‘What did he say to that?’ Lalita inquired.
‘He said the girls would be frightened by the tigers. I wasn’t frightened at all, though.’ Satish puffed up his chest in male arrogance.
‘Indeed!’ said Lalita. ‘I can clearly see how brave your friend Binoybabu is! No, bhai Didi, we must take him to the circus!’
‘But tomorrow’s show is scheduled for the morning,’ objected Satish.
‘All the better!’ Lalita declared. ‘We’ll go in the morning.’
As soon as Binoy arrived the next day, Lalita cried:
‘Here’s Binoybabu, just on time. Let’s go!’
‘Where?’ asked Binoy.
‘To the circus.’
To the circus! To visit the circus in broad daylight, in the company of women, in full public view! Binoy was dumbfounded.
‘It will offend Gourmohanbabu, I suppose?’ Lalita demanded.
Binoy was rather startled at Lalita’s question.
‘Does Gourmohanbabu have an opinion about escorting girls to the circus?’ Lalita persisted.
‘He certainly does,’ answered Binoy.
‘Please explain it to us,’ Lalita demanded. ‘Let me call Didi, so she can hear it too.’
Binoy smiled at her sarcasm.
‘Why do you smile Binoybabu! You told Satish yesterday that women are afraid of tigers. Are you afraid of someone, too?’
Binoy took the girls to the circus that day. Perturbed, he wondered again and again how his relationship with Gora might appear to Lalita, and possibly to other women in this family.
‘Did you tell Gourmohanbabu about the circus performance that day?’ Lalita asked him the next time they met, feigning naïve curiosity.
This pointed question unsettled Binoy profoundly.
‘No, I haven’t told him yet,’ he had to admit, flushing to the tips of his ears.
‘Binoybabu, please come with me, will you?’ called Labanya, coming in.
‘Where?’ asked Lalita. ‘To the circus?’
‘Wah, as if there’s a circus performance today! I’m calling him to draw a border along the edges of my handkerchief, for me to embroider,’ Labanya told her. ‘Binoybabu draws so beautifully!’
Labanya dragged Binoy away.
~19~
In the morning, Gora was busy working when Binoy suddenly arrived on the scene.
‘I went to the circus with Poreshbabu’s daughters the other day,’ he announced very abruptly.
‘So I heard,’ replied Gora, continuing to write.
‘Who told you?’ asked Binoy, surprised.
‘Abinashbabu. He was also at the circus that day.’
Gora said no more. He scribbled away. From long force of habit, Binoy was terribly embarrassed that Gora should have heard the news already, and that too from Abinash, which meant there would have been no lack of description and detail. He would have been happier if the circus visit, and public knowledge of it, could have been avoided.
He now remembered having stayed awake the previous night, mentally quarreling with Lalita. She thought he was in awe of Gora, deferring to him as a small boy obeys his tutor. How could one human being so unfairly misjudge another! Gora and Binoy were soulmates after all! True, he respected Gora for his uniqueness, but what Lalita imagined was unfair to Gora and Binoy both. Binoy was not a minor, and Gora was not his guardian.
Gora continued to write in silence, and Lolita’s pointed questions continued to haunt Binoy. He could not dismiss them easily. But soon, he grew indignant.
‘So what if I went to the circus! Who is Abinash to raise the issue with Gora, and why, for that matter, should Gora discuss my activities with that good-for-nothing fellow? Am I under Gora’s surveillance, answerable to him for the company I keep, and my movements? This is a grave assault upon our friendship!’
Had he not suddenly recognized his own cowardice, Binoy would not have felt so incensed at Gora and Abinash. He seemed to be privately trying to blame Gora for his own compulsion to conceal something from Gora, even momentarily. If Gora had said a few harsh things to Binoy about the circus visit, their friendship would have remained on an equal footing and Binoy would have felt consoled as well. But when Gora silently ignored Binoy, acting like a grave judge, Lalilta’s barbs began to sting Binoy insistently.
At this moment, Mahim entered, hookah in hand. Lifting the damp cloth covering the casket, he handed Binoy a paan.
