At this point, Sandip slipped into the room silently. Hurriedly I dropped my shawl on the jewellery box. Sandip’s voice dripped sarcasm as he asked, ‘You still haven’t finished your special business with Amulya?’
A trifle embarrassed, Amulya said, ‘Oh, we have finished talking. It’s not much, really.’
I interrupted, ‘No Amulya, we aren’t done yet.’
Sandip said, ‘So it’s exit Sandip once again?’
I said, ‘Yes.’
‘But what about the re-entry of Sandipkumar?’
‘Not today, I don’t have the time.’
Sandip’s eyes flashed; he said, ‘So you only have time for special work and no time to waste, eh?’
Jealousy. Where the mighty have exposed themselves, the weak can hardly resist a jaunty swagger. So, in a firm voice I said, ‘No, I don’t have the time.’
Sandip went away with a glum face. Amulya was a little disturbed, ‘Ranididi, I think Sandipbabu is upset.’
I spoke vehemently, ‘He has no reason, or the right, to be upset. Let me tell you one thing Amulya, you are not to mention the job I have trusted you with, to Sandipbabu, even if it costs you your life.’
Amulya said, ‘I won’t tell him.’
‘Then why wait? Leave by the night train.’ I left the room along with him. But outside, on the veranda, I found Sandip waiting. I knew he would catch hold of Amulya. In order to stop him doing that, I had to intervene, ‘Sandipbabu, what did you want to talk about?’
‘Oh, my chatter is not important, it’s mere idle talk, and since you don’t have any time to spare—’
I said, ‘I have the time.’
Amulya left. Sandip stepped into the room and said, ‘I saw a box in Amulya’s hand, what was it?’
So it hadn’t escaped his eyes. I spoke a trifle harshly, ‘If I wanted to tell you about it, I’d have given it to him in front of you.’
‘Do you think Amulya won’t tell me?’
‘No, he won’t.’
Sandip’s anger was palpable now. He burst out saying, ‘You think you will score over me. You can’t. That Amulya—If I crushed him underfoot and killed him he’d think it was heaven. And you think you can take him away from me? Over my dead body.’
The anger of weakness—at last Sandip had understood that his power failed when compared to me. Hence the untrammelled outburst. He knew that his force wouldn’t work against my strength and one condemning glance from me could shatter the walls of his citadel. Hence this show of power today. I smiled silently. At long last I was in the rung above him; I hope to God I never lose it or come down from it. I hope that even amidst my greatest misfortune, I am left with a modicum of self-respect.
Sandip said, ‘I know that was your jewellery box.’
I said, ‘You may guess as you like, but I won’t tell you.’
‘You trust Amulya more than me? Do you know that he is the shadow of my shadow, the echo of my echo, and without me at his side, he is nothing?’
‘In that space where he is not your echo, he is Amulya and there I trust him more than I trust you.’
‘Don’ t forget that you have promised me all your jewellery for the initiation of the Mother’s puja. You have already donated your jewels.’
‘If the gods spare me any jewellery I will give it to them willingly. But how can I promise to give the jewellery that has been stolen?’
‘Look here, don’t think you can give me the slip. Right now I am busy; let me finish the work first and then there’ll be time for all your elaborate feminine wiles and games. I may even join in them myself.’
The moment I had stolen my husband’s money and handed it to Sandip, the last bit of melody had gone out of our relationship. I had certainly cheapened myself and reduced my worth but Sandip too had lost his powers over me. You can’t shoot arrows at something that is already within your fist. So, today Sandip lacked his brave warrior charm. His words held the despicable, harsh echoes of squabbling.
Sandip went on staring at me with his bright eyes and gradually they grew as dark and thirsty as the afternoon sky. His feet moved restlessly. I realized he was about to rise and any moment now he would rush forward and take me in his arms. My heart lurched, my nerves jangled and ears buzzed—I knew that if I continued to sit a moment longer, I would never be able to get up. I called on my entire reserve of strength, tore myself from the seat and ran towards the door. Sandip’s choked voice vibrated dully, ‘Queen, where do you run?’
