Escape to Dreamland

Raman Menon hailed from a well-respected family of upper-caste Nairs in the erstwhile princely state of Cochin. The aristocracy that Menon clans among Nairs claim is more self-proclaimed than bestowed by extraterrestrial largesse or former princes. They resemble the British aristocracy of India, with their stiff upper lip and a “Gallic” or even haughty nose up in the air. They seem to believe in and convey the spirit of pristine Nair heritage and culture.

But Raman Menon cared little for the trappings of his surname. He was an ambitious and fun-loving person. Holding a respected position in the state bureaucracy, combined with his family’s lineage and social standing, he was poised to soar to greater heights. Young, handsome, and with masculine charm, he seemed destined for success.

He married into a family of Menons from Palghat, in the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The bride was a well-educated, sophisticated woman, an epitome of haute couture and an alumna of Yale in the USA. But this alliance was perhaps a serious misstep in the course of Raman Menon’s life. The incompatibility of the relationship led Mr Menon to file for divorce after much acrimony. The marriage ended with the same intensity with which it began. The stress of the divorce and its aftermath left Mr Menon drained. The marriage lasted about a year—a year of utmost turmoil.

Determined not to be left searching for a compatible partner, the Menon family arranged another bride for the young man—a distant cousin. Raman Menon married again. But ill fortune shadowed him like a relentless spectre; tragedy struck as nothing else could. The bride died less than six months into the marriage, succumbing to lymphoma. It was darkness at noon. Raman Menon’s life was shattered, his rising professional trajectory twisted like a mangled ladder. He was at a loss to pick up the threads once more. Cruel innuendos circulated, speculating about his ill luck and why fate seemed to deny comfort or longevity to any woman who became his consort.

He vanished from society and from the country. Settling in a foreign land, he never returned to the town of his birth. Once an agnostic, he became a theist and joined a Hindu religious outfit. He spent all his leisure time outside work at the ashram, adopting the name Sudhama. He lived frugally, walking about like an ascetic. Unlike fellow members of the congregation, who saw their involvement as a cherished luxury, Raman Menon was hermitic. He ate the simple food devotees brought. While travelling, he walked great distances like a nomad, subsisting on morsels from compassionate strangers. He resembled Jain monks on their long road to what they believe is nirvana and salvation. Rarely did he open up, but when he did, it was to confide that this life at the ashram was his dream and a calling.

A man who once professed agnostic beliefs, struck by successive tragedies, turned into a hermit and ascetic! A man who harboured utopian fantasies and dreams of living! Though this story is real, the tragic events in his life serve as a metaphor for the challenges we all face at different times. For less fortunate souls, the tempest lingers longer. Tragedy need not be overt but may manifest as dejection, disgust, frustration, or devastation—anything potent enough to persistently stress us. Then comes the time for wool-gathering, hoping for bliss and mirth in pursuits we once loved. For some, it sparks a frantic search for an escape route.

There is indeed a life out there, as I mentioned in the post “The Road Not Taken,” that beckons but is no longer mine. When it mattered, when I could have trodden that road, I did not—out of conditioning and unawareness of its pathos. I feel awed and envious of friends and ordinary people who, despite constraints, have achieved the extraordinary. They have not taken the cowardly path of an ill-clad, unwashed, smelly absconder claiming abstinence, nor are they escape artists who could outshine Houdini. Instead, within the bounds of social living, they have embraced the life of the liberated wanderer—like birds that transcend land and sea to migrate—embarking on occasional journeys of bliss and mirth to the dream that is Zion, a traveller’s Zion.

But alas, man often fails to see the paradise at hand that could lend wings to fly towards his fantastic dreams. Only when he knows what it is for a paradise to be lost shall he see the beacon that was always alight.

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