‘Baba Binoy, everything is settled on our front,’ he said. ‘Now, all we need is a letter from your father’s elder brother, to set our hearts at rest. You’ve written to him haven’t you?’
This pressure to marry struck Binoy as deeply offensive at this time, yet he knew Mahim was not to blame, for he had received a promise. But Binoy felt that this promise was inadequate somehow. After all, Anandamoyi had virtually forbidden him, and the idea of marriage did not attract him at all either. So how, amidst all this confusion, had the matter ripened so quickly? Not that Gora had actually urged him to hurry. Nor would he have importuned Binoy if the latter had objected strongly. But still! Still, it was on this account that Lalita’s barbed remarks pierced his heart. Behind it lay no particular recent development, but a long history of domination. Purely out of affection and simplicity, Binoy had grown accustomed to tolerating Gora’s supremacy. Hence, this relationship of dominance had overwhelmed their friendship. Binoy had not felt it all these days, but now it could no longer be denied. Must he marry Shashimukhi, then?
‘No, I haven’t written to Khuromoshai yet,’ he said.
‘I’m to blame for that,’ Mahim declared. ‘It’s not a letter you should write. I shall write it. Tell me, what’s his full name, baba?’
‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ asked Binoy. ‘The wedding can’t happen in the months of Ashwin and Kartik, after all. That leaves only Agrahayan, but even that is problematic. Long back in our family history, somebody suffered a mishap in Agrahayan. Ever since then, our family has avoided weddings and other auspicious events during that month.’
‘Binoy,’ said Mahim, propping his hookah against the corner wall, ‘does your education amount to mere rote-learning, that you should believe in such things? It’s hard enough to find auspicious dates in this wretched country, and then if every family starts following a private almanac, how would our business proceed?’
‘Then why do you believe in the inauspiciousness of Bhadra-Ashwin?’ Binoy demanded.
‘As if I do! Never! What’s to be done baba—in these parts, you can manage quite well without believing in God, but unless you believe in Bhadra-Ashwin, the planets Brahaspati-Shani, and what the stars decree, they won’t let you survive. Besides, though I may refute these things in theory, violating the almanac in practice makes the mind uneasy. Fear pervades the air of our nation, just like malaria. I can’t overcome it.’
‘Our family’s fear of Agrahayan can’t be overcome, either. Khurima, at least, will never agree.’
So Binoy managed to suppress the matter for that day. From his tone, Gora guessed that he had developed some doubts. For a few days, Binoy had not been visible at all. Gora had realized he had started visiting Poreshbabu’s house oftener than before. Now this attempt to evade the marriage proposal roused Gora’s suspicions. Just as a snake cannot relinquish the victim it has begun to swallow, Gora too was virtually incapable of giving up a resolve or discarding parts of it. Any resistance or slackness on the part of others only aggravated his obstinacy. He became determined, heart and soul, to cling to the wavering Binoy by force.
‘Binoy,’ said Gora, looking up from his writing, ‘having given your word to Dada, why torment him needlessly by keeping him in a state of uncertainty?’
‘Did I give him my word, or was a promise hastily extracted from me?’ demanded Binoy, suddenly losing patience.
‘Who extracted a promise?’ asked Gora harshly, surprised at Binoy’s sudden show of indignation.
‘You did!’
‘Me! I’d barely exchanged a
few remarks with you on the subject—is that called extracting a promise?’
Indeed, Binoy had no clear evidence to support his claim. Gora was right, they had exchanged very few remarks, hardly involving the kind of urging that could be termed as insistence. But still, it was Gora who had taken Binoy’s consent, virtually by force. People are especially resentful about allegations regarding lack of external evidence. Hence Binoy sounded unduly angry when he said:
‘It doesn’t take many words to extract a promise.’
‘Take back what you said!’ demanded Gora, rising from the table. ‘This promise is not so valuable that I must beg you for it or extort it from you.’
‘Dada!’ he thundered, calling to Mahim in the adjacent room. ‘Dada!’ Gora exploded, as soon as the flustered Mahim rushed in, ‘didn’t I tell you at the outset that Shashimukhi cannot marry Binoy, that I don’t approve of the match?’