The next moment he jumped up after me but the sound of footsteps outside made him return to his seat. I turned towards the bookshelf and stared at the names of books.
As soon as my husband entered the room, Sandip said, ‘Hey Nikhil, don’t you have Browning in your collection? I was telling Queen Bee about our college-club—you do remember the row amongst the four of us over translating that poem by Browning? What, you don’t remember? You know, it went—
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . . men you call such.
I suppose . . . she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I’m not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them.
‘I had somehow managed a Bengali translation, but it was mute unreadable. There was a time when I’d thought of being a poet—any moment the inspiration would grip me. But God was kind enough to let that whim pass. But our Dakhinacharan, if only he wasn’t an inspector with the British today, would surely have made an excellent poet; he did a brilliant translation—it read like it was written originally in Bengali, and not in the language of a country that doesn’t exist geographically:
If she had known that she would never love me
Was it right that she’d cast her eyes upon me?
Many are the men that walk this earth
(Though I don’t know what they are worth)
To whom if she had laid her soul bare
They’d still have stood straight and bare.
But she knew that I am not of that class
So why did she pierce me with her glance?
‘Oh no, Queen Bee, you search in vain; Nikhil gave up reading poetry when he got married. Perhaps he had no need of it anymore. I had also given it up from too much work, but I do feel that crazy fever is about to grip me once again.’
My husband said, ‘Sandip, I have come to give you a warning.’
Sandip said, ‘About the crazy fever of poetry?’
My husband didn’t join in the joke and continued, ‘For some time now, maulavis from Dacca have started visiting regularly, trying to provoke the Muslims in this area. They are not too happy with you and something may happen if you don’t watch out.
‘Are you advising me to escape?’
‘I have come to inform you, not to advise you.’
‘If I was the zamindar here, the Muslims would have to worry, not I. It would be better for both you and me if you put some pressure on them instead of coming and getting me apprehensive. Do you know that your weakness has even robbed the neighbouring zamindars of their true powers?’
‘Sandip, I didn’t offer you advise and it would be nice if you returned the favour. It’s pointless. There’s one more thing: for some time now your followers have been ganging up and terrorizing my subjects. This has to stop; you’ll have to leave my territory.’
‘For fear of the Muslims or are there other threats too?’
‘Sandip, there are such threats that it’d be cowardly not to be scared, and being aware of those threats I am asking you to leave. I am headed for Calcutta in another five days or so. I want you to leave with me.You could stay in our house in Calcutta, that’s not a problem.’
‘Good, at least I get five days to think. Meanwhile, Queen Bee, let me start humming songs about having to leave your beehive. Oh poet of this day, unlock your doors, let me loot you
r songs—actually you are the thief, you stole my words and made them yours—the name may be yours but the songs are mine, he started singing in his slightly off-tune, baritone voice a song set in Bhairavi:
‘The sweet season is here to stay in your land of honey,
The smiles and tears of coming and going drift in the air.
The one who leaves is all that goes, the flowers still bloom and thrive,
The ones meant to go, droop at the day’s end.
When I was close, so many songs I gave:
Now I go away, is there a reward to have?
In the shade of the flowery grove I leave behind this hope—
That the rains would drench in tears this fiery spring of yours.’
His unbounded audacity had no veils, naked as the flames. It didn’t wait to be stopped; trying to do so was like denying the thunder, which the lightning laughed and brushed aside. I left the room. As I was heading towards the inner sanctum, suddenly Amulya appeared before me, ‘Ranididi, don’t worry at all. I’m leaving now. I won’t come back empty-handed.’
I looked upon his sincere, young face and said, ‘Amulya, I don’t worry about myself—but let me always worry for you all.’
As he was leaving, I called him back and asked, ‘Amulya, is your mother alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sisters?’
