However, you should know that a very strange (and extraordinarily fortunate) thing happened a few months ago, shortly after you left Calcutta. A boy of around fifteen or sixteen found his way to our house, having walked over the mountains all the way from Burma. His name is Dev Thapa and he is half-Nepalese and half-Burmese. It turns out that his father attended to my father-in-law, the late Colonel Bose, when he was recuperating from an injury in Tavoy in southern Burma. The boy is an orphan and since he had no other place to go, we took him in without knowing much else about him.

  Much to our surprise, Dev developed an almost instantaneous rapport with Dinu, who clung to him so much that he would hardly ever leave his side. The effect that Dev had on my nephew was almost miraculous: soon after his arrival the intervals between Dinu’s episodes began to lengthen until they stopped all together. How this came about I do not know, but it was quite marvellous to behold, and as you can imagine my family and I are grateful beyond words to Dev.

  I have tried to get Dev to explain how he effected this cure, but all he can tell me is that he taught Dinu a Buddhist mantra and told him to repeat it whenever he felt an episode coming on. It is a very simple and well-known Buddhist mantra which begins with the words ‘Buddham Sharanam Gachhami’ (except that Dev has taught Dinu the Burmese version).

  After receiving your letter I questioned my sister regarding her whereabouts during her pregnancy. She assures me that she was in Calcutta throughout, except for a brief trip to the Sundarban to visit a relative of ours at a time when she did not even know that she was pregnant.

  However, with deepest regret, I must inform you that my sister has categorically refused to give permission for any research involving Dinu. She and her husband feel that an investigation may lead to a recurrence of his condition, so they do not want any of us to even make any mention of these episodes. I too have been sworn into confidentiality, and since I am very close to my sister I intend to observe my vow to the best of my ability.

  Nevertheless I do hope you will continue with your project on metempsychosis. I must admit that I was a bit of a sceptic on the matter of reincarnation until I met you and I will always be grateful to you for opening my eyes, especially in relation to Dinu who might otherwise have been subjected to ‘treatments’ with powerful (and possibly harmful) drugs. I’m sure there are many other children who would also benefit from your research.

  I remain, as ever, yours faithfully

  Shoma Bose

  ps: You will be interested to know that the only element of Dinu’s past behaviours to have persisted is his attachment to his stuffed animals with whom he frequently exhibits ‘nesting behaviours’.

  I sat at the desk for a while, letting the letters sink in. Then I put the papers back in the folder and went to Ted’s office, which was right beside the library. He looked up from his computer screen as I stepped in. ‘Did you find everything you were looking for?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I told him. ‘But I have a question. Did Professor Booth ever finish her book on metempsychosis?’

  Ted shook his head. ‘No, she never got around to it. It was one of the great regrets of her life.’

  Stepping out of the building, I walked down the street in a disbelieving stupor, trying to absorb the import of what I had just read.

  It was as if a daimon had lain dormant inside me through most of my life so that I would not know that I was completely different from what I had believed myself to be. How was it possible that I knew so little about my past, even about the real reason why Tavoy had become a second home to me? How much time and trouble had it taken Shoma to scrub her papers of all mention of this aspect of my childhood?

  I walked blindly along a sidewalk until I came to a small park that was empty except for a couple of students. Seating myself on a stone bench, I took out my phone and called Dev’s number.

  To my surprise, he answered almost immediately, even though it was quite late in Calcutta: it was almost as though he had been expecting my call.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you at this time of the night, Devbhai,’ I said, ‘but there is a question I need to ask you.’

  ‘I think I know what it is. But go on.’

  ‘Back when you first came to Tavoy, were there times when I would behave strangely?’

  He answered without hesitation, as though he had prepped his answer: ‘Yes, Dinu, you would have these strange episodes when you would act like a wild animal; you would bite and scratch your mother and your father, saying that they were not your family, that your real family was somewhere else. Your sisters were sent away to live with relatives so that they would not see you in that state. Sometimes you would become so violent that your parents could not cope with you— and that was why Shoma didi, seeing how much distress you were causing her sister, offered to have you stay with her for a while, to see if she could help you.

  ‘You had been living at Tavoy for only a couple of months when I arrived there. The first time I witnessed one of your episodes I too was frightened by the transformation in you—your uncle had to give you injections to calm you down. Had it not been for the Shindaw Nat, I would have stayed away from you, but he explained to me that you were probably remembering a past life as an animal, but of what kind he did not know, and nor did he think you would be able to tell us yourself. After all, why should animals know the names that we give to them? He said that the best way to find out was to get you to talk about your dreams so that was what I did.

  ‘At first you didn’t want to talk, but when you realized that I was your friend you told me that you often saw yourself deep underwater, looking up, and that there were other creatures all around you, but they were different: some were large and frightening, and some were small, which you hunted yourself and shared with your real family, especially with their daughter, who looked after you and whom you loved with all your life. I asked if this daughter also swam in the water with you, and you said no, she couldn’t, because she was human. Her father was your master. He had found you and your four brothers and sisters in the forest when you were very small, and had taught all of you to hunt for him, but your brothers and sisters had run away.

