The Conquest of Kailash

By Inderjeet Mani

From the award-winning author of Toxic Spirits comes a new and heartbreaking

novel about cruelty and marginalization, and the struggle to find meaning in a world

of mounting prejudice and false belief.

Gay but still closeted and missing his wife Helen - who has fled their home to

become a Buddhist nun - Ali Akbar retu

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: May 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9789362692801

Book preview

PREAMBLE

The Deer Park

The grounds of the park are well-watered, the grass cut short and smooth with plenty of young mango trees and tall banyans with long weepy roots. Two young men are taking turns perching on the ruins of a stupa, laughing as they snap selfies, and further along, a tubby lady in a tight-fitting salwar kameez is seated on the grass feeding her child potato chips. She hands them out one after the other and when the child is done gorging, the mother crinkles the packet and flicks it away. A pair of Sikh boys in red turbans and identical clothes runs around them in circles, screaming. The noise is excessive but there is nothing to be done, with so many tourists coming to the park.

Ali moves towards a group of foreigners who have gathered around a tour guide. Dressed in a smart kurta and jeans, the guide points to two rows of blackened and eroded bricks. It was here, the guide explains, that a monk gave his first teachings to five young fellows who had been meditating with him earlier in the days before his enlightenment, when he was practicing the extreme austerities that had left him near death.

The audience listens politely to the story of the Buddha, some nodding appreciatively. They look European, the men reasonably dressed but the women showing off their love for India with flashy earrings and mismatched scarves.

When he was growing up here in Benares, readymade outfits were rare, as large-scale garment production was only for export. As a teenager, he had his trousers carefully stitched with wide cuffs and double pleats, and his shirts had press-button pockets. His father’s shirts didn’t have press-buttons, but they had a hidden breast pocket as a protection against thieves. The tailor was slim of hip and dressed in a white Gandhi cap, khadi kurta and dhoti, with a short yellow pencil tucked behind his ear, and when they were done with the fitting, he would order tea. Sitting amid rolls of fresh-smelling fabric, Ali would sip his tea while listening to the adults exchange gossip and advice, their conversation rising and falling against the steady hum of the sewing machines.

That tailor is long gone and Ali is back in Benares after nearly half a century, dressed in a brown blazer with a pocket square, beige slacks and his favorite suede moccasins. He used to own footwear for every occasion, including a stunning pair of brown-and-white saddle shoes, a rare find which he returned, before leaving California, to Goodwill. His moccasins are now treading the same path he took long ago with his parents, and where the barefoot Buddha himself would have walked.

The guide’s talk has turned philosophical. The problems of society, the guide is saying, the reason we don’t get along and aren’t at peace even with ourselves and spend so much time stuffing our stomachs with pizza and fast food, can all be traced back to one thing: tanha. It is a Pali word, he explains, derived from the Sanskrit trishna, which rhymes with Krishna, and translated as thirst, desire, greed, or longing.

The group moves on, and he too wanders off to see the other attractions. The word trishna reminds him of a poem by Kabir lamenting the persistence of desire. It was a favorite of his father’s, and he remembers how his Abbu’s eyes misted over while reciting it.

Pausing near an Ashoka tree, he notices that the bark has been ravaged by graffiti, with the initials of lovers and a crudely drawn heart with an arrow. The tree has new shoots emerging from the upper branches. When he was younger, there were times when walking among fresh shoots would make the sap surge and the spirit soar, making him believe the world had something special on offer. But today is not a day like that.

He reminds himself that he should be grateful to still be up and about, threatened as he is by illness. He is grateful but has lived long enough to have many regrets. He has left behind his grown daughter to whom he was once close. Homa has never understood him though she thinks she does. In her presence, he always acted out a part. When they met at the beach the day before his departure, there was a cold wind blowing and they exchanged greetings and a long farewell hug but not much else.

Standing next to yet another stupa housing the remains of an unknown ancient, one thing is at last clear, and he is not ashamed to admit it. In the time that’s left, he needs a love that will wreck him. He needs one last chance, and this time every fiber of his being will be dedicated to the other.

Walking on, he finds himself next to a notice board. A warning is posted there, advising people not to feed the deer, but he hasn’t seen any. Next to it is a yellow flyer.  The font is small, and he gets up close and peers at it.

I cannot help you with the love you lost.

But i can show you how to forgive yourself

How to become a different person

How to set your heart on fire.

Reading those words, it is as if all the intimate secrets of his life have been deciphered. Set your heart on fire. That is all that he has ever wanted. He reads it again, and the message speaks straight to his heart.

