DAWN
(First read on the World Service of the BBC in April 1996)

I

He felt it coming on again. Now he was sure. There was no point deceiving himself any longer.
“Angina Pectoris,” said Mr Ramnath Chaturvedi as he rested himself on a parapet.
He pulled out a little book from his pocket and read it attentively. He had been reading it for the past few weeks and had come to remember parts of it by heart. He was an intelligent man. He had been the MD of ‘The Golden Gate’ for well over two decades and though he never had what one might call a real holiday in one of the luxury hotels in ‘The Golden Gate’ chain, he had had a brilliant and satisfying career. He had taken over the Company with three hotels and left it with thirteen, a number he did not very much care for, and had in his last year often thought of selling off the least profitable of the lot to make it a round dozen. But he had let it be, and now as he sat by the side of the road under a flowering Gulmohr tree he wondered if it had been the right decision.
For Ramnath Chaturvedi was a superstitious man. Soon after joining he had objected to the ‘Bhoomi Poojan’ of one of the hotels as the day chosen was not auspicious, but the Chairman had not only over-ruled the objection but had had a hearty laugh that was to choke him less than a year later when hurricane ‘Henry’ carried away a good part of his sea-side resort and a fire devastated the rest. Thereafter the Chairman, though he was to remain until the end a staunch rationalist, occupied himself with more important matters and allowed Mr Ramnath Chaturvedi the satisfaction of choosing the dates.
Ramnath often wondered what he would have done without Shankar Shastri who had been his guide, astrologer and friend in all things big and small. A week ago he had asked Shastriji to suggest an auspicious day for him to see a cardiologist but the astrologer had told him that doctors could be consulted on any day, for though stars may wait diseases do not. Ramnath greatly appreciated his friend’s concern and commonsense but could not bring himself to make an appointment for his distrust of all medical men was profound. He had surrounded himself with textbooks, handbooks, pamphlets and periodicals which he read intelligently and comprehensively and which he had used on more than one occasion as a shield to protect himself from the unscrupulous practitioners of that art.
Sitting on the parapet he was now sure of the diagnosis but did not feel adventurous enough to commence the treatment that, amongst other things, advocated the use of nitrates, a compound, he vaguely remembered, used in the manufacture of explosives. So he wondered if the time had indeed come to see some odious white-coat and when the tree dropped into his lap a bright red flower that quivered for a moment and then lay still, he looked upon it as a sign from above and hurriedly got up.
The specialist put him through a battery of tests that were a great deal more than what his little book had lead him to believe and when he feebly protested the cardiologist informed him that his book was hopelessly outdated and that the investigations had hardly begun.
A long catheter was pushed through his body right into his heart and when he was shown a cinematographic film of his beating heart and told how the clots in his coronaries would be bypassed, he was amazed and impressed. Then they told him how much it would all add up to and he was even more amazed but agreed, and on wanting to know whether there was any chance of his dying in the process, he was told that the possibility of some such thing happening was no more than two per cent. Ramnath found the figure reassuring but then it occurred to him that the figure made sense only from the doctor’s point of view, for as far as he was concerned he could be either hundred per cent alive or hundred per cent dead.
Shankar Shastri asked him his birth date and Ramnath was surprised for his friend had never forgotten to send him birthday greetings, and when the astrologer asked him if he was sure, Ramnath was worried for he was an intelligent man and sensed that something was wrong.
“I presume I’m destined to fill up the two per cent!” Ramnath laughed nervously. “You have only to say and I shall refuse the operation.”
