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| The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse |
We recently moved to a totally unfamiliar area. This has been variously disorienting at our advanced age except for the lovely view of a delightful lake full of water birds. Just before or after a spell of rain ducklings line up behind Mother duck and sail gracefully single file. A white owl visits my window at about 3am every night. On the edge of the lake is a brightly painted mazar where quiet prayers/music happen every Thursday. Then a picnic atmosphere takes over. Gaily dressed people turn up to ask for a boon or to offer thanks to Data Baba for one that has been granted. His coffin, brightly lit in the evenings, is in a separate space open to all. Thursday visitors to the mazar throw food into the lake and large fish rise gracefully like dolphins to accept their offerings. Qawalis are sung mostly without benefit of a public address system. A gentleman in a long colourful garment calls out to Allah in the afternoon with his arms outstretched and hands raised in supplication. At night, groups of young men share a friendly joint on the lawn beside the mazar. Fishermen draw in their nets in the early mornings. In the afternoons, people bathe in the lake. On a hot, sultry day I envy them. Throughout the rainy weather I looked in vain for the fireflies I would have expected to see in a particularly green patch across the lake. Where have all the fireflies gone?
In the middle of the lake is a tiny island with a white colonial bungalow on it with gleaming black pillars and red-tiled roof. I imagine the reclusive crusty pukka sahib who built it to get away from the madding crowd, sometimes inviting a friend or two to join him for a fishing or bird-shooting picnic. It is almost hidden by rich looking trees that must be full of birds. The island is unreachable except if you swim to it or take a boat. Urchins sometimes use the mango tree outside the bungalow as a diving board. One afternoon, an entire family seemed to take a siesta in the cool porch. I have never seen a light within at night. Sometimes the cottage seems to be well-lit but I realise these are lights reflected off the lake. On full-moon nights, the pillars seem to glow: the lake itself takes on a silvery shimmer.
At other times, I imagine a reclusive persona like the Lady of Shalott sitting within and weaving or perhaps painting in water colours the birds, the trees, the fishermen and the bathers as they go about their daily business. Will a Lancelot appear in her magic mirror and make her jump up and expose herself? Will she drape herself artistically in the fisherman’s canoe and die? Or will she feel energised and return to the normal world with all its tribulations to give that story a happy ending?
Who was Data Baba? I love the happy atmosphere he can still generate. I want to know who built the brightly coloured mazar in his memory and who maintains it. Did he live in these parts? When was that? What miracles did he perform? Whence comes this faith in his abilities?
Who built the cottage on the island? Has it been abandoned? Why? Was it haunted? Friendly dancing ghosts on the lake created by my aging unspectacled eyes disappear as soon as I put on my glasses.
I sit out in the cool evening breeze wanting answers to these questions. Another part of me is happy to dream about them instead.
