It grew late, but Poreshbabu did not return. Binoy’s heart prompted him with increasing urgency to rise and take his leave. To suppress it, he continued to concentrate on his conversation with Satish’s mashi. Ultimately, Lalita could no longer contain her annoyance. Suddenly interrupting Binoy, she blurted out:
‘For whose sake must you delay so long? There’s no saying when Baba might return. Won’t you see Gourbabu’s mother once?’
Binoy was startled. He was only too familiar with Lalita’s angry tone. Glancing at her face, he instantly sprang upright like a bow when its string is snapped. For whose sake had he delayed his departure? After all, the arrogant assumption that he was urgently needed here had not occurred to Binoy on its own. He had been about to depart from their very doorstep, and it was Lalita who had requested him to accompany her inside. And now, for Lalita to ask him such a question! So suddenly had Binoy sprung up from the mat that Lalita stared at him in surprise. She saw that his natural cheerfulness had been extinguished at a single puff, like a lamp. Never before had she seen such pain on his face, nor such a sudden change of mood. Looking at him, Lalita at once felt the stinging whiplash of acute regret, striking repeatedly at her heart.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, Satish clung to Binoy’s arm, pleading: ‘Please stay Binoybabu, don’t leave just now. Please have dinner with us. Mashima, why don’t you ask Binoybabu to stay for dinner! Lalitadidi, why did you tell Binoybabu to leave!’
‘Bhai Satish, not today,’ Binoy demurred. ‘If Mashima remembers, I’ll come another day to taste her prasad, food sanctified by her touch. Today it’s too late.’
There was nothing extraordinary about his words, but there were tears in his voice. The pathos did not escape Satish’s Mashima’s ear either. Swiftly glancing at Binoy and then at Lalita, she understood that this was a game of destiny.
Not long after, Lalita got up and went to her room on some slight pretext. How often had she brought herself to tears in this way!
~32~
Binoy at once headed for Anandamoyi’s house. He was inwardly tormented by a mixture of shame and pain. Why had he not gone to Ma all this time! What a mistake he had made! He had imagined that Lalita needed him urgently. The Almighty Ishwar had punished him suitably indeed, for not rushing to Anandamoyi as soon as he reached Kolkata, irrespective of all other needs. Ultimately, he was forced to hear such a question from Lalita’s lips: ‘Won’t you see Gourbabu’s mother once?’ Could such an aberration ever be possible, that Lalita should care more about Gourbabu’s mother than Binoy did! After all, Lalita only knew her as Gourbabu’s mother, but to Binoy, she was the sole image of motherhood personified.
Anandamoyi had just bathed. Immobile on her floormat, she was probably meditating silently. Binoy rushed to her and fell at her feet. ‘Ma!’
‘Binoy!’ Anandamoyi stroked his bowed head with both her hands.
Was there anyone with a voice such as Ma’s! At the very sound of that voice, Binoy’s entire body felt the touch of sympathy flow over it. Restraining his tears with difficulty, he murmured:
‘Ma, I have come too late!’
‘I have heard all about it, Binoy.’
‘You’ve heard all about it!’ exclaimed Binoy, startled.
From the lockup itself, Gora had written a letter to Anandamoyi, which he had forwarded through the lawyer. He must have anticipated that he would be sent to prison.
In conclusion, the letter said:
Imprisonment will not succeed in harming Gora in the least. But it will not do for you to suffer at all. Your sorrow is the only thing that could be my punishment; it is beyond the magistrate’s power to inflict any other penalty on me. Don’t think of your own son alone, Ma! The sons of many other mothers serve jail sentences for no fault of theirs. I want to share an equal footing with them, for once; if this wish is fulfilled now, please don’t grieve for me.