‘Of course you did,’ Mahim confirmed. ‘No one but you could have said such a thing. Any other brother would have been enthusiastic from the beginning about a marriage proposal for his niece.’
‘Why did you make me seek Binoy’s consent?’ Gora persisted.
‘Only because I imagined it would work.’
‘I’ll have nothing to do with all this,’ announced Gora, flushing. ‘Matchmaking is not my trade. I have other things to do.’
With these words, Gora marched out of the room. Before the stupefied Mahim could question him on this, Binoy too walked directly out into the street. Retrieving the hookah from the corner, Mahim began to puff away in silence.
Gora and Binoy had quarreled many times previously, but never before had such a sudden, terrible eruption taken place. At first, Binoy was stunned at what he had done. Afterwards, once he was home, pain seared his heart. Thinking of the grievous blow he had inflicted on Gora in so short a time, he could not eat or sleep. He was especially troubled by remorse at the utter unreasonableness of blaming Gora for the present situation.
‘It was unjust, unjust, unjust!’ he repeated.
At two in the afternoon, when Anandamoyi had just taken up her sewing after lunch, Binoy came and perched close to her. She had heard some news of the morning’s developments from Mahim. At lunch, she had also guessed from Gora’s expression that there had been a storm.
‘Ma, I have acted wrongly!’ declared Binoy as soon as he arrived. ‘There’s no justification for what I said to Gora this morning about my marriage to Shashimukhi.’
‘Never mind, Binoy,’ Anandamoyi consoled him. ‘When we try to suppress something painful, it comes out in this way. This was for the best. A couple of days, and both you and Gora will forget this quarrel.’
‘But Ma, I have no objection to marrying Shashimukhi. That’s what I’ve come to say.’
‘Bachha, don’t get into another mess in your haste to overcome a quarrel. Quarrels last only a couple of days, but marriage is forever.’
Binoy refused to be persuaded. He could not go to Gora immediately with his proposal. He went to inform Mahim that there was nothing to hold up the wedding. It would take place in Magh itself. Binoy would himself ensure that Khuromoshai raised no objections.
‘Why not go ahead with the betrothal then?’ suggested Mahim.
‘Good idea. Please consult Gora first.’
‘Consult Gora again?’ exclaimed Mahim, flustered.
‘No, we can’t proceed otherwise,’ Binoy insisted.
‘Then we have no choice. But …’ He stuffed a paan in his mouth.
~20~
Mahim said nothing to Gora that day. The next day, he went to his house, anticipating another struggle to persuade Gora again. But when he announced that Binoy had consented to the marriage the previous evening and asked for Gora to be consulted about the betrothal, Gora at once expressed his own approval:
‘Very well, let the betrothal take place.’
‘Now you say “very well”!’ exclaimed Mahim in amazement. ‘But you won’t throw a spanner in the works again later, will you?’
‘If I did, it was by way of a request, and not by posing obstacles,’ Gora reminded him.
‘Therefore I entreat you to neither pose obstacles nor make requests. I have no use for Narayani sena, Krishna’s troops, on the Kaurav side, nor for Narayan, Krishna himself, on the side of the Pandavas. Best to manage with my own resources. I made a mistake. I did not know earlier that even your assistance could be so perverse. Anyway, you wish this betrothal to take place, don’t you?’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Let it remain a wish then; no need to try converting it into action.’
Gora was hot-tempered, no doubt, and capable of anything when incensed; but it was not in his nature to nurse his anger and destroy his own resolve. He wanted to tie Binoy down by any means; this was no time for sulking. Gora was privately pleased at the previous day’s episode, realizing that it was in reaction to yesterday’s quarrel that the wedding had been finalized, and it was Binoy’s rebellion that had confirmed his bondage. Gora wasted no time in restoring the natural relationship between Binoy and himself that had existed all along. But this time, there was a slight deviation from their utterly direct manner towards each other.
Gora had now realized it would be hard to restrain Binoy from afar. He must guard the danger-zones. ‘If I visit Poreshbabu’s house regularly, I can keep Binoy within proper limits,’ he thought.
