Seven Summers

  MULK RAJ ANAND

  Seven Summers

  A Memoir

  Edited, with an Introduction, by

  Saros Cowasjee

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Mulk’s Day in Khandala

  PART I

  The Road

  PART II

  The River

  A Select Glossary

  Copyright Page

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  SEVEN SUMMERS

  Mulk Raj Anand was born in Peshawar in 1905 and educated at the universities of Punjab and London. After earning his PhD in Philosophy in 1929, Anand began writing for T.S. Eliot’s magazine Criterion as well as books on cooking and art. Recognition came with the publication of his first two novels, Untouchable and Coolie. These were followed by a succession of novels, including his well-known trilogy The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942). By the time he returned to India in 1946 he was easily the best-known Indian writer abroad.

  Making Bombay his home and centre of activity, Anand threw himself headlong into the cultural and social life of India. He founded and edited the fine arts magazine Marg, and has been the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, several honorary doctorates and other distinctions.

  Saros Cowasjee is Professor Emeritus of the University of Regina in Canada. His published works include two novels, Goodbye to Elsa (1974) and The Assistant Professor (1998), critical studies on Sean O’Casey and Mulk Raj Anand, and several anthologies of fiction, including The Oxford Anthology of Raj Stories (1998) and A Raj Collection (2005).

  To the memory of my Mother

  Ah! that childhood of mine, the great highway in all weathers, supernaturally sober, more disinterested than the best of beggars, and proud of possessing neither country nor friends—what foolishness it was—and only now I perceive it!

  —RIMBAUD

  Introduction

  Seven Summers (first published in 1951) was conceived in 1925—26 while Mulk Raj Anand was studying for his doctoral degree in philosophy at the University of London. Lonely and homesick, he had fallen in love with Irene, the beautiful daughter of a science professor at the University of Wales. At her behest, he began a confession, which he would read to her on weekends. Love, not expediency, motivated the writing, and the happy weekends decided the length of the work. Soon it ran into 2000 pages. Irene promised to marry him if he could find a publisher for his confession, but by the time he found one she was justifiedly married to someone else. The work, however, did not go to waste: the narrative became the source of many of Anand’s novels, short stories and of his most ambitious undertaking, The Seven Ages of Man.

  Seven Summers recreates, in Anand’s own words, ‘the first seven years of my own half unconscious and half conscious childhood’. Written with candour and sharp insight into a child’s mind, the book deserves to rank alongside some of the better-known autobiographies of childhood, such as William Hudson’s Far Away and Long Ago (1918), Gorki’s My Childhood (1915) and Tolstoy’s Childhood (1852). Anand comes closest to Tolstoy insofar as he took for his literary model the latter’s Childhood—a work not strictly autobiographical. Like Tolstoy, Anand shows a remarkable capacity for wonder that allows him to enter childhood as few people can. Also, the two writers are among the first in their own countries to describe the life of a child from within—from the child’s point of view.

  Seven Summers is divided into two parts: ‘The Road’ and ‘The River’. Both headings are appropriate and symbolic. The keynote of the book is struck in the opening paragraph:

  Dividing the barracks and the bungalows is the road, lined with casuarina trees, which stretches from end to end of the horizon. I stand for a long while with my thumb in my mouth, wondering where it comes from and where it goes. Then I run round in circles on the little clearing under the grove surrounding the Persian wheel well in a wild delirium of movement, oblivious of the past and the future, excited by my own happiness at finding myself wandering freely in the wide open world …

  The road symbolizes the journey of life. It also symbolizes the divide between the rich and the poor, between the barracks of the sepoys and the plush bungalows of the officers. But above all else, it embodies the author’s love of the earth, ‘—the road which I crossed from the protection of one line of casuarinas trees, stirred by the nimble breeze, to the other, the road in whose dust I rolled, the road where I held conversation with men and beasts and birds, the road which dominated my life with its unknown past and its undiscovered future’. Such, indeed, is the love of the earth that on one occasion Krishan, our young hero, chewed the mud ‘and liked the sweet dry, dusty taste of it’. Anand concludes the first part by saying that the road later became for him ‘an ever present reality’.

  Anand does not dwell on the symbolism of the river with the same precision as he does on that of the road. Still, the symbolic meaning of the river is not hard to perceive. The road is something one takes; the river is something one flows with. Krishan, as he grows up, is carried by the current of the stream. He occasionally exerts himself and changes course, but by and large he flows with the river of life. And the river takes along not only him but hundreds like him. The river is emblematic of the merging of the individual with the vast and varied stream of life. The road that Krishan saw and looked at with amazement is, in a sense, left untrodden, for human choice is circumscribed by human responsibilities and by the rigours and strictures of the society one belongs to.

  Having assumed the name Krishan, Anand writes about himself and his family with much frankness. The reviewer of the Times Literary Supplement referred to him as ‘as Freudian a baby as was ever born in English fiction of the twenties and the thirties’, one whose ‘seven summers are hot with his physical love for his mother and aunts’. He was equally attracted to young girls and their very touch thrilled him. When lacking company, he would imagine a female playmate and call out to her aloud. His superstitious mother thought that her boy had the gift of seeing things invisible to others—that he might indeed be the god Krishna, his namesake, ‘playing with his gopis!’.

