I was at a disadvantage because I hadn’t yet got to know him. On the other hand some of my opponents came from his neighbourhood, others claimed some sort of distant kinship with him. ‘It’s absolutely true!’ they declared with great vehemence; with even greater vehemence I declared that I didn’t believe an iota of it. At which they all belligerently rolled up their sleeves and called me a very impertinent fellow.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I lay in bed that night. Between classes the next day, I went up to Sachish as he reclined with a book on the shaded grass by the circular pond and without a word of introduction launched into an incoherent torrent of words. He closed his book and gazed at me for a while. Those who haven’t seen his eyes can never understand what lies in their gaze.
‘Those who slander others,’ Sachish said, ‘do so because they love slander, not because they love truth. It’s pointless therefore to struggle to prove that a piece of slander is untrue.’
‘But if they’re lying . . .’
Sachish stopped me. ‘But you see, they’re not liars. There’s a poor boy in our neighbourhood who has palsy and shakes in every limb. He can’t do any work. One winter I gave him an expensive blanket. That day my servant Shibu indignantly complained to me that the illness was a pretence. Those who deny any virtue in me are like Shibu. They believe what they say. An expensive extra blanket has fallen to my lot and all the Shibus in the land have decided I have no right to it. I would find it embarrassing to quarrel with them over this.’
Without responding to that I asked, ‘But they say you’re an atheist—is it true?’
‘Yes, I am an atheist,’ Sachish said.
My face fell. I had argued violently with my fellow boarders that Sachish could not be an atheist.
Indeed I suffered two nasty shocks at the very outset of getting to know Sachish. As soon as I saw him I decided he was a Brahmin’s son. After all, his face was like a god’s image carved out of marble. I had heard that his family name was Mullick; a kulin Brahmin household in our village bore the same name. But I discovered that Sachish was of the goldsmiths’ caste. Ours was a devout kaystha family—for the goldsmiths’ caste we felt profound contempt. And as for being an atheist, I knew it to be a greater sin than murder, or even eating beef.
I stared speechless at Sachish’s face. Still the same luminescence there—as if prayer-lamps were shining in his soul.
No one would have thought I would ever share a meal with one of the goldsmiths’ caste and in my fanatical atheism outdo my guru. But with time even this came to pass.
Wilkins was professor of literature at our college. His impressive learning was matched by his contempt for the students. To him teaching literature to Bengali boys in a colonial college was tantamount to menial labour; and so if he came across the word ‘cat’, even in the course of teaching Milton or Shakespeare, he would gloss it with the explanation, ‘a quadruped of the feline species’. But Sachish was excused from taking down such notes. ‘Sachish,’ he would say, ‘I’d like to compensate you for having to sit in this class. Come to my house—there you’ll get back your taste for literature,’
The incensed students claimed that the sahib was fond of Sachish because Sachish was light-complexioned and had beguiled him by showing off his atheism. The more cunning students rallied together and went to the sahib to ask to borrow a book on positivism; he dismissed them, saying, ‘You won’t understand it.’ The imputation that they were unfit even to be atheists merely increased their rage against atheism and against Sachish.
2
I HAVE LISTED THE ASPECTS OF BELIEF AND BEHAVIOUR THAT PROVOKED condemnation in Sachish’s life. Some of these I came to know before my acquaintance with him, some after.
Jagmohan was Sachish’s uncle. He was a celebrated atheist of those times. It would be an understatement to say he didn’t believe in God; he believed in ‘no-God’. A battleship commander’s occupation has more to do with sinking ships than with navigation; similarly, Jagmohan’s theological enterprise lay in torpedoing manifestations of faith wherever he got a chance. This is how he marshalled his arguments before a believer:
‘If God exists, then my intelligence is his creation. My intelligence says there is no God. Therefore God says there is no God. Yet you contradict Him to His face and say that God exists! Thirty-three billion godlings will twist your ears to make you atone for this blasphemy.’
Jagmohan had married when still a boy. His wife died in his youth, but he had read Malthus in the meantime. He never married again.
