Reading section 60

The brother’s sincerity was manifest. Our little party thanked him warmly and set out toward Biur. We stopped at a street shop for curry and LUCHIS, attracting a swarm of urchins who gathered round to watch Mr. Wright eating with his fingers in the simple Hindu manner. {FN46-5} Hearty appetites caused us to fortify ourselves against an afternoon which, unknown at the moment, was to prove fairly laborious.

Our way now led east through sun-baked rice fields into the Burdwan section of Bengal. On through roads lined with dense vegetation; the songs of the MAYNAS and the stripe-throated BULBULS streamed out from trees with huge, umbrellalike branches. A bullock cart now and then, the RINI, RINI, MANJU, MANJU squeak of its axle and iron-shod wooden wheels contrasting sharply in mind with the SWISH, SWISH of auto tires over the aristocratic asphalt of the cities.

“Dick, halt!” My sudden request brought a jolting protest from the Ford. “That overburdened mango tree is fairly shouting an invitation!”

The five of us dashed like children to the mango-strewn earth; the tree had benevolently shed its fruits as they had ripened.

“Full many a mango is born to lie unseen,” I paraphrased, “and waste its sweetness on the stony ground.”

“Nothing like this in America, Swamiji, eh?” laughed Sailesh Mazumdar, one of my Bengali students.

“No,” I admitted, covered with mango juice and contentment. “How I have missed this fruit in the West! A Hindu’s heaven without mangoes is inconceivable!”

I picked up a rock and downed a proud beauty hidden on the highest limb.

“Dick,” I asked between bites of ambrosia, warm with the tropical sun, “are all the cameras in the car?”

“Yes, sir; in the baggage compartment.”

“If Giri Bala proves to be a true saint, I want to write about her in the West. A Hindu YOGINI with such inspiring powers should not live and die unknown-like most of these mangoes.”

Half an hour later I was still strolling in the sylvan peace.

“Sir,” Mr. Wright remarked, “we should reach Giri Bala before the sun sets, to have enough light for photographs.” He added with a grin, “The Westerners are a skeptical lot; we can’t expect them to believe in the lady without any pictures!”

This bit of wisdom was indisputable; I turned my back on temptation and reentered the car.

“You are right, Dick,” I sighed as we sped along, “I sacrifice the mango paradise on the altar of Western realism. Photographs we must have!”

The road became more and more sickly: wrinkles of ruts, boils of hardened clay, the sad infirmities of old age! Our group dismounted occasionally to allow Mr. Wright to more easily maneuver the Ford, which the four of us pushed from behind.

“Lambadar Babu spoke truly,” Sailesh acknowledged. “The car is not carrying us; we are carrying the car!”

Our climb-in, climb-out auto tedium was beguiled ever and anon by the appearance of a village, each one a scene of quaint simplicity.

“Our way twisted and turned through groves of palms among ancient, unspoiled villages nestling in the forest shade,” Mr. Wright has recorded in his travel diary, under date of May 5, 1936. “Very fascinating are these clusters of thatched mud huts, decorated with one of the names of God on the door; many small, naked children innocently playing about, pausing to stare or run wildly from this big, black, bullockless carriage tearing madly through their village. The women merely peep from the shadows, while the men lazily loll beneath the trees along the roadside, curious beneath their nonchalance. In one place, all the villagers were gaily bathing in the large tank (in their garments, changing by draping dry cloths around their bodies, dropping the wet ones). Women bearing water to their homes, in huge brass jars.

“The road led us a merry chase over mount and ridge; we bounced and tossed, dipped into small streams, detoured around an unfinished causeway, slithered across dry, sandy river beds and finally, about 5:00 P.M., we were close to our destination, Biur. This minute village in the interior of Bankura District, hidden in the protection of dense foliage, is unapproachable by travelers during the rainy season, when the streams are raging torrents and the roads serpentlike spit the mud-venom.

“Asking for a guide among a group of worshipers on their way home from a temple prayer (out in the lonely field), we were besieged by a dozen scantily clad lads who clambered on the sides of the car, eager to conduct us to Giri Bala.

“The road led toward a grove of date palms sheltering a group of mud huts, but before we had reached it, the Ford was momentarily tipped at a dangerous angle, tossed up and dropped down. The narrow trail led around trees and tank, over ridges, into holes and deep ruts. The car became anchored on a clump of bushes, then grounded on a hillock, requiring a lift of earth clods; on we proceeded, slowly and carefully; suddenly the way was stopped by a mass of brush in the middle of the cart track, necessitating a detour down a precipitous ledge into a dry tank, rescue from which demanded some scraping, adzing, and shoveling. Again and again the road seemed impassable, but the pilgrimage must go on; obliging lads fetched spades and demolished the obstacles (shades of Ganesh!) while hundreds of children and parents stared.

“Soon we were threading our way along the two ruts of antiquity, women gazing wide-eyed from their hut doors, men trailing alongside and behind us, children scampering to swell the procession. Ours was perhaps the first auto to traverse these roads; the ‘bullock cart union’ must be omnipotent here! What a sensation we created-a group piloted by an American and pioneering in a snorting car right into their hamlet fastness, invading the ancient privacy and sanctity!

“Halting by a narrow lane we found ourselves within a hundred feet of Giri Bala’s ancestral home. We felt the thrill of fulfillment after the long road struggle crowned by a rough finish. We approached a large, two-storied building of brick and plaster, dominating the surrounding adobe huts; the house was under the process of repair, for around it was the characteristically tropical framework of bamboos.