Ma, I don’t know if you remember, but the year there was that famine, I had left my money pouch on the table in the room facing the road, and gone into the next room for five minutes. I returned to find the pouch had been stolen. It contained eighty-five rupees I had saved from my scholarship; I had privately resolved to have a silver ghoti made for you to wash your feet if I saved a little more. Finding the money stolen, as I seethed with futile rage against the thief, the Almighty Ishwar suddenly planted a good thought in my mind. I told myself that at this time of famine I had donated the money to the very man who had taken it. As soon as the words were said, all my fruitless indignation subsided. Similarly, I have now made my heart declare that I am going to prison of my own free will. There is no pain in my heart, no anger against anybody. I am going to accept the hospitality offered by the prison. There will be inconveniences with food and amenities; but after all, when I accepted the hospitality of many homes during my recent travels, I did not find there the comforts I was accustomed to or needed. The suffering I accept willingly is not suffering at all; today I shall voluntarily accept the jail as my refuge. Know this for sure: as long as I remain in prison, not for a single day will anyone keep me there by force.
When we remained at home, effortlessly enjoying our food and amusements, we were not conditioned to even feel the tremendous magnitude of our right to move freely in the daylight under the open sky. Until today I had neither thought about nor maintained any contact with the majority of human beings in this world who at that very moment were suffering bondage and humiliation, deprived of their god-given right to the world, deservedly or undeservedly. Now I wish to emerge in public as a marked man like the rest of them. I don’t want to preserve my social prestige by joining the falsely virtuous men of this world, most of whom pretend to be civilized bhadralok.
Ma, this time my encounter with the real world has taught me a great deal. Ishwar knows that most of those responsible for passing judgement on others are themselves in need of mercy. Prisoners in jail pay for the sins of those who go unpunished while meting out punishments to others; the crime is committed by many, but these people alone are penalized. As for those who enjoy comfort and prestige outside the prison walls, I do not know how, when and where they will atone for their sins. Spurning such comfort and prestige, I shall emerge in public bearing on my breast the mark of mankind’s guilt. Ma, please grant me your blessings, don’t shed tears for me. Lord Krishna bore the mark of Bhrigu’s kick on his chest, forever; in this world, wherever arrogance inflicts injustice, it deepens that scar on the deity’s breast. If that mark becomes His ornament, what have I to worry about, and why should you grieve at all?
Upon receiving this letter Anandamoyi had tried to send Mahim to Gora. Mahim replied that he had to go to work, and that his boss, the saheb, would never give him leave. He then proceeded to curse Gora roundly for his arrogance and lack of judgement, declaring that he too might one day lose his job on Gora’s account. Anandamoyi deemed it unnecessary to apprise Krishnadayal of this matter. Regarding Gora, she had a deep-seated grievance against her husband, knowing that Krishnadayal had not given Gora the place of a son in his heart. In fact, he was privately hostile to Gora. Like the Vindhya mountain range, Gora stood as an obstacle to the conjugal relations between Anandamoyi and her husband. On one side of the breach was Krishnadayal, isolated by his excessive vigilance about ritual purity; on the other side was Anandamoyi, alone with her outcaste Gora. It was as if the channels of communication were closed, between the only two people in the world who knew Gora’s life history. For all these reasons, Anandamoyi’s affection for Gora was solely her treasure. She tried as far as possible to make light of Gora’s illegitimate presence within this family. It was her daily worry lest someone should say, ‘This was your Gora’s doing’, ‘We had to hear such things, thanks to your Gora,’ or ‘Your Gora has caused us this loss.’ After all, she alone was entirely responsible for Gora. And her Gora was no ordinary mischievous child, either! It was not easy, was it, to conceal his existence, wherever he might be? Having spent all these years bringing up her pre
cious, unruly Gora in the midst of this hostile family, managing him day and night until he was now so grown up, she had faced many allegations she could not answer, borne many ordeals she could not share.
Anandamoyi remained at the window, in silence. She saw Krishnadayal enter the house, chanting mantras after his early morning bath, marks of Ganga earth on his forehead, arms and chest. Anandamoyi could not approach him. Forbidden, forbidden, all was forbidden! Finally, with a sigh, she arose and went to Mahim’s room. He was reading a newspaper on the floor while his servant gave his body an oil massage before his bath.