His younger brother Harimohan was Sachish’s father. Harimohan’s character was so strikingly antithetical to his elder brother’s that if I write about it readers will mistake it for fiction. But it is fiction that must be chary in order to seduce the reader. Since Truth is not under such constraints it doesn’t balk at being strange. And so, just as dawn and dusk are opposed in Nature, human society doesn’t lack instances of similar opposition between elder and younger brother.
Harimohan had been a sickly child. He had to be protected from harm by all sorts of amulets and charms; rites of exorcism; water sanctified by washing sadhus’ matted locks; dust from prominent holy places; food-offerings to deities and the ambrosial water that has washed their feet; and above all, the blessings obtained from priests at great expense.
Harimohan’s illnesses left him when he grew up, but the belief that he was very delicate persisted in the family. Nobody wished of him anything more than that he should just stay alive somehow. He didn’t disappoint anyone in this regard and went on living quite satisfactorily. But he kept everyone on tenterhooks by pretending that his health was always on the verge of collapse. Taking advantage of the apprehensions roused by his father’s early death, he appropriated the doting attentions of his mother and aunts. He was served his meals before anybody else; his diet was specially prepared; he had to work less than others, but was entitled to more rest. He never forgot that he was in the special care not only of his mother and aunts but of the gods as well. He extended deference, in proportion to the quantity of favours he might expect in return, not only to the gods but to worldly powers—he held such personages as the OC of the police station, rich neighbours, highly placed civil servants, newspaper editors, not to mention Brahmin priests, in awed reverence.
Jagmohan’s apprehensions were of a contrary sort. He avoided the powerful, lest anyone suspect him of currying favour. A similar attitude underlay his defiance of the deity: he simply refused to bow before any power, be it earthly or divine.
In due course, that is to say well before due time, Harimohan’s marriage took place. After three daughters and three sons came Sachish. Everyone said he bore a striking resemblance to his uncle. Jagmohan too became deeply attached to the child, as if it were his own son.
At first Harimohan was pleased at the thought of the advantages accruing from this. For Jagmohan had taken on responsibility for the boy’s education, and he was well known for his exceptional mastery of English. In the opinion of some he was the Macaulay of Bengal, to others he was Bengal’s Dr Johnson. He seemed to be encased within a shell made up of English books. Just as a line of pebbles shows the course of a mountain stream, the parts of the house where he spent his time could be recognized by the English books lining the walls from floor to ceiling.
Harimohan lavished his paternal affection on his eldest son, Purandar. He could never say no to Purandar’s demands. His eyes always appeared to brim with sentimental tears for this son; he feared that Purandar would simply cease to live if thwarted in anything. Purandar’s education came to nothing. He had married very early, and no one had managed to bind him to his marital vows. When his wife protested vigorously, her father-in-law turned on her angrily and declared that her nagging had driven his son to seek solace elsewhere.
Observing such goings-on, Jagmohan sought to protect Sachish from the hazards of paternal love by never letting him out of sight. It wasn’t long before Sachish, still at a very early age, acquired a
sound knowledge of English. But he didn’t stop there. With his brain cells kindled by Mill and Bentham, his atheism began to glow like a torch.
Jagmohan behaved with Sachish as if he was of the same age. He considered reverence for age an empty convention that confirmed the human mind in its servitude. A young man who had married into the family wrote to him, addressing the letter in traditional style, ‘To your auspicious feet’. He replied with the following advice:
My Dear Naren
What it means to describe the feet as ‘auspicious’, I do not know; nor do you; it is therefore sheer nonsense. Then again, you have completely ignored me and addressed my feet instead. You ought to know that my feet are a part of my body and cannot be seen as separate from me as long as they are not severed. Further, they are neither hand nor ear; to make an appeal to them is sheer madness. Finally, your choice of the plural number over the dual with reference to my feet may express reverence, given that a certain quadruped is an object of devotion to you, but it bespeaks an ignorance of my zoological identity that should, I feel, be removed.