  ‘When the Shindaw Nat heard your story he understood who you had been in your past life, because in Burma too there are fishermen who use animals of the forest to hunt for them: he said that you were what Bengalis call an “udbiral”—an otter. Your master had trained you to hunt for fish, but it was not for him that you stayed; you stayed because of your feelings for his daughter.

  ‘But there was a price to pay for your devotion. All the wild creatures of the river hated you and thought of you as a traitor because you hunted them to please humans. The worst of your enemies was a giant fish, almost as big as a crocodile, which was determined to kill you because you had hunted many of its kin. For a long time you managed to stay away from those huge, snapping jaws, but there came a day when that fish suddenly attacked you from below and you were unable to escape.

  ‘You flew out of your body with a great scream, hoping the girl would hear you and she did. “I will not let you go,” she said. “I will bring you back.”

  ‘Day after day, she prayed to Manasa Devi, going from shrine to shrine alone in a boat, like Behula searching for her husband, and such were the powers of this girl that the Devi relented. She could not give you back your life, she said, but she would allow you to be reborn—to a woman of her choosing.

  ‘“And who will the mother be?” the girl asked. And Manasa Devi pointed to a woman who was visiting a relative on the island. She was pregnant, although she did not know it yet, and it was to her, the Devi said, that you would be born.

  ‘At this the girl became distraught because the woman was a stranger from the city and if you were born to her then she would never see you again. But the Devi consoled her and said there was nothing to grieve about, for the two of you would be reunited one day—and that it was you who would help the girl achieve her destiny.

  ‘After he had told me this story the Shindaw Nat said that I should teach you the Buddhist mantra. I did as he asked and slowly your condition began to improve; you grew calmer and your fits went away.

  Everyone was happy to see you well again and we believed that you had put all of it behind you. But then, one day, just as Shoma didi was about to send you back to your mother, you had a relapse. You woke up one night, screaming and acting even more wildly than you used to before. Your aunt begged me to do something so I brought you up to my little room on the roof and asked you: “What is it? What has happened, Dinu?”

  ‘It took a long time for you to quieten down but finally you whispered, “She died, Devbhai. She was killed.”

  ‘And suddenly I too felt the girl’s presence; she was there, waiting, watching us. I asked the Shindaw Nat to make her go away, but he said he couldn’t, she was too powerful, and that she also had the blessings of a Devi.

  ‘The next day your agitation was uncontrollable. Your Uncle Monty had a house call to make that morning on a special patient of his in Southern Avenue, but he refused to let you out of his sight. He took you along and made your aunt and me go as well so we could hold you down in case he needed to inject you with sedatives.

  ‘Your uncle parked outside the compound—I wasn’t their driver yet—and he went in through the gates for his visit, leaving us on our own in the car. After ten minutes a strange thing happened: you had been agitated all along but suddenly you grew calm again and murmured in my ear, “She’s gone.” I too could no longer sense her presence so I assumed that she had left us because she had found the new home in which she was to be born.

  ‘After that you grew well again and never needed any more sedatives, and slowly all of this disappeared completely from your memory. Shoma didi told me once that it was normal for children to forget their past-life memories after they reach a certain age, and that was what happened with you.’

  For many minutes all I could do was sit on the bench, shaking my head and wiping my eyes. When at last I could summon the words, I said, in bewilderment, ‘Why did you never tell me any of this, Devbhai?’

  ‘Because the Shindaw Nat told me not to. He said a day would come when you would ask of your own volition and that it would be the best day of your life.’

  ‘Are you making fun of me?’ I shouted into the phone. ‘Today is probably the worst day of my life.’

  Dev listened to my sobs in silence for a minute or two, and then he said in a voice filled with laughter, ‘The Shindaw Nat says to look around you: maybe you’ll see someone you recognize?’

  I looked to my left and then to my right and suddenly there appeared a robed and turbaned figure, heading straight towards me from across the park.

  ‘No!’ I felt the phone dropping from my hand. ‘It can’t be.’

  I shut my eyes until I heard Varsha’s voice whispering into my ear, ‘Dinu, I’m glad Dev told you the story. I don’t think I could have done it myself.’

  ‘Were you listening in? Was it all done by arrangement?’

  Sitting down beside me on the bench, Varsha nodded. ‘Dev informed me two weeks ago that you had told him you were coming to Charlottesville to look for your aunt’s letters. I knew right away that we needed to do something, that you couldn’t be left alone after you heard the story. So here I am.’

  A soft, gentle smile appeared on her face now as she placed her hand on mine.

  ‘We’ve been together many times before, Dinu. And now here we are again.’

  Acknowledgements

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy, composed of Sea of Poppies (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. His other novels include The Circle of Reason, which won the Prix Médicis étranger, and The Glass Palace. He is also the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg’s Curse, and Smoke and Ashes. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

 

  Amitav Ghosh, Ghost-Eye

 

 

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