‘No. I am my mother’s only son. My father died when I was very young.’
‘Go Amulya, go back to your mother.’
‘Didi, here I see my mother as well as my sister in the same person.’
I said, ‘Amulya, before you leave tonight, have your dinner over here.’
He said, ‘No time, Ranididi. Give me your blessing to carry with me.’
‘What do you like to eat, Amulva?’
‘If I was with my mother, I’d have gorged myself on sweetmeats this time of the year. When I come back, Ranididi, I’ll have sweets made by you.’
Nikhilesh
I WOKE UP SUDDENLY AT THREE IN THE NIGHT AND FELT THAT MY LONG-familiar world had died and was sitting like a spectre, guarding my bed, my room, all my things. I understood now why people were afraid of ghosts, even those of their close ones. When the eternally familiar turned unfamiliar in an instant, it was a nightmare. When your entire life was running along a certain track and you had to change tracks and make it run a course that wasn’t even marked, the task was a difficult one. Even being yourself became a challenge; one felt that he himself was also perhaps a changed being.
For a while now it was clear that Sandip and his gang were terrorizing people. If I’d been my normal self, I would have firmly told him to leave the area. But all this trouble had made me lose my footing; my path was no longer straight and narrow. I felt ashamed to ask Sandip to leave—something else cropped up between us. And that made me feel very small.
Marriage was private and personal; it wasn’t merely a duty or about a structured family life. It was the expression of my life. And that was why I couldn’t put any pressure on it from without. If I did, I would be insulting the God within. I cannot explain this to anyone. Perhaps I am different and that’s why I’ve been cheated. But how could I cheat everything within me to stop being cheated from without?
I am initiated into the mantra of Truth—that which creates the world outside through the heart. That is why today I had to rip apart all the mesh of the world like this. My inner deity would release me from the slavery, the bondage of the world. I would gain that freedom by bruising my heart. But when I gained it, the kingdom of the heart would be all mine.
I could already taste that freedom. Every now and then, the sound of the birds chirping at dawn burst through the all-permeating darkness of my heart. The man within me reiterated from time to time: there is no harm in letting go of the dream that was Bimala, the illusion.
Chandranathbabu informed me that Sandip had joined up with Harish Kundu and they were preparing to host a puja of Mahishamardini Durga, with great pomp and grandeur. Harish Kundu had already begun to raise the cost for this puja from his subjects. Our court poet and pundit were employed to write an eulogy that could be read in two ways. Sandip and Chandranathbabu had also had a debate over this. Sandip claimed that God has an evolution: if we do not modify the God constructed by our forefathers to suit our needs, it would be an act of atheism. It was Sandip’s mission to give the old gods new colours, release them from the shackles of the past: he was the salvation for the gods.
I have seen this from our childhood days—Sandip was the magician of Ideas; he was never interested in discovering the Truth, because juggling with it gave him greater pleasure. If he had been born in central Africa, he would have taken great pleasure in proving that human sacrifice and feeding on human flesh was the best way to bring human beings close to one another. The one who truly thrived on illusion, could scarcely escape being deluded himself. I believe that every time Sandip created a novel web of illusion with his words, he himself believed ‘I have found Truth’, however disparate his one Truth was from another.
Anyway, I was loath to offer any assistance in building up this tavern of illusion over my motherland. I would rather not have a hand in getting the young lads, who wanted to serve the country, into the addictive habit right from the beginning. To those who want to cast a spell on young minds and get some results, it is the end that justifies all and those spellbound minds have no intrinsic value. If I could not save the country from frenzied intoxication, then her puja would lay the foundation of her downfall and every action meant to serve her would return back to her bosom to wound her.
I ordered Sandip to leave my house in front of Bimala. I suppose both Sandip and Bimala would read my intentions wrong. But I need to be free of this fear of being misunderstood. Let Bimala misunderstand me too.