Things that others sweep under the carpet Jagmohan openly discussed with Sachish. If anyone complained about this he would say, ‘If you want to get rid of hornets, break up their nest. In the same way, removing the embarrassment that attaches to certain topics dispels the cause of embarrassment. I am breaking the nest of embarrassment in Sachish’s mind.’
3
SACHISH COMPLETED HIS DEGREE. HARIMOHAN NOW MOUNTED A CAMPAIGN to rescue him from his uncle. But the fish had swallowed the bait and was caught on the hook. The more one tried to pull it free the more firmly attached it became. Harimohan’s anger at this was directed more at his brother than at his son. He strewed the neighbourhood with colourful slander about him.
Harimohan wouldn’t have minded if it was only a question of opinions and beliefs; even eating forbidden chicken was tolerable—it could be passed off as goat. But his brother and son had gone so far in their behaviour that nothing could cover it up. Let me narrate the event that gave most offence.
Service to humanity was an important aspect of Jagmohan’s atheistic creed. The chief delight in such altruism lay in the fact that it brought nothing save financial loss—no award or merit, no promise of baksheesh from any scripture—nor did it placate any irate deity. If anyone asked, ‘What is there for you in the greatest good of the greatest number?’ he would say, ‘The greatest thing for me is that there’s nothing in it for me.’ He would say to Sachish:
‘Remember, my boy, our pride in being atheists requires us to be morally impeccable. Because we don’t obey anything we ought to have greater strength to be true to ourselves.’
Sachish was his chief disciple in seeking the greatest good of the greatest number. In their neighbourhood there were some hide-merchants’ warehouses. The social work of uncle and nephew brought them into such intimacy with the Muslim tanners and traders that Harimohan’s caste mark positively blazed, and threatened to turn his brain into an inferno. Knowing that invoking scripture would have the opposite of the desired effect, Harimohan complained instead that Jagmohan was misusing their patrimony. ‘Let my expenses reach what you have spent on fat-bellied priests,’ Jagmohan replied, ‘then I will square accounts with you.’
One day Harimohan’s household noticed that preparations were afoot for a huge feast in Jagmohan’s part of the house. The cooks and attendants were all Muslim. Beside himself with rage, Harimohan summoned Sachish and said, ‘I hear you will treat all your chamar friends to a feast here?’
‘I would if I had the means,’ Sachish replied, ‘but I don’t have any money. They’re coming as Uncle’s guests.’
Stomping about in fury, Purandar threatened, ‘I’ll see how they dare come to this house to eat.’
When Harimohan protested to his brother, Jagmohan told him, ‘I don’t say anything about your daily food-offerings to your gods. So why do you object to my making an offering to my gods?’
‘Your gods?’
‘Yes, my gods.’
‘Have you become a Brahmo?’
‘Brahmos accept a formless deity who is invisible to the eye. You accept idols who cannot be heard. We accept the living who can be seen and heard—it’s impossible not to believe in them.’
‘What, these Muslim chamars are your gods?’
‘Yes, these Muslim chamars are my gods. You will notice that among all deities they are distinguished by a remarkable ability to polish off whatever eatables are placed before them. None of your gods can do that. I love to watch this miracle, so I have invited my gods into my home. If you weren’t blind to true divinity you would be pleased at this.’
Purandar went up to his uncle, said many harsh things in a loud voice, and declared that he would do something really drastic that day.
‘You monkey,’ Jagmohan said with a laugh, ‘you have only to lay a finger on my gods to see how potent they are. I won’t have to do a thing.’
No matter how boastful he was, Purandar was in reality even more of a coward than his father. He was formidable only with those who spoiled him. He didn’t dare enrage his Muslim neighbours. He went instead to Sachish and abused him. Sachish merely raised his exquisite eyes towards his elder brother and didn’t utter a word. That day the feast was held undisturbed.