The phone tabs at the bottom of the flyer have been torn off. He looks around, but there’s nobody to be seen. He hurries through the grove of mango trees towards the park exit, to ask if they know who put up the notice, when a blast of background music disturbs him. The tune is from an old high school song but he can’t quite place it. The beat gets under his skin, its heavy percussion like that of a bhangra boombox from a street wedding, a reminder that whenever he needs a quiet moment the world around him will not allow it. The thumping beat turns into a throbbing headache, the sound eddies swirling around until he feels nauseous and has to put his hands over his ears and yell at whoever it is to stop.

When the music subsides, he looks up, the headache gone. He is alone at the edge of a fence overlooking a stony field, where a herd of deer are grazing peacefully, their chestnut coats spotted with white, no different from the way they used to look fifty years earlier. He climbs over, taking care not to dirty his trousers. A doe looks up at him, her ears twitching, as if to ask what he is doing there. A faun teeters on long legs towards her. The mother turns and licks the faun on its neck as it suckles, and seeing that primal gesture sends a shiver down his throat. He thinks of his long-dead Ammi and wants to be held once more. Wiping away a tear, he notices his fingers are stained with mascara.

The herd grows in size as more deer emerge from the wood on the far side. He can distinguish a few varieties, spotted deer with lovely white throats as well as much smaller barking deer. He has to step carefully in his moccasins to avoid the dung pellets that have attracted beetles as well as a swarm of red-and-black swallowtail butterflies.

Their pattern reminds him of the striped sweater Homa used to wear, from the early days in California when she would sit up tall in the rear carrier of his bike as they traveled along the suburban bike-paths of Frenchman’s Creek. They went everywhere on that bike, to the library, and to the pool, where Homa was at first water-shy, a fussy angel refusing to discard her plastic wings, but then she became a strong swimmer, stronger even than her perpetually athletic mother, becoming the first in the family to don a wet suit and plunge into the cold grey waters of the Pacific, emerging like a triumphant creature of the deep into the sun-spangled spray.

The music starts again, accompanied by the chanting of mantras which as they speed up, get mixed with the flyer’s message - Set your heart on fire - over and over, as he hurries from the field to the turnstile at the exit. It creaks as it lets him through.

The pavement is blocked by a crowd of spectators. Peering over the bystanders’ heads, he sees a procession passing by. A tractor drags along a series of floats, each with saffron pennants flapping in the breeze. Riding on top of one is a blue figure seated in the lotus pose with a cobra twirled around his neck. The procession is raising funds for a temple to Lord Shiva, whose name is up in gold Devanagari letters on a red banner, in the center of which is his shiny black phallus. The linga symbolizes far more than the male sexual organ, for Hindus believe that at the end of time the universe and its gods will be absorbed into it, leaving it the last man standing.

It may have been a coincidence, but a week earlier while touring the National Museum in Delhi, he came across a frightening little figure in a horned headdress, seated with the soles of his feet pressed together in the yoga position called the cobbler pose. According to the museum, the seal from 2500 BC represented either a proto-Shiva or else a buffalo demon, with the added claim that yoga was practiced long before the arrival of the Aryans.

To him, the accomplished autodidact and bibliophile, the little figurine from the Indus Valley was clearly Shiva in his demonic form as Lord of Death and Destruction. Seeing the god now seated splendidly on his float like a Mardi Gras character, he is glad that the culture of the earliest settlers continues to flourish among people today. But it is also frightening to see how the gods have been turned into historical figures and appropriated by new masters.

Though Ali has long been an unbeliever, he remains fond of the gods of India, with Ganesha having been like a guiding light in his schooldays. He has no problems whatsoever with any creatures of the imagination, nor with the colorful religious rituals that seem to keep people happy—as long as their altars are free of blood and those of one faith aren’t tearing down others’ places of worship.

The floats roll by, featuring famous scenes from the epics, with the celestial beings brightly painted and decked out with gaudy jewelry. He sees the banner again, waving in the breeze, but this time it’s the other side with a torch flaming over an outline map of India. The image is familiar from his student days in Benares, but he can’t quite put his finger on it, until it comes waving back to mind like an angry red flag. It’s the banner of the ANS, the Alliance for a New Society, which a lecturer on campus was helping to get going back then.

The people holding up the banner are shouting Kashi Vishwanath Ki Jai, a salute to the city’s holiest temple, except that it’s not a reminder of the power of Lord Shiva but a call to arms that he is all too familiar with, demanding that the old neighborhoods, including the slums and even the once-upscale area where his mother grew up and where her relatives may still be living, be bulldozed. All for what? To make way for a thoroughfare to fast-track pilgrims to the temple. It is yet another cynical move in a relentless effort to lay claim to one particular strand of history, when the nation’s culture is a living fabric woven with many thousands of fine filaments, like life itself.

Kashi Vishwanath Ki Jai! The shout is even louder, and now it starts to disturb him, for there is nothing more terrifying than a mob that is easily led.

