The cauliflower, p.23
The Cauliflower, page 23
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
For one day only! For this day only (January the 1st, 1886—the first day of the new year), your favorite guru and mine, Sri Ramakrishna, will be appearing, exclusively, in the guise of the kalpataru—the Wish-fulfilling Tree!
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
Don’t be late!
Don’t miss out!
Come and see!
Well, by some miracle the guru has actually crawled out of his bed. For the first time during his stay at the Cossipore garden house he is up, he is about, he is warmly dressed, and he is planning to take a small constitutional around the gardens.
It is a public holiday. There are devotees everywhere—lying under trees digesting their lunches, sitting by the water, laughing, praying, saying japa, gossiping about the guru and about each other, telling jokes, having fun, picking flowers. It’s a halcyon scene.
It should probably be observed—as we scan the local environs—that there are a few really rather important people missing. Some of the Master’s closest and most trusted disciples have gone off—led by his favorite, Narendra—on a jaunt to Bodh Gaya. These core disciples—especially Narendra—are, at this stage in their sadhanas, very influenced by the Buddhist teachings. Several of them have avowed that they do not even think they actually believe in God. Sri Ramakrishna appears to take all this in his stride. (What else can the poor guru do?) He cheerfully insists that it is perfectly natural for people to spend interludes in their spiritual lives not believing in God.
But the guru is very ill. He has so much that he still longs to impart to his boys. He will not be with them forever—mere months at best. And the disciples have gone to Bodh Gaya without even telling him. Perhaps he is a little wounded? Perhaps he is secretly smarting? Who knows? And perhaps this is why he chooses today, the first of the new year, his final year, to do what he does.
So the Master is out in the fresh air. He is walking, slowly, gently supported, around the gardens. The devotees are naturally delighted to see him (perhaps he is recovering after all! Perhaps their fervent prayers have finally been answered!), and as soon as he appears among them they swarm toward him. Girish (ever the drama queen) prostrates himself at the guru’s feet, loudly incanting his praises. The guru instantly falls into ecstasy. The crowd becomes still more jubilant, singing, clapping, chanting his name.
The guru returns to partial consciousness and looks around him, his face glowing with love and gratitude. How might he possibly repay their loyalty and faithfulness? He raises his arms and holds out his feeble hands, his eyes filling with tears, and murmurs: “May you all be illumined!”
The crowd suddenly feels itself being enveloped—surrounded, permeated—by an incredibly warm and comforting hug of ineffable bliss.
The guru begins to move among them, barely conscious, touching them, one after the other, with his outstretched fingers. Each person responds differently to the Master’s touch because each person is different, and the guru will give them only what he thinks will send them forward on their spiritual journeys. Some begin praying; some speak imaginary languages; some start to sing; some fall to the ground, their bodies contorting; some are silent, unable to speak; some wail and weep; some sit quietly and meditate; some dance; some whirl around and scream.
Some—just a couple—the guru does not touch. He withdraws his hand. “Not yet,” he murmurs, coldly. Imagine the feeling—to be refused the touch of the guru! To be notably excluded—and in public! One of these sorry individuals is Akshay Kumar Sen. Akshay is tiny and dark skinned. He is not considered attractive. He is not young and plump and beautiful like the guru’s favored boys. He is in his early thirties. He has lived a poor, hard life. But he is clever. He is diligently supporting himself as a tutor in Calcutta.
Akshay is desperate—needy. From his very first sighting of Sri Ramakrishna he is utterly besotted by him, but the guru, while unerringly polite, is always slightly cool and distant with Akshay. Many devotees are permitted to touch—even gently massage—the guru’s feet, but the Master will not countenance Akshay’s touch. When Akshay approaches, he swiftly withdraws his feet with an exclamation of disquiet. Poor Akshay. He knows that the guru is perfectly capable of giving him the vision of Lord Krishna which he craves more than life itself, but for some reason he refuses to. Akshay tries everything he can think of to persuade the haughty guru—he is helpful and humble and obliging. He brings him gifts. The guru loves ice—the impoverished Akshay brings him an ice cream. The guru turns up his nose and will not touch it. Akshay endures endless snubs and rebuttals at the guru’s hands. But every disciple is different. And Ramakrishna—ever inscrutable—is crushing Akshay’s ego through indifference. This is Akshay’s path. He will be rejected, ignored, passed over, humiliated. And even today, on this day, when everyone is touched, Akshay is held at bay.
In several written accounts of this landmark occasion, it is made clear that Akshay is rejected. In some, he is seen presenting a flower to the guru, even described as standing some distance away and then being genially called over by the guru and blessed. But the accounts of him being turned away have a greater ring of legitimacy to them. Sri Ramakrishna is not Jesus Christ. He is not democratic. He will not accept just anybody. He is complex and discriminating. So let us imagine Akshay being turned away on that special day. And let’s ponder his sense of rejection, his feelings of inadequacy, of injustice; let’s dwell on his humility, his need, his poverty. Where, we wonder, may this whirlpool of emotions ultimately lead him?