4
HARIMOHAN GIRDED HIS LOINS NOW FOR A CAMPAIGN AGAINST HIS ELDER brother. Both of them derived their income from the trusteeship of ancestral property endowed as a religious trust, Harimohan filed a suit in the district court in which he claimed that being an atheist, Jagmohan was ineligible for the trusteeship. Respectable witnesses for the plaintiff were not lacking; virtually the entire neighbourhood was ready to testify.
There was no need to resort to pettifoggery. Jagmohan unequivocally stated in court that he didn’t believe in gods and goddesses; didn’t care for scriptural restrictions on diet; didn’t know from which part of Brahma’s anatomy the Muslims had originated; nor saw any objections to dining or mixing socially with them.
The judge found Jagmohan unworthy of the trusteeship. Jagmohan’s lawyers assured him that the judgement would be overturned in the High Court. But Jagmohan said, ‘I will not appeal. I cannot cheat a god, even one I do not believe in. Only those stupid enough to believe in a god can deceive him in good conscience.’
‘How will you live?’ his friends asked.
‘If I can’t get food,’ he said, ‘I’ll live on air,’
Harimohan had no wish to boast of his victory in the law suit. He was apprehensive that his brother might put a curse on him. But Purandar still smarted at having failed to turn the tanners out of the house. Now that it was quite obvious whose gods were more potent, he hired drummers who from dawn on shattered the neighbourhood’s peace with their din.
‘What’s up?’ said a friend who called on Jagmohan, ignorant of what had transpired.
‘Today my god is being dunked in the water with great pomp, hence the music,’ Jagmohan replied.
For two days Brahmins were feasted under Purandar’s personal supervision. Everybody declared he was the glory of his family. Following this, the family home in Calcutta was divided between the two brothers by a wall down the middle.
Harimohan had enough confidence in human nature to assume that everybody—no matter what he thought of religion—possessed a natural good sense when it came to practicalities like food and clothing and money. He fully expected his son to abandon’the impoverished Jagmohan and, drawn by the aroma of food, slip into the gilded cage. But Sachish had evidently inherited neither the piety nor the worldly wisdom of his father. He remained with his uncle.
Jagmohan had become so accustomed to treating Sachish as one of his own that it didn’t strike him as extraordinary when on the day the house was partitioned his nephew fell to his share.
But Harimohan knew his brother only too well. He spread the rumour that Jagmohan was scheming to secure his own livelihood by holding on to Sachish. He put on a look of injured i
nnocence and tearfully complained to everyone, ‘I am not heartless enough to deprive my elder brother of food and clothing, But I will never tolerate his diabolical effort to manipulate my son. Let me see how far his cunning goes.’
When friends carried word of these developments to Jagmohan he was stunned. He cursed his own stupidity for not having anticipated them. ‘Goodbye, Sachish,’ he said to his nephew.
Sachish realized that the anguish with which Jagmohan had bid him farewell forbade any remonstrance. He would now have to end an association that had lasted without interruption through the eighteen years of his life.
When Sachish put his box and bedding-roll on the roof of the hackney carriage and was driven off, Jagmohan went up to his room, bolted the door and collapsed on to the floor. Dusk fell, the old servant knocked to be let in so he could light the lamp, but there was no response.
The greatest good of the greatest number, indeed! The statistical calculations of science do not apply to the mysteries of human nature. The person who is a single unit in a census is beyond the reckoning of statistics in matters of the heart. Sachish could not be categorized in terms of statistical units—one, two, three . . . He rent Jagmohan’s heart and pervaded his whole world.
It hadn’t occurred to Jagmohan to ask Sachish why he had ordered a carriage and loaded his belongings into it. Instead of moving to his father’s half of the house Sachish went to a boarding-house where a friend of his lived, At the thought that one’s own son could turn into a total stranger Harimohan shed frequent tears. He was very tender-hearted!
Soon after the partitioning, Purandar, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, set up a permanent altar for idol-worship in his father’s half of the house and danced for joy at the thought that each morning and evening the noise of the ritual cymbals and conch-shells was driving his uncle to distraction.