‘When you speak like that I feel very perturbed. What you expect of me, how much of it I can offer you, what tasks I must undertake, how to express the overwhelming emotions arising within me—I can’t understand any of these things. I feel afraid all the time, lest your trust in me should one day prove to be utterly misplaced.’
‘It is not misplaced at all,’ Gora insisted, his voice deep as the rumbling of clouds. ‘I shall show you how great is the power within you. Don’t be anxious in the least. It is my responsibility to draw out your worth. Depend on me.’
Sucharita said nothing; but wordlessly the signal was conveyed that she was completely ready to depend on him. Gora too was silent. For a long time, there was a total hush in the room. Outside in the alleyway, a hawker selling old utensils passed by their door, his brass vessels clanging.
Having completed her prayer rituals Harimohini was on her way to the kitchen. It had not even occurred to her that there might be any other person in Sucharita’s silent chamber. But glancing into the room, when she suddenly saw Sucharita and Gora lost in silent thought without any small talk, she instantly felt anger streak like lightning, to her very head. Then she controlled herself.
‘Radharani!’ she called from the doorway.
When Sucharita arose and came to her, Harimohini said in a low voice: ‘Today is the ekadashi, the eleventh lunar day, but I don’t feel well. Go and light the stove in the kitchen. Meanwhile, let me spend some time with Gourbabu.’
Agitated at her Mashi’s expression, Sucharita went away to the kitchen. When Harimohini entered the room, Gora touched her feet respectfully. Without a word she took a chowki. Lips pursed, she remained silent for a while. Then she asked:
‘Baba, you are not a Brahmo are you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you believe in our Hindu community?’
‘I do indeed.’
‘Then what sort of conduct is this?’
Utterly failing to comprehend Harimohini’s complaint, Gora gazed at her in silence.
‘Radharani has come of age, and you people are not related to her after all. What do you have to say to her at such length? She is a woman and must attend to the housework. What need has she to involve herself in such matters? It distracts her mind. You are a learned man indeed, and across the land, people are all praise for you; but when was such conduct accepted in our country and what place does it have in our scriptures?’
It was as if Gora had suddenly received a great blow. It had not even occurred to him that such comments on Sucharita could arise from any quarters.
‘She is a member of the Brahmo Samaj,’ he observed after a short silence, ‘and I have always seen her mingle in this fashion with everybody; so I thought nothing of it.’
‘Very well, so she is a member of the Brahmo Samaj, but you have never supported such conduct after all. Your words are arousing the consciousness of so many people today, but if you behave like this, why should they respect you! You just chatted with her till late evening yesterday, but still you didn’t finish what you had to say, and here you are again this very morning! Since morning today, she has entered neither larder nor kitchen. It didn’t even occur to her to help me today, though it is the ekadashi. What sort of education is she receiving! There are women in your own households too. Are you giving them the same education, halting all their work? Or do you approve if someone else imparts such training to them?’
Gora had no answer to all these charges. He only said: ‘Because she has grown up with this sort of training, I thought nothing of the matter.’
‘Whatever her training, as long as she stays with me and as long as I live, such conduct will not do. I have succeeded in turning her around, to a great extent. Even while she was at Poreshbabu’s, it was rumoured she had become a Hindu after mingling with me. Later, after moving to this house, I don’t know what she began discussing with this Binoy of yours, and everything turned topsy turvy again. He is now going to marry into a Brahmo family. Anyway, I got rid of Binoy with great difficulty. After that, a person called Haranbabu used to visit. Whenever he came, I would take Radharani upstairs to my room, so he didn’t find it encouraging. In this way, after much hardship, she seems to have changed her attitudes again, a little. After moving to this house she had again started accepting food touched by all and sundry, but yesterday I found that she had stopped. Yesterday she fetched her own rice from the kitchen and forbade the bearer to bring her water. Now, baba, I beg you with folded hands, please don’t ruin her again, all of you. Having lost all my dear ones in this world, she’s the only one I have left, and she too has nobody she can exactly call her own, except for me. Please leave her alone, all of you. They have so many other grown girls in their house after all—there’s that girl Labanya, and Leela; they too are intelligent, educated. If you have anything to say, go say it to them. Nobody will forbid you.’