  Among other salient features of the young hero are his spirit of inquiry and his zest for life—two attributes that Anand retained throughout his long life. Krishan is continually pelting his parents with questions. He inquires of his devout mother: ‘Who made God …?’; he asks his all-knowing father (the most learned man among the illiterate sepoys!): ‘Who made the world? And why is it not possible to know everything?’ There are the ‘obstinate questionings’ which Wordsworth spoke of, and in the manner of Wordsworth, the adult Anand speaks of childhood: ‘What was the magic of those days which is not here today? … Was it in the innocence of one’s soul or the sheer vitality of one’s body?’

  In both, perhaps. But with each new summer, the shadows of the future fall upon the child’s path. The longing for school is chilled by the master’s rod, the adoration of his father by the latter’s dark moods; the comfort he found in the lap of his mother and his aunt take on a renewed sensuality when he plays with his girl cousin. The change from innocence to experience is gradual and the mood ambivalent, as in some of Blake’s finest poems like ‘The Echoing Green’ and ‘Ah! Sunflower’.

  What most characterizes the book is Krishan’s animal vitality, his lust for life, the wildly exulting stream of joy he manifests despite the prevailing violence around him. A bear dancing to the small drum of the juggler is a common enough sight in India. But Anand’s description of one captivates us, not because he has anything new to offer but because we see the show through the eyes of a child, who is able to transmute his joy with a freshness we seem to
have lost in our adulthood. The same is true when Krishan visits the zoo. Nothing untoward or unusual happens; there are no birds or beasts not to be found in an average zoo. Yet, such is the unalloyed clarity of the child’s vision that we ourselves are transported into a world of joy. As we look at the world through the child’s eyes, we recall our own childhood.

  The most unforgettable episode in the book is Krishan’s visit to Delhi to witness the Coronation Durbar of King George and his consort, Mary. He rides concealed in a special train in which the General Officer Commanding of the Nowshera Brigade (the brigade to which his father is attached) is travelling. He is kept covered with a blanket so that no Sahib might see him. In Delhi, too, he is kept out of the sight of the Sahibs, who might object to the presence of ‘so discordant an element into so gorgeous a ceremony’. But that is a small price to pay. From his inconspicuous seat in the vast concourse, he reconnoitres the pageantry with open-eyed awe and wonder—taking us back to our childhood and to a world which was once innocent and untainted by human experience.

  It would be amiss not to mention the book’s one flaw. The story is interspersed with the author’s editorial comments. Most of the time they serve their purpose well, but there are occasions when rather than enlightening the reader they merely re-emphasize what the reader should discover for himself. In spite of this, Seven Summers remains a rare achievement—the best autobiography of childhood yet written by an Indian novelist in English.

  Saros Cowasjee

  University of Regina, Regina

  Canada, 2005

  Mulk’s Day in Khandala*

  As always, Mulk wakes up at 5 a.m. Earlier he would have gone for a walk, but that he can no longer do. He has his bath and gets ready for the day.

  His day begins with tea and three Shrewberry biscuits. He insists on writing—at least a few lines. We give him his writing board and ruled paper. He sits contemplating for a while, staring at the blank sheet before him. Then he scribbles, scratches it out, and scribbles again. ‘What are you writing, Mulk?’ I ask him. ‘Autobiographical saga,’ is the answer I get.

  After his stint at writing, he loves to sit in the garden and feel the warm sun on his face. Sometimes we go to the edge of the compound, from where we can see the sparkling stream and the little pool in the valley below. In days gone by, we often went down to the pool for a swim, and then there was the long climb back the cottage. The memory of it is ever fresh in our minds.

  Sitting in the garden, I would try to make him talk. I find it strange that a man who had so much to say has now gone silent. I would read him the headlines from the daily—Asian Age. He would listen attentively, and if anything caught his interest, he would make me read the whole news story.

  Soon it would be time for breakfast. Breakfast with him is a simple affair, but it is the time when a friend or a visitor might drop in to greet him. Occasionally, students doing research on his works would come for help. Though unable to give them the time he once did, he listens to them patiently and answers their questions as best as he can. He wants to help, help as much as he can, but he gets so easily tired. People who visit him often forget how old he is—they still look on him as the vigorous man he was in his eighties!

  Mulk must have his nap. Somewhere between 11.30 a.m. and 12 noon, he retires to his room for two hours. He then has his lunch which consists of dal, rice, vegetables and fruits. He is not particular about what food you serve him, but he must have a piece of chocolate. Most of the cooking and cleaning is done by his caregivers (Mulk abhors the word ‘servant’), who adore him. Mulk has a great capacity for commanding affection and there is not a thing they would not do for him. I am never afraid of leaving Mulk alone with them during my regular visits to Bombay.

  When I am in Khandala, it has been my practice to read to him for an hour or more after he has had his lunch. It may be a travelogue which would remind him of his own various travels, or it could be excerpts from one of his novels. He likes to hear his own words, specially from his autobiographies like Morning Face and Confessions of a Lover. Often his face lights up and he nods his head approvingly. It is important that someone should be there to read to Mulk, and I have got two young boys to read to him in my absence. One of them reads to him in Hindi.

