He was an old man, and he had lived life.

He had seen places, seen greed and unselfishness, felt lust and revulsion, love and hate. He had seen all the myriad things that flesh is heir to. He had seen beauty, ugliness, disease, wars, famines, and earthquakes. He had lived through the fall of dynasties and the rise of new ones. He had known wealth and poverty, courage and cowardice, altruism and egocentricity. He had felt the cold brush of death, and he knew what it meant to survive. He had suffered the heartbreak of betrayal. But he had also warmed his hands before the fire of loyalty. He had seen it all, and well he knew the demonsand the angelsthat dwelt in the hearts of men. And he chose to love. It was too late to hate. So, at the end of the trail, here in this little hermitage at the foothills of the Himalayas, all he had left was love. That, and his last possession: a steel trunk. Apart from his faded saffron robes (of which he had two), and his bedroll, it was everything he owned. It was always locked. No one had ever seen it open. The other inmates of the ashram had always been curious about the secret of the trunk, but the old man had parried their curiosity by remarking that there was nothing in it anyone would want. So they presumed it contained something valuable, but they did not venture to ask him outright about it. They felt that it might be some trinket, perhaps some gold jewellery that had once graced the form of a loved one. There might even be love letters inside. Even old men were young once. And youth will have its share of follies to sustain and entertain old age. Who knows what the old man had been up to in his youth? Maybe it contained his Will. Or perhaps the deeds of a large estate somewhere that he had abandoned in favour of relativesthough he never spoke of any. The old man had not filled the space in the membership form about details of dependents/ next of kin. Apparently he had none. Or maybe he had made so clean a break with the Past that he preferred not to go into all that. Earthly ties and bondages were one of the things one left behind when one took sanyasa, the last of the four stages of a mans life. A renunciant had no need to retain those shackles. Still, in deference to officialdom, the query had found its way into the membership form. Life in the outside world, mused the old man, was a harsh andit seemed in retrospect pointless struggle to accumulate possessions. Things. Of only earthlyhence limited value. Lessons were the only baggage on the return journey. Lessonsand memories. Which might or might not survive the crossing of the River Styx. The accommodation in the little hermitage was limited, yet the Trust encouraged a certain number of young monks to join as members. Living with older men gave them a certain perspective on life and duty, and accelerated their spiritual progress. So it came to pass that when the old man was asked to share his little cell with a young novice named Vinay, he did not react. He was neither happy nor sad. Few things, if any,

evoked any reaction from him nowadays. He seemed to be preoccupied with inner matters. He went about his duties in the hermitage with an absent air, as if he was far away. Somewhere else. In the past? Like those before him, Vinay was curious about the steel trunk. What could it possibly contain? He developed a theory that the old man had been a rich merchant who had stashed away his assets in the form of company shares, or government bonds, for use in time of ultimate adversity. The ease with which the old man could shift the trunk when he swept the floor pointed to the fact that the contentswhatever they werewerent at all heavy. On the rare occasions when Vinay managed to draw him into conversation, he noted that the old man had a unique way of looking at things that was at sharp variance with the detached life he led. He spoke with feeling and conviction, and he had a cynical brand of humour that Vinay found most intriguing. He wondered what caused it. Yet, overall, he saw that the old man was a contented individual, with neither any inner canker nor a grudge against anyone. He had, it seemed, learnt to accept life, to meet it as it came. Some had thought him complacent. He knew better. To struggle against life was to lose sight of the lessons. It was like focusing on the letters instead of reading a book. He had learnt not to depend on life, not to expect too much from it. Only lessons. The old man tried to see what life was trying to teach him, and then arrived at his own conclusions. He neither judged nor condemned, simply observed. It was all a test, he seemed to feel: a test of humanity against the demons of the soul. It seemed to Vinay that the old man was trying to tell him all these things and something more, something that reached the tip of his tongue but was never articulated. * It was a severe winter. The old man did not seem to mind, though old men hate cold weather. It freezes their already cooling blood. Vinay liked the older mans ways and tried to model himself after him. Unlike most youths, who shun old age as if it were a contagious disease, he had developed an affinity, even affection, for him. He was therefore troubled when the old man told him he was dying. Vinay protested. Nonsense, he was hale and hearty, he went about his chores as usual, meditated the same hours. The other shook his head. It was time, he said, to return. He asked Vinay to cast the contents of the trunk into the Ganges that flowed past the ghats on the slopes below the hermitage. The key of the trunk, he said, was on the sacred thread he wore on his body. He had not abandoned the mark of the Brahmin even as a monk, which he should have done. The old man had got used to the thread that he had worn since he was a boy, and he couldnt bring himself to cast it off now. Besides, though it had never held any particular significance for him, it was handy as a key chain.

His eyes were open, serene and calm, when he left his body. It was while they rested before the mid-day meal, around noon, that Vinay realized he was gone. After the burial (for sanyasis are always buried), Vinay opened the trunk. The key turned in the lock with some difficulty, and only after a few drops of kerosene had been poured into the keyhole. The hinges shrieked at the unaccustomed intrusion as he lifted the lid. The slip of paper inside bore the words My Dearest Possession: the most precious Gift I ever received. Underneath it was an old paper shopping bag, the type with string handles. Only a single word had survived the ravages of time. Vinay could barely decipher the faded lettering: Lifespringa famous retail chain specializing inyesin ladies fancy items! An old happiness lived in the trunk. Vinay relocked it carefully, and put it back in its place before going down to the riverbank. He stood there for a minute, looking out over the boiling blue-white torrent. Then drawing back his arm, he flung the key as far as he could into the heaving waters.

Subroto Mukerji