The shouts soon subside into clapping as a troupe of women appears, dressed in yellow saris and identical red shawls with gold filigree borders. He presses against the cordon to get a better view. They are smiling, each woman balancing on her head a clay pot wrapped in red cotton topped by a dry coconut, presumably an offering to Shiva. Watching the women step into the sunlight, he again remembers his mother, how she was borne aloft by a faith that allowed her to bear her sufferings with grace and dignity.

The worshippers are followed by a tall lady wearing a bulky bullet-proof vest over an orange blouse and matching sari with fine zari work at the edges. Swinging her arms, she marches in that preposterous outfit with a vulgar abandon, her hair thrown back, wild and uncombed. He notices a pair of uniformed men beside her, and the black snouts of their weapons. Waving to the spectators, she breaks into the same singalong from his high school days, her shrill voice quivering with emotion.

The crowd joins the chorus, and a man next to him nudges him. Why aren’t you singing?

He is about to explain why he shuns nationalistic anthems like Vande Mataram, when the frightening woman passes directly in front of him. Shrugging the man aside, he moves closer, pressing against the cordon.

"Get that chakka out of the way."

The insult rips like a knife through an old wound, the pain sharpened by the shrieking of Set your heart on fire.

He needs to stay calm while quickly scurrying off to a safe haven free from hostile intrusions, but a desperation has set in. Stretching his arm out, he shakes his fist at her, shouting. How dare she call him a faggot! Does she know what people who are different have to go through?

A phalanx of men detaches from the rest of the spectators. They are clad in a makeshift uniform of white singlets and khaki shorts, and each is clutching a baton. One grabs hold of his blazer. The young man’s face is long and narrow, his eyes black pinpoints.

Who the fuck are you, insulting our Minister Madam?

He can’t believe the rudeness, and wants to lecture the young man on his manners.

Leave him, he’s not from here, someone says.

Name? The first one cups a hand to his ear, as if he has trouble hearing.

Ali Akbar. He refuses to be intimidated. What is wrong with you people?

The young man’s throat and neck are trembling. You people?

A stick bears down on his shoulders, striking with enough force for him to lose his balance and topple to the pavement. He falls near someone’s bare foot, and the owner steps away. As he gazes up, his neck stinging, at the array of legs, he is in shock, the world suddenly inverted with him at the bottom. He needs to get up, to force himself back to verticality and avenge the terrible insult.

As the spectators step away from the gate, it is the gatekeeper who rescues him.

Take care, Sir, he says, lifting him up.

He stands up slowly. His left moccasin is lying three feet away.

He thanks the gatekeeper and gathering the shoe, sinks into the steel chair that is offered. He is shaken and his neck is stiff, but is otherwise unharmed. It is not the blow that stings, but the knowledge that people hate him for who he is. Hate is not an individual emotion like love, but an idea that can flow like a river, gathering strength among the weak.

The procession passes by, the chants receding, though some of the men in khaki are lingering behind.

Sitting up tall and straightening his blazer, he reminds himself that this is not the time to succumb to a taunt from a Minister with a ridiculous hairdo. He is not someone who wilts at every insult. Especially when change, at last, might be at hand.

The gatekeeper, in a dirty white shirt and flappy khaki patloons, stares briefly at his mascara, before politely looking away.

Sir, you should keep away from them. For your own safety.

He knows what he means. He is thrice-cursed, as a catamite, Muslim and rationalist, and perhaps even a little disturbed.

But the labels don’t matter. People can call him what they like, but he won’t allow the mob to shatter his dignity.

He asks the gatekeeper about the author of the flyer.

Didn’t he leave his number?

It was torn off.

Please write down your name and the address. If he visits again, I will ask him to contact you.

He scribbles down the hotel details, and then looks up, to see a pair of khaki shorts approaching.

If he doesn’t come back, where can I find him?

They say he lives most of the year on the mountain, Sir.

It is time to be off. The mountain?

Kailash. The home of Lord Shiva.

He follows the gatekeeper’s bloodshot eyes, past the top of the trees to the sky, glowing in the sparks of the setting sun.

PART ONE

The Mountain

The first time he hears of Mount Kailash is in the early 60’s, soon after his eleventh birthday. His father’s friend, the newspaper editor, is in the verandah drinking tea and talking about his pilgrimage.

The verandah looks out over the garden, with its mango and plum trees that attract flocks of parrots, koels, and other songbirds, and even a resident langur that their dog Krishna chases after. Maintained by a Nepali couple, its crowning glory is the circular rose-bed that his mother inspects regularly. My roses, she calls them, as if they are her own creation. His father, who looks askance even at the Haj and keeps his prayer mat rolled up behind his bookshelf, stretches out his feet in their shiny Peshawari chappals and smiles with his usual smug look. His friend, dressed in a beautiful waistcoat with velvet piping, speaks of the magical aura of that pyramidal mountain, of Tibetans prostrating themselves for the entire kora around its base, while other pilgrims laden with suitcases and duffel-bags struggle in the thin air. In the sweltering heat of the Benares summer, the visitor conjures up a vision of icy crags towering into the sky.