The very day after their quarrel, Gora arrived at Binoy’s house in the late afternoon. Binoy had never imagined Gora would visit him that very day. Hence he was as pleased as he was surprised. Even more surprisingly, Gora raised the subject of Poreshbabu’s daughters, yet without any air of hostility. It did not take much to excite Binoy when this subject came up. He began to recount in detail to Gora all the things he had discussed with Sucharita. He tried to enthuse Gora by informing him that Sucharita herself raised these subjects with special eagerness, and that despite all her arguments, she was unconsciously acquiescing, little by little, to Gora’s point of view.
‘When I recounted what you and I said about Nando’s mother sending for the ojha and causing his death,’ Binoy said conversationally, ‘Sucharita said, “You people think women have fulfilled their duties if they are confined within the home and allowed to cook and clean. On the one hand you stunt their mental growth like this, but on the other, when they send for the ojha, you don’t spare them either. Those for whom a couple of families constitute the whole world can never become complete human beings. And if denied their full humanity, they are bound to destroy and retard all major male undertakings, dragging men down to avenge their own plight. The way you have moulded Nando’s mother and kept her circumscribed, you couldn’t make her see sense even if your life depended on it, because you wouldn’t get through to her.” I’ve tried hard to argue about this, but truly, Gora, because I secretly agreed with her, my arguments didn’t carry any force. With her, one can at least argue, but I dare not argue with Lalita. When Lalita arched her brows and said—“You think you will serve the world while we serve all of you! That’s not possible! Either we, too, must serve the world, or we must remain a burden. If we become a burden, you grow angry and say women are expendable. But if you allowed women to advance, outside or in the home, there’d be no need to discard them!”—her words rendered me speechless. Lalita doesn’t open her mouth easily, but when she does, one must respond with care. Whatever you say Gora, I too am deeply convinced that our work will make no progress if our women’s development remains stunted like Chinese women’s feet.’
‘But I’ve never said women should not be educated!’ Gora protested.
‘Does Part Three of the primer Charupath amount to an education?’
‘Very well, from now on we can introduce Part One of Binoybodh.’
That evening, the two friends kept returning to the subject of Poreshbabu’s daughters, until it grew quite late. On his way home alone, Gora mulled over these things, and once back home in bed, could not drive the though
ts of Poreshbabu’s daughters from his mind, until he fell asleep. Such complications had never occurred in Gora’s life. He had never spared women a single thought. Now Binoy had proved that this too, was a significant part of life. One could not dismiss it; it called for resistance, not compromise.
The next day, when Binoy proposed, ‘Come on, let’s go to Pareshbabu’s, it’s been long since you visited them. He keeps asking after you’—Gora agreed without demurring. Moreover, he was inwardly not as indifferent as before. At first, Gora had been totally detached about the very existence of Sucharita and Poreshbabu’s daughters; then, lately, he had developed a contemptuous hostility towards them; but now, a certain curiosity had arisen in his mind. He felt a special urge to understand what it was that had so captivated Binoy.
It was dark when the two of them arrived at Poreshbabu’s house. In the room on the first floor, Haran was reading one of his English pieces to Poreshbabu by the glass-shaded light of a sej. Poreshbabu here was just a pretext, actually; Haran’s real target was Sucharita. At the far end of the table, shading her eyes from the oil lamp’s glare with a palmleaf fan, Sucharita listened in silence. From habitual compliance, she was trying hard to be attentive, but her mind wandered, every now and then. When the attendant announced Gora and Binoy, Sucharita started. As she rose from her chowki, preparing to leave, Poreshbabu stopped her:
‘Where are you going Radhé? It’s only our own Binoy and Gour.’
Sucharita sat down again, embarrassed. She was relieved that Haran’s prolonged reading of his English composition had been interrupted. She was excited no doubt at news of Gora’s arrival, but the thought of seeing him there in Haranbabu’s presence unsettled her and made her very uneasy. Was it the prospect of a confrontation between the two men, or was there some other reason? It was hard to tell.