Gora was utterly stupefied. After a short silence, Harimohini resumed:
‘Think about it: she must marry, she’s old enough. Do you suggest she should always remain a spinster like this? A woman needs to perform her domestic duties after all, it is her dharma.’
In a general way, Gora had no doubts about this; indeed, he was of the same opinion. But even in private, he had never tried applying his own opinion to Sucharita. He could not imagine Sucharita as a housewife, busy with domestic chores in the antahpur of some middle-class home. As if she would always remain exactly as she was now.
‘Do you have any thoughts about your bonjhi’s marriage?’ Gora inquired.
‘I must think about it indeed. Who will, if I don’t?’
‘Can she marry into the Hindu community?’
‘One must try. If she does not create any more trouble, and conducts herself properly, I can pass her off. I have mentally planned everything, but so far her tendencies were such, I could not summon up the courage to act. Now, these last couple of days, I find her attitude softening again, so I’m hopeful.’
It was not proper to ask too many questions, thought Gora, but he could not refrain from asking:
‘Have you thought of a prospective bridegroom?’
‘I have. The patra is rather nice—he’s my younger deor Kailash, my husband’s brother. He lost his wife some time ago. It’s because he couldn’t find a grown girl he liked that he’s waited so long, otherwise could such a boy remain single! He will suit Radharani very well.’
The sharper the sting he felt, the more inquisitively Gora asked about Kailash. Among Harimohini’s deors it was Kailash who had, by his own efforts, acquired some education, but about the extent of his education, Harimohini could not say. In the family it was he who was reputed for his learning. When lodging a complaint with the authorities against the village postmaster, it was Kailash who had composed the entire document in such extraordinary English that a senior official from the post office had come there personally to conduct the investigations. At this, all the villagers had been amazed at Kailash’s skill. But despite the extent of his scholarship, Kailash’s commitment to orthodox restrictions had not flagged.
When Kailash’s life-history had been recounted completely, Gora rose, touched Harimohini’s feet, and left the room without a word.
As he descended the stairs leading out into the courtyard, Sucharita was busy working in the kitchen across the courtyard. Hearing Gora’s footsteps she came and stood near the door. Gora went straight out, without glancing in any direction. Sighing, Sucharita resumed her chores in the kitchen. At the corner of the alley, Gora bumped into Haranbabu.
‘Here so early in the day!’ remarked Haranbabu with a faint sneer.
Gora made no reply.
‘You have been there, I suppose?’ asked Haranbabu, with another sneer. ‘Sucharita is home, I hope?’
‘Yes,’ replied Gora and quickly strode away.
Going directly into Sucharita’s house, Haranbabu glimpsed her through the open kitchen door. Sucharita had no escape route, nor was her mashi nearby.
&
nbsp; ‘I just met Gormohanbabu,’ Haranbabu informed her. ‘He was here all this while, was he?’
Without answering his question, Sucharita suddenly became very busy with her pots and pans, as if she did not have time to breathe at that moment. But this did not deter Haranbabu. Standing in the courtyard outside the kitchen, he struck up a conversation. Harimohini came to the stairs and coughed two or three times, but that too had no effect. Harimohini could have confronted Haranbabu directly, but she knew for certain that if she emerged but once before him, neither she nor Sucharita would find any refuge in this house to shield themselves from this earnest young man’s irrepressible enthusiasm. Hence if she glimpsed the mere shadow of Haranbabu, she would draw her sari aanchal so low over her face that it might have seemed excessive even when she was a young bride,.
‘Tell me Sucharita, tell me, what direction have you people taken?’ Haranbabu accused her. ‘Where will it ultimately lead you? Perhaps you have heard that Lalita and Binoybabu are to marry according to Hindu rites. Are you responsible for that?’ Receiving no response from Sucharita, he lowered his voice and asserted severely: ‘You are the one responsible.’
Haranbabu had imagined Sucharita would be unable to endure the blow of such a major, terrible accusation. But seeing her wordlessly go about her chores, he adopted an even more severe tone and declared, wagging his finger at her:
‘Sucharita, I repeat, you are the one responsible. Can you swear with your right hand upon your heart that the Brahmo Samaj will not hold you guilty?’