  Mulk was always very punctilious in replying to letters, but the task proves too much for him now. I read him his letters (he has a huge mail!), and sometimes he tells me what I should write. But there are times when he says nothing, and then the letters go unanswered. It can’t be helped. Many of those who write to Mulk have not seen him for years and do not know that he is too frail to reply.

  As evening approaches, Mulk looks forward to his favourite treat—brandy with honey, lemon and hot water. It is a must. He has had it for the past 50 years that I have known him, and no day is complete without it.

  The last event of the day is the BBC news on television at about 7.30 p.m. Sometimes he might stay up to watch a cricket match or a documentary with his caregivers. At 9 p.m., he retires to bed, and that marks the end of a normal day in the life of Mulk at the age of ninety-nine.

  You can see there is not much happening outwardly now. But what is taking place in Mulk’s mind, none of us know.

  Dolly Sahair

  Part I

  The Road

  I love roads, I love lanes and streets: I love to walk, walk, walk, for it is an opportunity for thought developing into a clear process, often leading to self-illumination and discovery, thanks to the sound of one’s own footfalls. Walking is not merely physical exercise keeping the body fit; it is a spiritual training leading to the preservation of the being itself …

  —Anonymous

  1

  Sunshine scatters like gold dust. A buzz in the air, as though the pinpoints of gold are flying hither and thither. The green trees of the grove spread the shadow of their protection on the white-bearded spirit of Mian Mir, which, mother has told me, lives in the Persian wheel well. On one side of our house are the straight barracks, where soldiers live, on the other side are the bungalows of the Sahibs, with their gardens, white-washed and still, and hazy with their mysteries before my eyes. Dividing the barracks and the bungalows is the road, lined with casuarina trees, which stretches from end to end of the horizon. I stand for a long while with my thumb in my mouth, wondering where it comes from and where it goes. Then I run round in circles on the little clearing under the grove surrounding the Persian wheel well in a wild delirium of movement, oblivious of the past and the future, excited by my own happiness at finding myself wandering freely in the wide open world …

  That is one of my first vivid memories.

  I run round in circles in the grove because mother has said I can go out and play so long as I don’t cross the road.

  This road, on which caravans of camels and donkeys and horses and men are always passing, is the first hurdle that must be crossed.

  The gardener calls me: ‘Son, come here.’

  I heed him not and go on describing circles. Then, suddenly, I fall across the stub of the root of the huge banyan tree and begin to cry.

  The gardener comes and picks me up, consoling me the while with queer, affecting sounds from under his full mustachio and throwing me up in the air. I am still sobbing. So he puts me astride his neck and prances like a horse. And, with the jolting of his body and with the precarious movement of mine, holding on to his head with tight fists, there arises a hilarious atmosphere. And though I cry, ‘Put me down, put me down!’, I am happy. Of course, when I am actually brought down and placed square on my sturdy little legs by the place where the gardener is cutting grass, I want to be picked up again. But as the gardener starts to work, I become fascinated by the way he cuts grass with a flat khurpi while he hums a tune in his throat.

  ‘Sing to me,’ I say to him.

  ‘Go, budmash, your mother is calling,’ he answers.

  ‘Where is my mother?’ I say and look towards the door of our house.

  Mother is no
t there. I know she is having her siesta, with my little brother, Prithvi, by her side. I insist, ‘Sing to me.’

  The gardener smiles and begins to hum his tune loudly, moving his head the while.

  I too move my head.

  Then I hear the sound of tinkling bells on the road and I drift thither. A row of camels is passing, tied nose to tail, tail to nose, and the drivers seated on their backs sway up and down as the mountainous backs of the camels advance. I involuntarily put my finger in my mouth and stand watching the caravan pass, amazed at the long legs of the camels, my body rapt in the sound of their tinkling bells. Whence they come and where they go, that is what I want to know. But mother has said, ‘Krishna, you are not to go on the road.’

  Some sepoys are coming up from the direction in which, I have been told, lies the Sadar Bazaar. They salute, looking the while to their left.

  A shape passes, a pink man in khaki clothes, a shape which takes the form of a Sahib. I know he lives in that bungalow opposite our house, across the road. He whirs past on his bicycle.

  Now that the fearsome person is gone, there can be no danger in going to his garden.

  And there is a violent urge in me to cross the road.

  I look back to see if my mother is about. Also, I sweep the grove by the well to make sure that the gardener is not looking. And, without pausing for breath, I rush blindly across the barrier, the limit of all my previous truancies.

  Once across, I rush into the bowers of the garden. And quickly, breathlessly, with the panorama of the green orchards hanging over my eyes, though not in them, I attack the nearest rosebud on a bush before me. The panic of my mother’s voice fills me. And I am oblivious of the thorns on the stem. I suddenly feel a shooting pain in my fingers, but I pull with all my might. The rosebud without the stem comes into my hand. And, without looking back at the silent bungalow or at the shimmering, buzz-punctured air before me, I run, my torso further forward than my legs.