Eva Bell--Memory - The Light Of Other Days

In Charlotte Bronte’s words “A memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure.”

Most people treasure memories of happy events – marriages, birthdays, days of love and laughter, conjuring up emotions of events gone by. Many prefer to forget memories that are sad and bring tears to one’s eyes. But sometimes we never realize the value of incidents until they become a memory.

As I travel down memory’s lane I fondly recall the kindness of a man disowned by his family and debased by society as someone of little worth. He called himself King John, a man dressed in layers of old clothing over which he wore a shabby coat. His bulk made him look like Henry VIII and gave him an appearance of strength. Actually he was a gentle giant. His curly hair was secured in a ponytail. His feet were shod in a pair of old sandals that had seen better days. He always carried a bulging cloth bag. Perhaps it contained all his earthly possessions.

For as long as I can remember, King John visited our house every Saturday morning and sat quietly on a bench at one end of our verandah. While he waited, he would take out some scraps of paper from his bag and cover them with rows of numbers until Mother appeared, bringing him a hearty breakfast and a tumbler of milky coffee, presuming that it would probably his only meal for the day. After he had finished, he would take his plate and tumbler to a tap in the compound, and rinse them out before returning to his perch on the verandah. He would then ask to scan the Saturday morning newspaper which was full of mind bending puzzles and difficult crosswords. From his coat pocket he would take out the stub of a pencil and complete the crossword puzzle in a jiffy. He would then tackle the assorted puzzles in no time at all, smiling to himself. That done, he would bid us ‘Good Morning’ and go away.

King John was a familiar figure in our small town. Most people considered him a beggar and treated him as such. We learnt that he had once been a lecturer in Mathematics at a College in town. A man with a brilliant mind, he was loved and respected by his students. But he had been cheated out of his home and property by a conniving brother. The shock had brought about a nervous breakdown and he was forcibly confined to a mental hospital for many years. After discharge from the institution he had no home to go back to. He found shelter in an abandoned hut on the spacious premises of a temple. He did odd jobs for the temple authorities for a few rupees. As he was always mumbling under his breath, he was considered a mad man. Mostly he depended on the largesse of families like mine for his sustenance.

One Saturday, my brother was yelling at me and calling me an idiot because I couldn’t do my Math homework correctly. This bothered King John who was watching.

“Please stop quarreling and shouting,” he said softly, “Come here dear girl. Let me see if I can help you.”

It was the beginning of his tutorship on a subject that I hated. Every Saturday after his breakfast, I would take my problems to him and request him to help me solve them. His technique was clear and methodical. He never once solved the problems for me but explained the steps to be taken, and made me work them out by myself. There were times when I would not focus on what he was saying. But like a patient parent, King John would repeat each step until it sunk into my brains. Gradually I developed a liking for the subject and I could sense how happy this made him.

When my Matriculation exams were over, King John was more worried about my results than I was. The following Saturday when he arrived, he sat quietly on his usual seat, and his breakfast lay untouched by his side. He waited expectantly until I came out and gave him the good news that I had passed with distinction. It was the first time I saw such a broad smile on his face.

A few months later, I had to leave for college in another city. I wanted to wish him ‘Good Bye’ as he had not paid his normal visit that week. It was a job to trace his whereabouts. I only knew he lived in an abandoned hut near a temple. I found him seated on the steps muffled up in an old blanket. He looked ill but there he was, teaching a group of slum children to add and subtract figures – the very basics of mathematics. Though despised and rejected by society, this man had a heart of gold when it came to helping others.

Because of the unhygienic conditions under which he lived and his poor nutrition, King John fell seriously ill one day. He was admitted to hospital by some Good Samaritan. With proper nutrition and medication, he recovered his strength and was eager to leave the hospital. But the authorities were not willing to let him go back to his old life. In spite of his recovery, he was still very weak. So he was forcibly sent to a Rehabilitation Home for Beggars, and was not permitted to roam the streets anymore.

A year later, when I came home on holiday, I went looking for him at the Home. He was working in the garden and I could not recognize this thin old man, until he looked up and waved to me. In the old days, when he was a regular visitor to our house, his heavy layers of clothing hid his true skeletal dimensions. He walked up to the gate outside which I was standing, and offered me a yellow marigold.

“Actually I do the accounts for the Home. You know the staff here is as dull as you were when I first taught you. Gardening is recreation. I talk to the flowers and the plants and I know they listen to what I say. These are all the things we didn’t learn in school.”

Taking it from me he said, “Now you run along girl. Run before they catch you and put you also in this prison.”

I often think of King John the man considered mad by society. Even though his life had been turned topsy-turvy, he seemed to have expelled the emotion of resentment and hate from his life. One could not tell if he had forgotten the injustice done to him or if he still remembered but chose to forgive. This shy passive creature was often teased and taunted by naughty boys. Some even threw stones at him. He never flared up in anger but took it all in his stride and hastily moved out of their path.

Even after so many years, thoughts of King John remind me time and again that no man however lowly in life can be written off as worthless. There is an element of kindness in every human being and if it can be passed on to others, then one has not lived in vain. He was basically a kind man and his kindness came through in spite of his mental handicap. He was willing to share his knowledge with those in need of it and expected nothing in return. At this distance in time it is very easy to judge King John’s motives and suggest that this was his way of begging. But I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. One can presume that during his stay in the Mental Institution, medication and therapy had blocked out all negative emotions and traumatic life events. But fortunately it had not blocked out his compulsive love for mathematics.

But what of those who harbour within them unresolved pain and anger? Surely forgiveness is the answer. This is not a universal human virtue. I love forgiveness in the abstract but it is a difficult virtue to practise. It needs a conscious and deliberate decision. But learning to forgive has many benefits, physical, mental and spiritual. As Fred Luskin said, “Carrying around a load of bitterness is very toxic.” The longer we hold on to our resentments the more we are damaging ourselves. And the more we shut out others, our world grows smaller, and opportunities for personal growth shrink.

When I think of “Society’s Throwaways” like King John, I am convinced of the need for human compassion and love to those less fortunate. We need to honour the image of the Divine even among the marginalized and abandoned. Someone said, “Never underestimate the power of a cup of water,” to which I would like to add, “It’s okay to be extravagant with generosity and graciousness.”

As Henry Dyke once said, “You can never tell what pebble Memory can pick up from the shore of life to keep among your treasures, or what inconspicuous flower of the field she will preserve as the symbol of thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

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