Silently Sucharita placed her oil-filled karahi on the stove, and the oil began to splutter.
‘It was you who invited Binoybabu and Gourmohanbabu into your household,’ Haranbabu continued. ‘And you have encouraged them so much that these two have become more important to you people than all your eminent Brahmo friends. Can you see what that has resulted in? Did I not warn you from the start? What has happened today? Who will dissuade Lalita now? You think she alone will bear the consequences and the problem will blow over? Not at all. I have come to caution you today. Now it will be your turn. Today you must be secretly remorseful at Lalita’s mishap, but the day is not far when you will not even feel any remorse at your own downfall. But Sucharita, there is still time to turn back. Just think, how once we two had met, in a state of such great and noble optimism; how brightly our life’s goal shone ahead, how expansively the future of the Brahmo Samaj stretched before us. How many resolves we made and how much support we garnered, each day! Do you think all that is ruined? Never. The ground of our optimism remains ready for us, as before. Look back but once. Come back, just for once.’
A lot of greens and vegetables were sizzling in the boiling oil, and Sucharita was stirring them with her spatulate khonta as required. When Haranbabu fell silent, waiting to observe the effect of his call, she lifted the karahi off the fire, turned around and declared firmly:
‘I am a Hindu.’
‘You, a Hindu!’ exclaimed Haranbabu, utterly dumbfounded.
‘Yes, I am a Hindu.’ With these words, Sucharita replaced the karahi on the fire and began to stir violently with her khonta.
It took Haranbabu a short while to regain his balance. Then he demanded sharply: ‘Is that why Gourmohanbabu was giving you initiation, night and day?’
‘Yes, it is from him I have received my initiation. It is he who is my guru,’ Sucharita asserted, without turning her head.
Haranbabu had once considered himself Sucharita’s guru. Today, if Sucharita had told him she loved Gora, he would not have felt so hurt. But to hear from her that Gora had wrested from him the right to be her guru was like being pierced through the heart by a stave.
‘However great your guru,’ he said, ‘do you think the Hindu community will accept you?’
‘That I don’t know, nor do I know the community, but I know I am a Hindu.’
‘Do you know that simply for having remained unmarried for so long, you have lost your caste status in Hindu society?’
‘Please don’t worry about that needlessly. But I tell you I am a Hindu.’
‘Will you sacrifice at your new guru’s feet even the training in dharma you received from Poreshbabu?’
‘As for my dharma, the omniscient One knows what it is. I don’t want to discuss it with anybody. But please understand, I am a Hindu.’
‘However staunch a Hindu you might be, it will bring you no rewards, I tell you,’ cried Haranbabu, now completely losing his patience. ‘Your Gourmohanbabu is not like Binoybabu. Even if you declare yourself “a Hindu, a Hindu,” until you are hoarse, don’t entertain the slightest hope that Gourbabu will accept you. Easy enough to play guru to the disciple, but don’t dream that he would therefore take you into his home to set up house.’
‘What’s all this!’ flashed Sucharita, turning around at lightning speed, cooking completely forgotten.
‘I say Gourmohanbabu will never marry you.’
‘Marry!’ exclaimed Sucharita, eyes blazing. ‘Didn’t I tell you he was my guru?’
‘You did indeed. But I also understand what you didn’t tell me.’
‘Please go away. Don’t insult me. From now on, I tell you, I shall never come out in your presence.’
‘How can you come out, tell me, now that you are zenana, a woman in seclusion! A Hindu woman! One so pure the sun has never witnessed her beauty! Now Poreshbabu’s vessel of sin is full to the brim! At this advanced age, let him taste the fruits of all his actions. I take your leave.’
Slamming the kitchen door, Sucharita sank to the floor and stuffing the end of her aanchal into her mouth, struggled to stifle her uncontrollable sobs. Face dark as thunder, Haranbabu left the house.
Harimohini had heard the entire exchange between the two. What she had heard from Sucharita’s lips today was beyond her expectations. Swelling with pride, she said:
‘Wouldn’t it be so! Could all my heartfelt prayers to the Lord Gopiballav prove futile!’ She immediately went to her prayer chamber and prostrated herself before her deity, promising to increase the quantity of food offered in the bhog ritual, from that day. So far, her devotion had been a quiet affair, a consolation for her sorrows. But now, as soon as they took the form of self-service, her prayers became extremely aggressive, fierce and greedy.