A sour note has certainly been sounded on an otherwise magical day. But does it destroy Akshay’s faith in the guru? Does it undermine his confidence in Sri Ramakrishna’s status as an incarnation? Nope. Not one bit. When the guru dies, Akshay remains one of his most ardent devotees, and after a while an urge rises within him to pick up a pen and to write about the guru. Akshay has no confidence—he is not well educated, he has not attended the university, he was never a favorite of Ramakrishna’s, not comfortably of the inner circle—but he picks up his pen and he begins writing down all his feelings of great love (underpinned, as they are, by this desperate sense of unworthiness, of unfulfilled desire), and creates an extraordinary landmark in the history of Bengali verse—a giant, crazy, stirring, magical, hysterical four-volume love song, a love rant to the guru: Sri Sri Ramakrishna Punthi.
And perhaps this is how the Master encourages Akshay’s sadhana—and in so doing, quite coincidentally, inspires his own great literary monument. Ramakrishna’s cruel rejection of this needy devotee only spurs on his ardor—nay, his idealism. Consummation can sometimes—just sometimes—be overrated. Which of us remembers the happy endings? Surely the poems of an unrequited lover are always the most passionate, the most moving, the most fierce, the most agonizing, the most heartfelt, the most indelible?
“When yearning for God,
Be just like the mother cow
Pursuing her calf.”
“Oh, that you were like my
brother,
Who nursed at my mother’s breasts!
If I should find you outside,
I would kiss you;
I would not be despised.
I would lead you and bring you
Into the house of my mother,
She who used to instruct me.
I would cause you to drink of
spiced wine,
Of the juice of my
pomegranate.…”
—Song of Solomon 8:1
The Rani. Ah, the glorious Rani—she started off this story, did she not? And now, at this late hour, she must be cordially deputized to end it (before it’s even truly begun).…
This is the Rani’s final scene. But it is two scenes. The Rani can never do anything by halves. She is a creature of many cuts, of many edits, of many versions. All that we can be sure of is that she is perfect, that she is noble, that she is a creature exquisitely of her time and out of it.
The Rani (the indignity!) has been struck down by chronic dysentery. Her doctors, fearing the worst, ask for her to be moved to more hospitable climes. Hospitable or no, the Rani opts for her garden house in Kalighat (adjacent to the famous temple), which stands on the banks of a small tributary of the holy Ganga.
Shortly before her death, as is traditional, the Rani is carried down to the banks of the river and partially immersed there. It is late at night and very dark, so many lamps have been lit. In one version of her death scene, a violent gust of wind blows them all out.
But the version we are following, the scene we are watching, sees the Rani blinking, owlishly, into the shining lights around her and then suddenly, furiously, impetuously, exclaiming: “Turn off the lights! Turn them off! I have no need of them! I have no need of artificial illumination now! Turn off the lights!”
Shortly after, embraced in the ebony arms of that coruscating darkness, with a small sigh of relief, a brilliant smile: “Ah, Mother,” she murmurs. “My Mother. Have you come?”
An indelible moment, I think you’ll all agree … (the sound-man conspicuously checks his watch). And how fortunate that we [The Cauliflower ™] were here to record it! What a coup! Later, however (much later), when we anxiously scrutinize the footage, we discover that we have nothing (nothing! not a damn thing!) in the can.
The Divine Mother—we know for an absolute fact; we are certain—has come herself, in person, to escort her favorite daughter into the heavenly hereafter. But the film? The film?! Urgh. Completely blank.
Hmmm …
Perhaps, after all, we were just too close to see her.
“We have a little sister,
And she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she is spoken
for?
If she is a wall,
We will build upon her
A battlement of silver;
And if she is a door,
We will enclose her
With boards of cedar.
I am a wall,
And my breasts, like towers.…”
—Song of Solomon 8:8–10
Afterword
This novel (if I can call it that) is truly little more than the sum of its many parts. It’s a painstakingly constructed, slightly mischievous, and occasionally provocative/chaotic mosaic of many other people’s thoughts, memories, and experiences. I have not lived in the nineteenth century. I have never met Sri Ramakrishna. I am not a practicing Hindu. I have never visited Calcutta. If I had, I probably could not have written this book. I wouldn’t have been stupid, arrogant, brave, naughty—and possibly even dispassionate—enough.
This novel is a small (even pitiable) attempt to understand how faith works, how a legacy develops, how a spiritual history is written. I have been fascinated by Sri Ramakrishna for much of my life. He’s such a perplexing and joyous character. And I felt that his story might benefit from being told again—shared, enjoyed, celebrated (especially now)—but from a slightly new (and, yes, vaguely warped) perspective.