‘Mahim,’ said Anandamoyi, ‘give me an escort, let me go and see what has happened to Gora. He has made up his mind to go to prison; if he is imprisoned, can’t I visit him once before that?’
Whatever his outward manner, Mahim had a soft spot for Gora. Verbally, he continued to growl:
‘Let the wretch go to prison, then. Surprising it hasn’t happened before now!’
But having said this, the very next moment he sent for Poran Ghoshal who was beholden to them. He gave him some money for the lawyer’s fees and dispatched him immediately. He also decided to travel there himself, if the saheb at the office gave him leave, and if his wife permitted.
Anandamoyi was also aware that Mahim could not rest content without doing something for Gora. Once assured that Mahim had made all the arrangements possible, she returned to her room. She was well aware that at this difficult time, amidst all the public mockery, curiosity and gossip, no one in this family would escort her to Gora’s unfamiliar location. Eyes clouded with silent pain, she clenched her lips and remained quiet. When Lachhmia burst into loud sobs she scolded her and banished her to another room. It was her lifelong habit to digest all her anxiety in silence. She calmly accepted both joy and sorrow; only the all-knowing Lord could see the grief in her heart.
Binoy did not know what to say to Anandamoyi. But she never awaited words of consolation from anybody. Her nature shrank from others who tried to talk about her sorrows, which were beyond redress. Preventing any further discussion, she said:
‘Binu, I see you have not bathed yet. Go and have a bath quickly, it’s very late.’
When Binoy sat down to his meal after a bath, Anandamoyi’s heart wept in grief at the sight of Gora’s empty place beside him. Gora would have to eat prison food today, food with the bitter taste of heartless discipline, not sweetened by a mother’s care. At one point, the very thought compelled Anandamoyi to rush from the room on some pretext.
~33~
When he returned home, as soon as he saw Lalita at this odd hour, Poreshbabu realized that this wild daughter of his had got into some unprecedented scrape. He looked at her inquiringly.
‘Baba, I came away,’ she blurted out. ‘I couldn’t remain there under any circumstances.’
‘Why, what is the matter?’ Poreshbabu asked.
‘The magistrate has sent Gourbabu to jail.’
How Gour came into the picture and what exactly had occurred, Poreshbabu could not understand at all. When Lalita told him the whole story, he remained silent for a while. Immediately thinking of Gora’s mother, his heart filled with anguish. He thought, ‘if only the judge could sense how cruel was the punishment inflicted on several innocent people whenever one man was sent to prison, it could never be such an easy, routine matter to condemn someone to jail.’ Only an extreme paralysis of the ethical sense could have generated the barbarity that enabled the magistrate to pronounce with equal ease the same punishment for Gora as for a common thief. The news of Gora’s prison sentence made Poreshbabu recognize how much deadlier than other forms of violence was man’s tyranny towards man, and also how social power and royal authority had combined to lend tremendous force and magnitude to such tyranny.
‘Tell me, Baba, isn’t this a terrible injustice?’ demanded Lalita, encouraged by Poreshbabu’s thoughtful silence.
‘I don’t quite know the extent and nature of Gour’s actions,’ replied Poreshbabu with his customary calm. ‘But I can say this for sure: Gour may go beyond his rights when carried away by his strong sense of duty, but it is entirely against his nature to commit what the English language calls a crime. Of that I have not the slightest doubt. But what can we do, ma, the sense of justice in our times has not yet attained that level of moral discrimination. Even now, the same punishment is prescribed for mistakes as for crimes; both entail the same prison sentence, the same hard grind. We cannot blame any one person for this state of affairs. For this, all the sins of humanity are to blame.’ Then, suddenly dropping the subject, Poreshbabu asked: ‘Who did you come with?’
‘With Binoybabu,’ replied Lalita, drawing herself upright as if by some special effort. Whatever her outward display of strength, inwardly she was vulnerable. Lalita did not find it easy to declare that she had come with Binoybabu. From somewhere, a hint of embarrassment arose within her, and thinking that this embarrassment was visible in her facial expression, she grew even more self-conscious.
