English Literature – Memoir ☆ दस्तावेज़ # 50 – Pulpgandha’s Invitation ☆ Shri Jagat Singh Bisht ☆ 

Shri Jagat Singh Bisht

(Master Teacher: Happiness & Well-Being, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer, Author, Blogger, Educator, and Speaker.)

(This is an effort to preserve old invaluable and historical memories through e-abhivyakti’s “दस्तावेज़” series. In the words of Shri Jagat Singh Bisht Ji – “The present is being recorded on the Internet in some form or the other. But some earlier memories related to parents, grandparents, their lifetime achievements are slowly fading and getting forgotten. It is our responsibility to document them in time. Our generation can do this else nobody will know the history and everything will be forgotten.”

☆ दस्तावेज़ # 50 – 🍀Pulpgandha’s Invitation🌺 ☆ Shri Jagat Singh Bisht ☆

Nearly thirty years ago I had the chance to look closely at a paper mill. The bank posted me to a township that had grown up around what was, at that time, the largest paper mill in Asia. I lived among those people, watched the mill’s life for three years with a careful, intimate eye, and kept close company with its folk.

Eucalyptus and bamboo are turned into pulp. From pulp comes paper. Pulp has a peculiar smell of its own. You may remember the tale of Matsyagandha from the Mahābhārata — a young woman who smelled of fish. This is the story of Pulpgandha. In truth, it is the autobiography of a paper mill. I composed it, in Hindi, while living there.

In those days we used to spend the hot season in Dehradun, and I well remember the celebrated satirist Ravindranath Tyagi reading this piece and saying, “I liked your ‘Pulpgandha’ very much. I regard it as an excellent creation in Hindi literature. If Jagat Singh Bisht can write Pulpgandha, why does he not write more such works?” Here, then, for you, is that composition:

🍀Pulpgandha’s Invitation🌺

My years have begun to show, yet my charm remains in full bloom. Oddly — or perhaps not so oddly — my allure grows rather than wanes. Prosperity, widening and unchecked, has gifted me with assurance and a certain dignity. My love of the chase has fashioned me in the public eye into a woman of comfortable luxury.

In my early youth, the immense promise of my looks drew to me the most capable, the most sturdy and the boldest young men into this dense forest of industry. With my magnetism I ensnared them so completely that even now they remain bound to me. For them I am paramount; later, their married wives come a distant second. At my slight command — even in the dead of night — they will leave everything and come running to me.

The dry sort think I am nothing but a paper-making concern. Poor souls! They do not know how expansive and generous I am. They labour and live like machines; their faces are as machine-like. Until they tell you their name and number themselves you cannot tell one from another.

Such arid contraptions have no business with the lavishness of my fleshy presence. They convince themselves they are ‘technical’ or ‘operations’ — important cogs — and waste their lives away in that delusion. To partake of my pleasures you must be a little ‘commercial’.

Those who have courage and initiative and have come forward to enjoy me know full well that I sit always ready to squander my everything; should a daring thief come along, I welcome him with open arms.

I do not ask whether your name is Tata, Birla, Dalmia, Singhania, Jain, Adani, or Ambani. I am not the sort to hide my wealth and beauty behind seven veils; I want it to go global. I want to be everywhere. For that I am prepared to make any bargain, to surrender myself in every fashion.

I do not care whether he is a babu or a sahib, an inspector or a bureaucrat; I recognise neither petty leader nor minister. I do not trouble to discern the worthy from the unworthy. Whoever is eager to take me, I have no hesitation in becoming his bedfellow.

I know that the more I indulge and play, the more I prosper and blossom. My appetite and my sheen grow ever larger; my mysterious, unfathomable self becomes more seductively enticing.

You may imagine me a lady of great indulgence, harbouring nothing but desires for endless and mysterious expansion. That is half-true. I am, at heart, a simple-hearted beauty — always available for free, open, and uninhibited dalliance.

I make no distinction of class or caste among those who desire me. That contest is yours, not mine. Why should I concern myself?

Often it has happened that those on whom I have lavished everything — my lovers — become my brokers. What’s so strange in that? Protectors have always turned into devourers.

I am not to blame for these perversions. If middlemen prosper while the artisan is exploited, what can I do? I consider it the result of the men’s own prowess.

Only the diligent and the brave enjoy the comforts of the earth. If you crave pleasure and luxury, you must combine labour with a certain sly cunning and a dash of wickedness. As love without fear does not exist, so wealth is not amassed without deceit and guile.

I watch with interest the poor wretches who, silently, from dawn to dusk, through every season, do the hard work for me. They are content enough that the roof gives them shade, that their children grow a little with each day, and that their wives now and then provide bodily comforts.