~63~
Gora had never spoken to any other person as he had done in Sucharita’s presence. All these days, for the benefit of his listeners, he had merely spouted sentences, opinions and advice. But that day, it was his own self he presented before Sucharita, projected from deep within himself. At the joy, and not just the power, of this self-expression, all his views and resolves were filled with a spirit of elation. A feeling of grace enveloped his life, as if the gods had suddenly rained heavenly nectar upon his life’s pursuit.
It was in the grip of this exultation that Gora had visited Sucharita every day for a few days, without thinking anything of it. But now, Harimohini’s words made him suddenly remember that he had once scolded and taunted Binoy severely for a similar infatuation. Now, realizing he had himself arrived at the same state without his own knowledge, he was startled. Like a person suddenly jolted awake as he sleeps uncovered in an unfamiliar place, Gora summoned up all his strength to become alert. He had always preached that while many powerful races in the world had been utterly destroyed, Bharatvarsha had survived all adversities through all these centuries, only by firmly adhering to its principles. Gora would not permit any slackening of these principles anywhere. According to him, all else in Bharatvarsha was going to the dogs, but it was beyond the power of any oppressive ruler to touch the holy spirit that Bharatvarsha had sustained, permeating all these harsh restrictive practices. As long as we remain under the yoke of an alien race, we must firmly adhere to our principles. This is not the time to think about right and wrong. A person swept away by a lethal current clings to whatever support he finds, without considering whether it is beautiful or ugly. Gora had said this all along, and was expected to say th
e same thing on that day as well. But when Harimohini cast aspersions on Gora’s own conduct, the king elephant was wounded with the proverbial goad.
When Gora reached home, Mahim was inhaling tobacco, barebodied, on a bench he had placed on the street, just in front of the entrance. His office was closed for the day. He followed Gora in.
‘Just a minute Gora,’ he called, ‘I have something to say.’
Taking Gora to his own room, Mahim said: ‘Don’t be angry bhai, but let me inquire first if you have caught a touch of Binoy’s illness? Your visits to that place have grown very frequent, I must say!’
‘You have nothing to fear,’ declared Gora, flushing.
‘From the signs, it’s hard to tell. You think it is a morsel to be easily swallowed, before you return home as usual. But within it the fishhook lies concealed, as you would realize from your friend’s predicament. Arré, where are you going? I haven’t come to the main point yet! Binoy’s marriage to a Brahmo girl is completely certain, I hear. But once that happens, we can’t have any truck with him, let me inform you beforehand.’
‘No indeed,’ Gora assented.
‘But if Ma creates problems, it won’t be easy,’ warned Mahim. ‘We are simple householders, harried by the burden of marrying off our daughters. If on top of that you install the Brahmo Samaj in our midst, I too will have to uproot myself from this place.’
‘No, that will never happen,’ Gora declared.
‘The marriage proposal for Shashi is taking shape. Our behai, her prospective father-in-law, will not be satisfied without extracting gold worth more than the girl he’s taking into his household, for he knows that human beings are perishable goods, while gold lasts much longer. He is more interested in the chaser than in the medicine. Behai is an inadequate name for him, because he is utterly behaya, without shame. It may cost me some money, but from this man I have learnt a lot that will stand me in good stead when I get my son married. I felt very tempted to be reborn into the present age, and using my father as go-between, arrange my own marriage according to the rules, to make one hundred percent capital out of being born a male! That’s what manhood is all about! To utterly ruin the bride’s father. No mean achievement, is it! Anyway, I can’t find the enthusiasm, bhai, to join you night and day in celebrating the Hindu community’s triumph. My voice fails me. All this has left me completely exhausted. My Tinkori is only fourteen months old: having produced a daughter at the very outset, my wife has taken very long to rectify her mistake. Anyway, Gora, please keep the Hindu community alive, all of you, until my son is married. After that, whether the people of this country become Muslims or Christians, I’ll have nothing to say.’