Among all his offspring, Poreshbabu loved this capricious, indomitable daughter of his the most. It was because her conduct seemed blameworthy to others that he had developed a special respect for the forthrightness of Lalita’s behaviour. He knew that people would specially notice her faults but her virtues, however rare, would go unappreciated. Poreshbabu had carefully nourished her good qualities, all along; in the process of subduing Lalita’s unruly nature, he had not wanted to trample upon her inner nobility as well. People acknowledged the beauty of his other two daughters at first sight; their complexion was fair, their facial contours flawless; but Lalita’s complexion was darker, and the extent of her facial charm was debatable. Hence Borodasundari constantly expressed anxiety to her husband about finding a match for Lalita. But the beauty Poreshbabu saw in Lalita’s face was not that of complexion or of build, it was the profound beauty of the inner self. It had not only grace but also the fire of independence and the firmness of strength, a firmness not everyone would find appealing. It would attract a few special people, but repel many others. Realizing that Lalita would not be popular but that she would be genuine, Poreshbabu would draw her to him with a certain tender pain—because he knew that others were unforgiving, he judged her with compassion.
When he heard that Lalita had suddenly come away alone with Binoy, he instantly understood that she would have to undergo intense and prolonged suffering on this account. People would prescribe for her a punishment appropriate for a crime much greater than the minor one she had committed. As he pondered over this in silence for a while, Lalita blurted out:
‘Baba, I have done wrong. But I have understood very clearly now that the relationship between the magistrate and our countrymen is such that his hospitality implies no honour for us, only condescension. Ought we to have stayed on, tolerating even this?’
The question did not strike Poreshbabu as an easy one.
‘You crazy girl!’ he smiled, patting her head with his right hand, avoiding any direct answer.
As Poreshbabu paced outside the house that afternoon, thinking about this episode, Binoy appeared and touched his feet respectfully. Poreshbabu spent a long time discussing Gora’s imprisonment with him, but did not even mention Binoy’s arrival with Lalita on the steamer. ‘Come, Binoy, let’s go inside,’ he proposed when it grew dark.
‘No,’ said Binoy. ‘I’ll go home.’
Poreshbabu did not ask him a second time. Casting a swift, lightning glance at the upper storey, Binoy slowly walked away. Lalita had spotted Binoy from upstairs. When Poreshbabu entered alone, she assumed that Binoy would follow him in shortly. But even after a short while, Binoy did not appear. Then, after shuffling about some of the books and paperweights on the table, Lalita left the room. Poreshbabu called her back.
‘Lalita, sing a Brahmo song for me,’ he requested, looking tenderly at her downcast face.
He turned down the lamp, shading its light.
~34~
The next day, Borodasundar
i and the rest of her troupe came back. Unable to contain his disapproval of Lalita, Haranbabu accompanied them instead of returning to his own lodgings, and went directly to Poreshbabu. Angry and upset, Borodasundari went straight to her room without glancing at Lalita or saying a word to her. Labanya and Leela had also come back incensed with Lalita. The departure of Lalita and Binoy had so disabled their recitation and acting that their embarrassment was beyond description. Taking no part in Haranbabu’s indignation, Borodasundari’s tearful laments or Labanya and Leela’s awkward indifference, Sucharita had fallen completely silent, mechanically performing her routine chores. Today as well, she followed everyone mechanically into the room. Cringing with shame and remorse, Sudhir went home from Poreshbabu’s doorstep itself. Failing in her repeated attempts to invite him in, Labanya vowed not to speak to him anymore.
‘Something terribly wrong has happened,’ blurted out Haranbabu as soon as he entered Poreshbabu’s room.
Lalita was in the adjacent room. As soon as these words entered her ears, she came and stood there, hands clasping the back of her father’s chowki, gaze fixed on Haranbabu’s face.
‘I have heard all about it from Lalita,’ said Poreshbabu. ‘Now the deed is done, it is no use discussing it.’
Haran regarded the calm, restrained Poresh as extremely weak-natured. Hence he said, rather disdainfully: