The Death of Vishnu

Pathaks or her husband.
    Mr. Pathak paid the ambulancewalla the other half. “Now go downstairs and take him away,” he directed authoritatively.
    “I will,” the man said, “but you have to sign this first.” He produced a printed form from his pocket, which Mr. Pathak looked at suspiciously.
    “Well, either you or the lady there—someone has to sign it. Someone has to agree to pay the hospital charges when the patient gets admitted.”

    T HE RED HAS returned, it surrounds him again. Behind it, he can hear voices, rising and falling, the color bulging as they try to push through. The red stretches like a balloon, then ruptures, and the voices flow in. Vishnu hears Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak—they are both very angry.
    Floating above the others, he recognizes the voice of his mother. He tunes everything else out and focuses only on it.
    “We all start as insects,” she is saying, “every one of us. That’s why there are so many more insects than people.” He recognizes these words—it is the tale of the yogi, the yogi-spirit named Jeev, the yogi-spirit born nine hundred and ninety thousand times. A tale stretching all the way from Jeev’s past through all his incarnations in the future.
    “Jeev started from an insect so tiny, it was smaller than a banana seed. Of course, as an insect, he was not a yogi. But even then, some part of him knew there was more to be aspired to than just being an insect.”
    Mrs. Pathak starts screaming at Mrs. Asrani. The story of the yogi’s ascent is in danger of getting lost. He wants to hear his favorite incarnations—the one where Jeev is born as a pig and saves a child, the one where he is a mistreated ox who sets a landlord on fire. “It took the yogi many lives to reach the level of a human,” his mother says, “and he fell back several times to where he started. But finally, he got to the next level—he became human like you and me.”
    This is the part Vishnu likes best. The lives of wealth and indulgence that await Jeev. The feast where each grain of rice is dipped in silver, where the apricots have emeralds as pits. The marriage to the princess of Sonapur, with the procession of the thousand trumpeting elephants.
    “Bit by bit, life by life, Jeev sated his soul with worldly pleasure. And only then, when he had slaked its thirst, and quelled its hunger; only then did his soul allow him to look upwards again. To a place beyond his own needs and his own self, where he could be of service to others.” Vishnu recites the words along with his mother. He is proud he knows the story so well.
    There is a crash, and the sound of more screaming. Noise has been pouring in steadily, cascading down the steps and flooding the landing. Waves of sound lap at his neck. The story starts dissolving, Jeev’s years of service begin to break off, renunciation and enlightenment swirl away. He tries to reel in the thread of his mother’s voice, but it snaps and comes back weightless through the surge of sound.
    All the noise he has borne in his life, every shout, every insult, every curse, is roaring down on him. The pounding of feet on the steps, the crackling of songs from the radio, the squabbling of horns in the street—they are all there, and getting louder every second. Even the chimes of the ghungroos have turned into crashes—Vishnu wonders how such tiny bells can make so much noise.
    He realizes he has to escape this noise. This noise that has tormented him for so long. Born at the moment of his own birth, it has swelled insidiously over the years. This noise that has been the price of every breath he has taken, of every action, every event in his life. This noise that is submerging him, taking over his brain and obliterating his senses. If there is anything to be left of him, he must escape this noise.
    With all his will, Vishnu pushes on the ground. He feels his torso lifting up, feels the floor straighten under his feet. Part of him remains behind, sprawled under the sheet. Ahead rise the stone steps, spiraling into light.
    Noise still surges down. Perhaps, Vishnu thinks, the best way to escape is to descend. He turns around, but cannot see the stairs that have always connected him to the street. The landing is suddenly immense, stretching in all directions into milky darkness.
    A man comes down the stairs. There is a white band around his arm, with a red cross on it. The man doesn’t notice Vishnu, but goes over to the figure stretched under the sheet.