The traveller coughs, then gets up to spit across the verandah railing into a flower bed. He remarks that Kailash is a place from which two of his friends failed to return.

Ali helps himself to the samosas that his mother has prepared, dipping them into sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney. He is still in his school uniform, white shirt and grey shorts, which are dusty from cricket practice. At his feet, Krishna, his dark muzzle turned white, waits for tidbits. Munching on a moistened samosa, he slips a morsel to the dog while wondering what it is about that black mountain set in a desert of scree and ice that attracts so many from so far. What transpires in the hearts of the faithful circling the mountain’s precipitous base as the days slip into months, and why do they call out to Shiva and Demchok, the Buddha of Supreme Bliss? Is it the same outcome that pilgrims are hoping for when they come to Benares from great distances to immerse themselves in the Ganges?

The visitor mentions the word nirvana, which Ali has no clear notion of.

Abbu, what is nirvana?

Ali, can’t you see Mr. Talukdar is speaking? His father’s face shows mild irritation, but he’s not at all angry. He couldn’t ask for a better father, clever and kind with a smooth, handsome face and an ever-present scent of attar.

Faizal, the young mind is curious, and deserves a decent answer.

His father heaves a sigh. It means a final blowing out of the fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance. For believers in reincarnation, nirvana entails that final freedom from rebirth, or moksha.

Ali doesn’t understand why people would want to escape living, but there are many topics grown-ups concern themselves with that turn out not to be that important.

Mr. Talukdar smiles. Put simply, Ali, nirvana is what the Buddhists call Heaven.

His mother has taught him that Heaven is a place with beautiful white pavilions and gardens with fruit trees and bubbling springs, where everything has its proper place. He gave up believing in it a while back, for if Allah wanted children who died early to be happy there, he would have added pet dogs and mithai shops like they have in the city, and maybe a great library and a cricket field like the one at the stadium.

He likes playing cricket more than anything. Though he does not excel at the sport, he enjoys the company and hearing the shout of howzat! and the thwack of the bat and seeing the ball scuttling towards the boundary. He can also rattle off statistics about Pataudi and other test players including all-time greats like Bradman and Sobers. All thanks to the phenomenal memory that everyone says is a gift from Allah, who is all-merciful and omnipotent.

His father has told him that Allah is like a safeguard, an assurance that the cosmos is orderly even if society isn’t. Like his father, he skips the Friday mosque but fasts during Ramadan to please his Ammi and to get the maximum benefit from the evening iftar, which usually includes her special sherbets made with mejdool dates and mouth-watering delicacies like paya curry and shammy kebabs. And like millions of other students, he also trusts in Ganesha, to whom he murmurs a prayer before exams.

His fascination with Kailash begins that evening, but six years later, in the university library, he reads a gold-embossed and partly moth-eaten book titled The Origin of Continents and Oceans that explains much more about the mountain. The author is the famous German scientist Alfred Wegener, the teacher of his geography professor Hans Finkelstein, who has assigned it to their class.

Reading Wegener in that vast library set among palm trees, he learns for the first time that the ground that seems solid beneath his feet is inherently unstable, subject to horrendous forces in the earth’s mantle that send vast land masses slamming into each other only to be cleaved apart. Sitting under a creaky ceiling fan in the reading room, he discovers that a supercontinent called Pangea broke up two hundred million years ago into chunks of continents that drifted to their present positions, and that would continue to rearrange themselves until the end of time.

That breakup, which culminated in the third mass extinction and began the Jurassic Period and the reign of dinosaurs, contains the key to Kailash.

The book points out that the east coast of South America fits perfectly against the west coast of Africa. That means the two were once joined together, and indeed, as shown in the map, the mountain ranges would have run uninterrupted across them. New Jersey, it turns out, was once a province in Africa, and the Scottish Highlands formed part of the Appalachians.

Wegener also mentions an extinct seed fern called glossopteris. Its fossils had been found in India, as well as South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As Hans later explains in class, in 1912, thirty-five pounds of glossopteris were found near the South Pole, piled neatly next to the bodies of the explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team. That finding, he says, proves beyond doubt that Antarctica had once been joined to other continents. 

Hans teaches geography in a department at the opposite end of the campus from where Ali’s father teaches Urdu and Persian. A Jew who fled Nazi Germany, Hans lived in Kashmir and Peshawar only to be interned during the war with other Germans in a prison camp in the Himalayan foothills. He bears no bitterness on that account, and his love for India and its landscape and history is apparent in every lecture.

Tall, with mysterious grey eyes, a butterfly-shaped mark above his right eye, and a chiseled jawline, Hans’ presence fills