The maulavis from Dacca were swarming the place. The Muslims in our area bore as much hatred for cow-slaughter as the Hindus did. But now there had been a few instances of cow-slaughter here and there. I heard about it first from a Muslim subject and he too, voiced his dissent. I realized that it’d be difficult holding them back. There was a false sense of obduracy at the root of the matter. Resistance would only give it credence. That was precisely what the opposition wanted to achieve.
I sent for some of my influential Hindu subjects and tried to talk to them. I said, ‘We are free to practice our own religion but others’ religion is out of bounds. Just because I am a Vaishnav doesn’t mean the Kali worshipper should give up bloodshed. There is no choice. The Muslims should be allowed to practice their religion in their way. Don’t create a problem over this.’
They said, ‘Raja, all these demonstrations were not there before.’
I said, ‘They weren’t, but that was their wish. Try to find ways to desist them of their own free will. That is not the violent way.’
They said, ‘No Raja, those days are gone. Now you have to snub them or you cannot control them.’
I said, ‘Snubbing will not put an end to cow-slaughter, but only increase a desire to kill humans as well.’
One of them had studied English and learnt to chant the language of modern times. He said, ‘Look here, this is not only about a tradition; our country is primarily agricultural and for us the cow—’
I said, ‘In this country, buffalo-milk is also drunk and that animal also ploughs the land. But when we all slaughter it and dance about with its head, it looks strange if we fight the Muslims over this, using religion as our excuse. Religion ridicules us and violence increases. If it’s only the cow that shouldn’t be killed and not the buffalo, then it isn’t about religion, it’s about superstition.’
The British-educated said, ‘Can’t you see who is behind this? The Muslims now know that they won’t be taken to task. Have you heard what they have done in Pachurey?’
I said, ‘That a day has come when the Muslims can become weapons against us, is a result of what we have fashioned with our hands. This is how Fate brings justice. What we have heaped o
ver the ages, is now going to be wreaked on us.’
The British-educated said, ‘Fine, then let it be wreaked. But there’s a joy in it for us—we have won a victory. The law that they held so dear to themselves has been razed to the ground by us: so long, they have ruled but now we will make them robbers. This will not be recorded in history, but we will remember this forever.’
Meanwhile, I became notorious through the many mentions in newspapers. I came to know that ‘patriots’ had made my effigy and burned it with great pomp in a cremation ground by the river, in Chakravarty’s area. There were plans for more humiliation. They had come to me, to get me to buy shares into a joint enterprise in opening a cloth-mill. I said, ‘If it was just my money that would go, I wouldn’t hesitate. But along with it several poor people would lose money and so I won’t buy the shares.’
‘Why, pray? Don’t you want the country to progress?’
‘A business may eventually benefit the country, but setting off to serve the country doesn’t make for good business sense. When we were all calm and peaceful, no business took off and now that we are excited, do you think business would suddenly boom?’
‘Why don’t you simply say that you won’t buy the shares?’
‘I’ll invest when I truly feel your business is worth its salt. The fires in your heart may or may not light up your hearths—I don’t know that yet.’
They think I am a calculating miser. Sometimes I feel like showing them my books with the accounts of my work for the country. I suppose they are ignorant of the fact that I once tried to improve the quality of crops harvested in our motherland. I tried to get the farmers to grow sugarcane by importing seeds from Java and Mauritius; I left no stone unturned, as per the advice of the agriculture department of the government. But finally, what was the result? Just the sneaky snigger of the farmers in my area. To this day it has remained sneaky and covert. Later when I tried to translate the governmental agro-journals and went to speak to them about growing Japanese beans or foreign cotton, I realized that the covert snigger was in danger of becoming overt. At the time there was no support from the ‘patriots’ and the Vande Mataram mantra was silent. And my shipping business—oh, what’s the point of harking back to all that? The fires they have lit in order to serve the country, should hopefully be banked by burning my effigy and spread no further.