For him, says W., my Hinduism emerges most strongly in my Hindu stories. He always asks for them when we go travelling. In airports, for example. On long train journeys. And tonight, sitting on the floor of the bus station in Memphis, he demands to hear another.
He wants to hear a story of decline, he says. W. always wants to hear stories of decline. He's never been so moved as by the closing words of the Maharabarata: 'And darkness fell over India'. Imagine that!, says W. What a way to close an epic! But of course, that's when it began, I've told him, the Age of Iron, the lowest in the cycle of the Four Ages. 'Tell me again!', W. says. 'Tell me of the long decline!'
In the Age of Gold, I tell him, every living creature was content; there were no differences between them – no high born or low born. There was no hatred, no weariness. No shelter was necessary – one lived in the mountains or in the sea; every creature enjoyed an equally long lifespan. Heaven and earth were one.
In the Age of Silver, differences began to appear between creatures; unhappiness began, weariness and nostalgia. Rain fell; it was necessary to take shelter in the trees, and lifespans declined by a quarter. Furthermore, morality began to atrophy as heaven and earth came asunder. Humans now had to take on duties, initiating sacrifices in order to make gifts to the gods in heaven.
In the Age of Bronze, fear appeared for the first time. Warlords sheltered humans behind great walls. Cities sprang up on the plains. Lifespans fell a further quarter. Lies became become common. Virtue guttered like a candle flame in a draft and threatened to disappear. Heaven and earth had never seemed farther away. But still there were sacrifices in which gifts are given to the gods.
In the Age of Iron, our age, which began in the times of the Mahabharata, power is all, war is all. Honesty and generosity reside only with the poor, who flee the city to hide in the valleys from the warlords. Nobility gives way to the rule of money. Everyone dies young: in time, none will live longer than 23. Drought will lie upon the land. People will starve. Animals will crawl to their death. Nothing will grow on the plains, and the forests will turn into deserts. The oceans themselves begin to dry up. The very name of God will be forgotten, and sacrifices cease entirely.
And then what?, W. asks. What comes next? The Age of Iron will last for many thousands of years, I tell him. And then? Then Kalkin, the last avatar of Vishnu will appear, set to restore the world. He'll ride a white horse and wield a fiery sword. And he'll perform the sacrifice that destroys the world and lets a new one rise up in its place. And so the whole cycle will begin again.
The Hindu always thinks in cycles, W. says. – 'You're a cyclical people'. He, as a Jew and a Catholic, is a linear person. The apocalypse, for W., promises redemption. For the Hindu, the apocalypse will seem only a new beginning.
No doubt this captures something very different about us, W. says. – 'Can you really – really – understand the horror of the apocalypse? And can you really – really – understand the glory of redemption?' For the Hindu, the apocalypse has already happened, as it will happen again. Kalkin has already redeemed the world, as he will again. – 'What can you know of the End Times?'
It's what he's long suspected, W. says. I see nothing but chaos and degradation all around me, W. knows that. Nothing but perversity, greed and conflict, but it doesn't touch me, not really. Even our age, the worst of all, will see the birth of another of God's avatars, I've that consolation.
But then W. has the Messiah!, I tell him. Ah, but the Messiah is very different to Kalkin, W. says. Besides, Messianism is best understood in terms of time, not some idiot on a horse. He'll explain that to me another day, W. says.
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