As a ten-year-old child in South Africa I was given a free album about Krishna Consciousness by an eccentric (even magical) stranger in Fordsburg’s controversial Oriental Plaza. Thank you to that kind gentleman, whoever you were/are. Because that’s basically where my journey began. If yours starts here, then please do have a look at some of the incredible books that have been not only the building blocks but the very joists and mortar of this one.
—Nicola Barker
BOOKS
Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master (The Jupiter Press)
Mahendranath Gupta, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center)
Sri Ramakrishna’s disciples are a uniformly charming bunch, and none more so than Mahendranath Gupta, the secretive “M.” This would probably be my number one go-to book on the guru, just because of its honesty and loveliness and modesty.
Swami Chetanananda, They Lived with God (Advaita Ashrama)
Swami Chetanananda, Ramakrishna as We Saw Him (Vedanta Society of St. Louis)
Swami Chetanananda has scrupulously detailed everything known about the guru in these two wonderful books. My humble effort owes most of what is good about it to the learned swami.
Akshay Kumar Sen, A Portrait of Sri Ramakrishna (The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture)
Lex Hilton, The Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna (Larson)
Lex Hilton’s work is both mesmerizing and extraordinary.
This is the Isherwood section. Christopher Isherwood writes brilliantly about Ramakrishna, but my favorite book by him—My Guru and His Disciple—is not actually about Ramakrishna as such but about Isherwood’s touching relationship with his own guru, the glorious Swami Prabhavananada.
Christopher Isherwood, ed., Vedanta for the Western World (Unwin Books)
Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (Advaita Ashrama)
Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple (University of Minnesota Press)
Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananada, trans., The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita (Mentor)
The Bhagavad-Gita is an exquisite work of art, and this translation is just superb.
Elizabeth U. Harding, Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar (Nicolas Hayes)
I owe Ms. Harding a giant expression of thanks for this brilliant, beautifully written, and meticulously researched work.
June McDaniel, Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls (Oxford)
Not only is this an amazing book on goddess worship, but Ms. McDaniel was also immensely kind and helpful to me when I approached her for help during the writing of The Cauliflower.
Bardwell L. Smith, ed., Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religion (Leiden/ E. J. Brill)
Sakhi Bhava, Transgender Spirituality: Man into Goddess (self-published)
I truly cannot overstate what a startling and revolutionary little book this is. It’s spiritual and philosophical dynamite!
Tapati Bharadwaj, Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1881) and a Nineteenth-Century Subaltern: Rani Rashmoni (1793–1861): Creating Our Feminist Genealogies (self-published)
Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Early Twentieth Century (Pandora)
Brian Kolodiejchuk MC, ed., Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Rider)
Desmond Doig, Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work (Fount)
Ashok Mitra, Calcutta Diary (Frank Cass)
Krishna Dutta, Calcutta: A Cultural History (Interlink Books)
Geoffrey Moorhouse, Calcutta: The City Revealed (Penguin)
Emma Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society, Volume 1 (Elibron Classics)
Amit Chaudhuri, Calcutta: Two Years in the City (Union Books)
Frank Finn, The Birds of Calcutta (Hardpress)
Thomas A. Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Penguin)
I mention this wonderful book because it was Swami Vivekananda’s favorite.
FILMS
Satyajit Ray, The Apu Trilogy (Artificial Eye)
Satyajit Ray, The Goddess (Mr. Bongo Films)
Louis Malle, Calcutta (Pyramide)
RADIO
Tessa Dunlop, The Enigma of Sara-la-Kali (Heart and Soul, BBC World Service)
MUSIC
Ananta, Night and Daydream (Touchstone)
ALSO BY NICOLA BARKER
NOVELS
In the Approaches
The Yips
Burley Cross Postbox Theft
Darkmans
Clear: A Transparent Novel
Behindlings
Five Miles from Outer Hope
Wide Open
Small Holdings
Reversed Forecast
STORY COLLECTIONS
Heading Inland
Love Your Enemies
About the Author
NICOLA BARKER is the author of eleven novels, including The Yips (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), Darkmans (shortlisted for the Booker and the Ondaatje Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Clear (longlisted for the Booker), and Wide Open (winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), as well as two story collections, including Love Your Enemies (winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award). Two of her stories, “Dual Balls” and “Symbiosis,” have been adapted for British television, and the former was shortlisted for a BAFTA. Barker was named on Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003, and her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in London. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Begin Reading
Afterword
Also by Nicola Barker
About the Author
Copyright
THE CAULIFLOWER. Copyright © 2016 by Nicola Barker. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Lucy Kim
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Barker, Nicola, 1966– author.
Title: The cauliflower: a novel / Nicola Barker.
Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015041425 | ISBN 9781627797191 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Ramakrishna, 1836–1886—Family—Fiction. | Hindus—India—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Biographical. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction. | Historical fiction.