Shankar Shastri got up and laughed a strange laugh, patted Ramnath on the back, held him by his arms, more or less embraced him, told his wife to get him a glass of masala-milk, sent his boy for samosas and malai-barfi and continued fussing about until Ramnath began to wonder if his dear friend’s faculties had been skewed by some eccentric lunar influence. It was only after he had drank the milk and eaten the delicacies that he felt like a fatted calf and trembled in his shoes.
Shankar Shastri came straight to the point.
“This coming night will be your last. At dawn tomorrow you will be dead. As the sun rises your soul will begin to leave your body and when it has fully risen the process will have been completed.”
“You don’t worry,” said Ramnath quickly. “I’ve decided to cancel surgery.”
“That can only make a topographical difference”, said the oracle, “whether you die on the operation table or in your bed.”
Ramnath hugged his friend, astrologer and guide of so many years, told him that he was in no way afraid of dying and went home. He locked himself in his room and realized that he was not just afraid, he was bestially afraid.
Death was not something Ramnath had never thought about but he had always believed that there would be time enough to meditate upon the intricacies of the subject when the need arose. But now he had been handed over a less than twenty-four notice to get his thoughts in order and checking the almanac found that the next day the sun would rise at seven in the morning.
There was no way he could stop the advancing sun, but it struck him that traveling west he could leave it behind. It was getting towards noon and there was not a moment to lose. He chartered a plane, flew out of Bombay and landed at Gatwick. It was a sunny afternoon and he streamed into the bustling traffic and heard the Big Ben strike four he giggled with excitement. He put his watch back and wondered if he had gained five and a half hours of life but he knew he would have to wait until one-thirty in the night to be sure.
He walked down Westbourne Grove. The number of Indian restaurants surprised him and when he spotted a Bhel-Poori House feared he had somehow got transported back to Bombay, but a shower suddenly drenched him to the skin and relieved him of his anxiety. He thought of buying an umbrella but though it was early in the evening, found most of the shops closed.
“London bandh,” he told himself as he entered the Bhel-Poori House.
He checked into one of the hotels at King’s Cross and mystified the receptionist by handing him an envelope marked: ‘To be opened at 2a.m.’ It contained his will and he had decided to call for it shortly before two if he was still alive, a possibility he very much entertained. An hour later he got quite a start when the telephone rang but it was only the receptionist wanting to know if he was all right.
Ramnath Chaturvedi sat before the clock and the countdown began. As it neared one-thirty his heart raced and he greatly feared bringing on an attack. And then it was half past one but Ramnath waited full five minutes before jumping up, doing a ramba-samba and congratulating himself.
He pulled out his computer and charted a course that would keep him safe. As long as he was at a place where the sun was not above the horizon he would not die. He left London before dawn, criss-crossed the Atlantic, made a brief stop at the Azores and reached New York late in the evening.
He felt thrilled walking the streets of Manhattan. He had a quick bite on 55th street and then slept through a musical at an off-Broadway theater. His next hop was to Honolulu and then Bombay where Shankar Shastri could not believe his eyes, but so great was the love he bore his friend that he was happy his prediction had gone wrong.
“As long as I keep away from that globe you mortals call the sun, I shall not die,” said Mr. Ramnath Chaturvedi already considering himself immortal. He had bhel poori at the Chowpattty and recollecting what it had cost him in London resolved never to go there again.
He flew to Hamburg and asked the taxi driver to take him to a place suitable for a night-bird and the man drove him straight to Reeperbahn and wished him all the best. Ramnath tripped along happily, invigorated by all the gloss and glitter.
“Guten Abend!” said Mr. Ramnath Chaturvedi.
“Godd Evening,” said the German. “Juz follow me.”
Ramnath woke up just in time to fly out of Hamburg. His head, heavy with a hangover, recollected only vaguely someone sitting on his lap and a little more distinctly the bill that demanded more than what the poor white-coat had asked for turning his heart inside out.