They never begged me for love; why should I shower my affection on them? I am not so shameless as to surrender myself without solicitation. I, too, have a few vanities; to win me one must sometimes roll out some little coquetries. It is not so easy to have me!

Instead of struggling to possess me, they prefer to trust the red-flag lads who mislead them into thinking that I am a deceiving beast called ‘capital’ and that I exploit the workers. Oh, where is the exploitation? I nurture you. When their bellies are half full they run to the shelter of saintly mendicants who tell them that I am a crafty enchantress who plots many deceptions with her beguiling form.

By their sweet tongues these worthless saints have woven hypocrisy through the ages. I, for my part, am ready to give my all for solid labour and earnest pleading. The nectar, the scent, the rapture you will find in me — where else is it to be sought?

Once this place was all forest — a dense wilderness. They say Lord Rāma once spent his exile here. He ate the fruits and roots and went on his way. My abundant riches kept me here. He is called Maryada Purushottam, the upholder of moral order; I am the exact reverse of such restraint.

Over the years, with the river’s water, countless stories of my love and sin have flowed past. The ignorant folk of neighbouring villages call me a witch and say I poison the holy river. Their fear isn’t without cause. I have laid waste house by house; whole villages have been displaced. I have not been stingy with temptations either. Scores of handsome young men came to me from nearby and slowly lost their vigour; for their villagers they became almost extinct.

I have defeated many a successor of Medha Patkar. With my wealth, influence and the power at my back I ordered as many trees cut down as I wished and exhaled as much poisonous smoke as I desired. Environmentalists brand me a destroyer and accuse me of belching thousands of tonnes of eucalyptus and bamboo every day.

They find the smoke from an Adivasi’s hearth endearing, but the smoke from my chimneys is poison. They do not know that I sustain thousands of families. I have no shortage of those who bless me; innumerable workers inwardly regard me as mother. On them I shower abundant affection and tenderness.

My regard is even for all. I disappoint no one. I welcome everyone with open arms. On one side are the greedy, the quarrelsome contractors, bureaucrats and politicians, all coveting my benevolence; on the other are energetic MBA youths willing to stake everything on me.

You cannot read my age from my skin. I am the same as I have always been. The sheen of Aishwarya and Sushmita fades within a year. They now descend and, like ordinary starlets, try every improbable and possibly unseemly angle to dangle and joggle their most private charms before you; yet the pull is no longer there.

My sheen never dulls; my admirers never turn away.

Still, occasionally I find myself helpless and despairing. I feel there are so many wicked scoundrels about me that I am powerless against them. They have taken me in, bound me; I feel like their maid. It seems I am experiencing the consequence of my own weaknesses and indulgence. My revenge stirs in me. I become restless. Whenever I make my move, I disturb their sleep. Then neither newly arrived beauties nor the timeworn charms soothe them. Double dosages of Valium or Compoz fail to lull them.

I am their kept woman, true — yet in their households I reign alone. I infuse my carelessness, luxury and liberality into their daughters and sit by to watch the spectacle. The shameful scenes of debauchery I have witnessed in those houses — you could hardly imagine them!

I still possess the power to flourish where I will and to ruin where I will. I can set anyone I choose upon a pedestal and kick away anyone I choose. I can put to rights the illusions of those who fancy themselves my protectors and suitors.

You have seen the wreckage of bodies spent by excess. I see the daily game of allotment and I turn away. I see the faces grown white with terror of wealth and power each evening, but I remain silent. What concern are their antics of me? Sort them out yourselves.

Tell me plainly what you want to gain. I prefer to speak openly, not in whispers. I dislike gossip.

Do not pass judgment on me from afar in a misconception. Come close! Closer!

I am not merely that sodden, fetid pulp — bamboo softened by heat and chemicals — that you imagine. Come near, become intimate. Such a delicate scent, such an enticing form, and the sap that pours from me — you will find these nowhere else. You need not be a rishi Parāshar to enjoy it.

From my womb have sprung countless progeny, who by their odious unions have bred innumerable mixed characters — Pandu, Dhritarāshtra, and Vidura by the thousand. Why do you make yourselves slaves to these hybrid descendants?

Rise, come to me! I will gratify you. This is no trivial invitation; this is Pulpgandha’s invitation. Accept it.

Your salvation will not be brought by a pen on my clean white paper, like Vyasa’s scripture. Your fulfilment will come from my muddy, filthy body. I am Ambikā, I am Ambālika, and I am that maid.

I am not the product of some rishi’s perverse fancy. I am reality — stark, dense, cruel reality. You will not win me with mere words. I will make you dance a crooked dance. If you are willing to dance, come. If not today, then tomorrow I will fulfil you.

The decision is yours. I sit with outstretched arms, ever ready.🔶

Laughter Yoga Master Trainer

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