augest 1999,
three weeks before he died.
|
|
|
What is this kismet, this karma, that brings together worlds and paths, that allows them to intersect and causes us to act out of our ignorance never knowing precisely what will be the result?
I will not stop going to India, being inseparably connected by work as well as some undefined compelling attraction. Together they constitute what we sometimes call destiny - out of form, color and
texture, the taste, smell and vision of lands foreign and our own, searching for something unclear, searching for the clear light.
|
