The Fossil
Abhijit Vyas
Rajasthan is a land of multifarious attractions, of colourful people with a warm heart shining in their liquid eyes. I just love to romp through her territories, with camera in hand, to explore her and to capture her in her various moods. I would never say no to an opportunity to visit Rajasthan.
One such opportunity came my way, one day, and I pounced upon it with delight. My friend, Raman, a Jain, was busy renovating the temple he had inherited from his forefathers. Leaving the sanctum sanctorum untouched, the rest of the temple was repaired, recast, beautified. What remained was the work of laying the floor area with marble slabs, to be bought from Makrana, in Rajasthan. My friend decided to go personally to choose and purchase the marble and he invited me to accompany him. Visiting Rajasthan was joy enough and to do it in the company of a childhood friend was heaven in itself.
Off we go, our car speeding on the road to Kutchh. My friend has some other small works to take care of, and we make short halts on the way, in a couple of towns. Our next halt would be Jaisalmer, a picturesque town of Rajasthan famous for its Jain temple with their inimitable carvings. My friend wanted to visit the Derasar (Jain temple) and meet the munis (Jain Saints) there. We reach Jaisalmer well past dusk time and decide it’s wiser to meet the munis in the morning next day as in the evenings they have their rituals to attend to in their extremely disciplined, almost regimentalised life.
Early next morning, my friend is ready for the puja-darshan. Dressed in traditional style for the occasion, a white dhoti with golden border, a similar chaddar flung on his shoulder, he was sporting a small silver plate in his hand. Half a dozen stemless, sweet scented, pink and red roses were peeping from the plate, fresh and smiling. Many hibiscuses, a local breed of deep blood-red colour, with their long arched pistils jutting in the air look like dancers in a choreography. A tiny katori, also in silver, draws your attention, with its kesar-chandan paste, specially ground for the puja, early, every morning, in the temple itself. He holds in the other hand a thick skin-coloured incense stick, the subtle and rarefied scent of which, when lighted, you can smell only in the jain temples.
So my friend is on his way, in pursuit of whatever he is seeking; I am on my way, in my own pursuit, walking down the streets of Jaisalmer – apparently aimlessly. Jaisalmer is a town, all of gold. Its soil is ochre yellow. Its chrome yellow rocks shine in the sun to give you an illusion of a gold mine. The entire town is of a breath–taking beauty and a storehouse of Rajasthani history and culture. Haveli after haveli carved in delicate, intricate designs, especially those of the patwas, leave the visitors agape. The famous Fort of Jaisalmer, which inspired Satyajit Ray to write a story based on which he later on made his film ‘SONAR KELLA’, looks gold plated.
I have sauntered the streets of Rajasthan, discovering something new every time, and I have plenty of photographs to show and share my wonder with friends. Little did I know what revelation awaited me this time in my meanderings through the city of Jaisalmer. Perhaps it was the god of little acts!
I am at a shop buying lovely picture post-cards of Rajasthan. With the shopkeeper’s permission, I sit there and scribble my joy and greetings to friends. I ask him where I could post the cards. He points me a building very near by: “That’s the post office”
I am at the door of a house that I can describe as an apology for a post office. No sign of any kind announced it was one. I step in and try to decipher something to prove I was in a post office. Nothing of the sort, a gentleman, as old as the house, the sole attendant of the post office or the lone resident of the house, looks at me with inquiring eyes and I hear a voice mellowed with age: “Can I do something for you, ‘bhaisaab’?” Unable yet to decide if I had not barged into someone’s private home, I showed the post cards to the old man, and regret ringing in my voice, I said, “I need stamps to post the cards. Can you tell me where…’’ The old man stretched his arm, and I slipped the cards onto a network of crisscross lines in his hand, watching with curious, eager eyes what would be his next move. He brought out a cardboard box from the drawer of a table, selected the required stamps and started affixing them onto my cards.
Relaxed, I now turned my gaze to explore the room more thoroughly. Apart from the table, which seemed to house the entire post office, the room is as barren as the Rajasthani desert. But there is an oasis there and my eyes got rooted to it.
The ledge of one of the windows, opening north, beckons me. I walk towards it as if in trance. Stones of various kinds, in various sizes, shapes and shades deck the ledge. It is a beautiful collection: sandstone, quartz, agate & eye agate, graphite, opal, petrified wood and even some lovely fossils, one of which is unique. I pick it up. I turn it in my hands, this way and that, up and down, round and round, viewing it from all sides, like you do with a piece of sculpture. And sculpture it was, so beautifully perfect, so perfectly beautiful! The fossil was unique in that it bore the imprint of a vine: a slender, sinuous stalk, with a couple of sprouting leaves, ending up in curly tendrils. How could such tender life get impressed on a rock? And for it to be thus fossilised, it must have taken years and years! I gazed, I wondered, I admired in awe nature’s faultless piece of art.
The old man is observing me all the while. He must have concluded I am a stranger in Rajasthan. “Where are you coming from? What is your name?” I tell him about myself, my family, my home and above all about my collection of stones and my craze for them. We then chatted about stones, about what we had read in the book of stones, learnt about their own life and about life in them. Then when I felt the time ripe, our rapport a little more intimate than just ten minutes ago, I ventured to ask: “Do you sell these stones?’’ The old man seemed to have observed my interest but he replied: “I collect those as hobby only.”
I was a little depressed at the thought of not being able to carry home such a jewel of a piece. But it was also gratifying to feel, I had seen one, I had read nature’s hieroglyphics, deciphered her secret code, entered a little deeper in her temple.
I then paid for the stamps and was about to leave when the old man placed in my hand the fossil I was dying to own. Quite automatically I brought out my purse to offer remuneration. But the old man pleaded in a tremulous tone, “Just keep it as a gift from me. You are Vyas. I too am Vyas. We are brethren. Accept it. Please.”
I was dazed. I had not even had the courtesy to ask him his name or enquire about his family, lost as I was in the beauty of the stones and my desire to possess the fossil. We had known each other for the last quarter of an hour only. He was for me an old, sole attendant of a post office. Nothing more. But the old man’s magnanimous heart had matched our family name ‘Vyas’ and bridged a link, a relationship. That was indeed a touching moment! I was speechless. My eyes moistened. All I could do is open my arms. We melted into an embrace. We parted enriched, he more than me, minus his unique fossil.
The fossil, all the more precious now, bearing its peerless design, lay in my bag radiating a Rajasthani warmth. On reaching home I told the story to my family. We found the right place to display the fossil in our drawing room. Everytime I took at it, the old man’s voice resounds in my memory, and a riddle keeps spinning in my brain: was being ‘Vyas’ the pretext, or, was it so, that the fossilised memory of a bygone relationship, suddenly began to live in a token fossil!
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