“With feverish anticipation and suppressed rejoicing we stood before the open doors of the one blessed by the Lord’s ‘hungerless’ touch. Constantly agape were the villagers, young and old, bare and dressed, women aloof somewhat but inquisitive too, men and boys unabashedly at our heels as they gazed on this unprecedented spectacle.

“Soon a short figure came into view in the doorway-Giri Bala! She was swathed in a cloth of dull, goldish silk; in typically Indian fashion, she drew forward modestly and hesitatingly, peering slightly from beneath the upper fold of her SWADESHI cloth. Her eyes glistened like smouldering embers in the shadow of her head piece; we were enamored by a most benevolent and kindly face, a face of realization and understanding, free from the taint of earthly attachment.

“Meekly she approached and silently assented to our snapping a number of pictures with our ‘still’ and ‘movie’ cameras. {FN46-6} Patiently and shyly she endured our photo techniques of posture adjustment and light arrangement. Finally we had recorded for posterity many photographs of the only woman in the world who is known to have lived without food or drink for over fifty years. (Therese Neumann, of course, has fasted since 1923.) Most motherly was Giri Bala’s expression as she stood before us, completely covered in the loose-flowing cloth, nothing of her body visible but her face with its downcast eyes, her hands, and her tiny feet. A face of rare peace and innocent poise-a wide, childlike, quivering lip, a feminine nose, narrow, sparkling eyes, and a wistful smile.”

Mr. Wright’s impression of Giri Bala was shared by myself; spirituality enfolded her like her gently shining veil. She PRONAMED before me in the customary gesture of greeting from a householder to a monk. Her simple charm and quiet smile gave us a welcome beyond that of honeyed oratory; forgotten was our difficult, dusty trip.

The little saint seated herself cross-legged on the verandah. Though bearing the scars of age, she was not emaciated; her olive-colored skin had remained clear and healthy in tone.

“Mother,” I said in Bengali, “for over twenty-five years I have thought eagerly of this very pilgrimage! I heard about your sacred life from Sthiti Lal Nundy Babu.”

She nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, my good neighbor in Nawabganj.”

“During those years I have crossed the oceans, but I never forgot my early plan to someday see you. The sublime drama that you are here playing so inconspicuously should be blazoned before a world that has long forgotten the inner food divine.”

The saint lifted her eyes for a minute, smiling with serene interest.

“Baba (honored father) knows best,” she answered meekly.

I was happy that she had taken no offense; one never knows how great yogis or yoginis will react to the thought of publicity. They shun it, as a rule, wishing to pursue in silence the profound soul research. An inner sanction comes to them when the proper time arrives to display their lives openly for the benefit of seeking minds.

“Mother,” I went on, “please forgive me, then, for burdening you with many questions. Kindly answer only those that please you; I shall understand your silence, also.”

She spread her hands in a gracious gesture. “I am glad to reply, insofar as an insignificant person like myself can give satisfactory answers.”

“Oh, no, not insignificant!” I protested sincerely. “You are a great soul.”

“I am the humble servant of all.” She added quaintly, “I love to cook and feed people.”

A strange pastime, I thought, for a non-eating saint!

“Tell me, Mother, from your own lips-do you live without food?”

“That is true.” She was silent for a few moments; her next remark showed that she had been struggling with mental arithmetic. “From the age of twelve years four months down to my present age of sixty-eight—a period of over fifty-six years—I have not eaten food or taken liquids.”

“Are you never tempted to eat?”

“If I felt a craving for food, I would have to eat.” Simply yet regally she stated this axiomatic truth, one known too well by a world revolving around three meals a day!

“But you do eat something!” My tone held a note of remonstrance.

“Of course!” She smiled in swift understanding.

“Your nourishment derives from the finer energies of the air and sunlight, {FN46-7} and from the cosmic power which recharges your body through the medulla oblongata.”

“Baba knows.” Again she acquiesced, her manner soothing and unemphatic.

“Mother, please tell me about your early life. It holds a deep interest for all of India, and even for our brothers and sisters beyond the seas.”

Giri Bala put aside her habitual reserve, relaxing into a conversational mood.

“So be it.” Her voice was low and firm. “I was born in these forest regions. My childhood was unremarkable save that I was possessed by an insatiable appetite. I had been betrothed in early years.

“‘Child,’ my mother often warned me, ‘try to control your greed. When the time comes for you to live among strangers in your husband’s family, what will they think of you if your days are spent in nothing but eating?’

“The calamity she had foreseen came to pass. I was only twelve when I joined my husband’s people in Nawabganj. My mother-in-law shamed me morning, noon, and night about my gluttonous habits. Her scoldings were a blessing in disguise, however; they roused my dormant spiritual tendencies. One morning her ridicule was merciless.

“‘I shall soon prove to you,’ I said, stung to the quick, ‘that I shall never touch food again as long as I live.’

“My mother-in-law laughed in derision. ‘So!’ she said, ‘how can you live without eating, when you cannot live without overeating?’

“This remark was unanswerable! Yet an iron resolution scaffolded my spirit. In a secluded spot I sought my Heavenly Father.

“‘Lord,’ I prayed incessantly, ‘please send me a guru, one who can teach me to live by Thy light and not by food.’

“A divine ecstasy fell over me. Led by a beatific spell, I set out for the Nawabganj GHAT on the Ganges. On the way I encountered the priest of my husband’s family.

“‘Venerable sir,’ I said trustingly, ‘kindly tell me how to live without eating.’

“He stared at me without reply. Finally he spoke in a consoling manner. ‘Child,’ he said, ‘come to the temple this evening; I will conduct a special VEDIC ceremony for you.’