II

And so Mr. Ramnath Chaturvedi encircled the globe and every day became more experienced in the art of circumnavigation. After a few months he knew for certain that the sun would never be able to catch him and a year later celebrated his first anniversary at the ‘Bhel Poori House’ on Westbourne Grove.
He felt rather less thrilled than what he had expected and asked himself why he was doing it. He shrugged off the thought but it would not leave him and with every passing day became louder and more insistent. He could not say he wanted to see the world; he had seen enough and what remained did not interest him, for after a time everything appeared very much the same and differences purely superficial.
He was on a beach in Trinidad, resting himself on the soft cool sand, when he made up his mind not to flee the dawn anymore, to submit himself to the sun, to die. To die!? He left in great hurry.
He bought a notebook in Sydney. As he looked across the harbour he saw a million lights glittering in the dark and then he looked at his body. How it had grown from the time he was born! And yet what was the difference between then and now? Was his body his? Made up a tomato here an onion there, with some fish and chips thrown in? His body had been a great thief stealing from the earth. And he took out his notebook and wrote:
My body is a clever thief.
But then it returns it all back to the elements and thus exonerates itself. He added:
..and at its best a recycling factory.
He was frightened of the loss of which part of that recycling factory? His toes? No, he could live without his toes, fingers limbs, even heart and lungs – so the white coat had informed him – and if he became blind, deaf and dumb he would still be alive. Then what was death? Loss of his mind! His mind?
The mind that was full of thoughts, feelings, ideas, impressions that he had been collecting all those years? Mind full of ‘Golden Gate’ when it could have been ‘Four Seasons’ but for all the fact that he was refused the job? Mind full of borrowed treasures accumulated through chance and circumstances! He took out his book and wrote:
My mind is not my own. It has been programmed from without.
Even so he wondered how he would feel without that mind. He had never had that experience before. Or had he? And he wrote:
After I die I shall feel what I felt before I was born.
Having written that he felt much better. Then he thought of the soul; consciousness without body. He searched for his own soul, the only thing he could call his own. But did that immortal stuff really exist? And what became of it? It was getting late and still thinking about it he flew into Bagdogra.
He walked through the forest and climbed up the steep hill. It was chilly and there was a slight mist in the air. To his left the forest sloped away precipitously more than a thousand feet into the valley below. As the path turned he noticed what looked like a house clinging to the hillside, a hundred feet down slope amongst the trees, but it was shrouded in the mist and he wondered who could have poised a house so precariously. Holding on to the trees he made his way towards the place where the air was cooler and the mist thicker but by the time he reached it, the house vanished. He climbed back and from the road he could once again see the house.
A couple came up the path. “See,” exclaimed the girl. “An elephant!” The man nodded and Ramnath saw the wind had blown the mist about and like a geni turned into an elephant.
He heard a lot of little voices and saw an old man leading a group of children. “See, see!” Little fingers pointed excitedly. “Yes,” said the old man, “that’s a camel. See the two humps?” And then came three young men but they said nothing for the wind has dispersed the mist.
“Where are you all going?” asked Ramnath.
“To sunrise point!” laughed the boys.
Ramnath felt a tingling sensation all over his body. He no longer wanted to run away from the sun; he wanted to dissolve into it. He was hardly conscious of walking up the path. He floated up to the top of the hill drawn by a force irresistible and ecstatic. He considered himself singularly blessed as he watched the crowd that had gathered to see the sunrise and heard them arguing among themselves. They were still arguing when Ramnath saw a brilliant orange crescent push its way up from behind the mountains and suddenly knew!
What happened to his soul would depend on what he intensely believed in at the moment of his death. The possibilities were endless and yet each one more real than the sun!
He pulled out his little book but now there was no time. He tore off the pages and tossed them away and the wind carried them off and scattered them down the valley.
And now the sun was half above the horizon and Ramnath let out a roar of laughter that made the people turn and start at him. He laughed like a madman. He laughed like one possessed. Peals after peals of laughter arose and echoed from the mountains around until the entire Universe seemed convulsed with laughter. Only Ramnath saw the full circle of the sun in all its glory, for the others were looking at him. And then he fell.
The coroner went over the body. Something must have dissolved the clots for every organ of his body including the heart looked normal. The coroner had never seen a case like that before and going by the evidence of the people did a most unusual thing. He wrote that in his opinion Mr. Ramnath Chaturvedi had died of laughter.




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