The Dance of Shiva

With his piercing eyes and restless pacing, Digamber reminds you of a tiger on the prowl. We are at his apartment in Andheri. Digamber is smoking a joint and the room is hazy with smoke. The sickly sweet aroma of marijuana is all pervading. An expensive Nikon camera body and couple of telephoto lenses are on a sofa.

In between puffs, Digamber sips from a bottle of cough syrup. He is really high now and starts talking incessantly. It is often a monologue about spirituality, philosophy, music, cinema, books and anything else that comes to his mind. Not everyone listens. Ram fiddles with the camera and lenses. Bisque is listening to some music in his Walkman, his eyes closed. Bhoj wanders into the kitchen and after a few minutes, the aroma of freshly-made South Indian coffee wafts across the room.

Today I am Digamber’s only listener.

Digamber narrates to me a scene from a screenplay he has been writing for the past year or so. It is a funny scene where a policeman comes out of a village toddy shop in Kerala and with casual cruelty, kicks a stray dog sleeping peacefully outside.

Digamber flies for Air India. He has long ago got tired of his job and these days, often reports sick. He is an MA in Philosophy and after passing out of college, sat for the entrance examinations of all the premier management schools in India with absolutely no intention of joining in case he was selected. He got selected by all and he rejected them with utter glee. It was an ego thing, he says.

Digamber can talk well and has the ability to transfix you with his erudition and intensity. He is also a bit naive and child-like in so many ways and we are all rather protective of him.

One day, Digamber disappears and we have no news of him for several days. Finally through the Police, we trace him to a hospital far away. Apparently, in a kind of drug-induced delirium, he imagined himself as Shiva doing the thandav and started directing traffic near the Holy Cross Church, when the police had found him and sent him to the hospital.

We get him discharged from the hospital. Bhoj and his brother stay with him and nurse him back to health.