Bipradas was never one for prayers and pujas; but today he prayed with folded hands.
All of a sudden he called out, ‘Doctor, please send for diwanjee.’
He recalled that a few days before he had come to Noornagar for the wedding, when he was worried about the money to be sent to Subodh, and worn out from thumbing through the books of account, he had a visitor at about eleven in the morning. It was someone in a state of total disrepair, a pinched face with several days’ growth of beard, hands with ropy veins, clad in a short dhoti and chadar and wearing a pair of torn sandals. He greeted Bipradas and said, ‘Baro Babu, do you remember me?’ Bipradas had looked carefully and then asked, ‘Is it Baikuntha?’
In a room next to the school building where he studied in his childhood, this Baikuntha used to sell school texts and exercise books, pens, knives, balls and bats, and tops along with peanuts packed in paper cones. The senior boys used to gather in this room for their adda sessions. No one could beat Baikuntha in the telling of absurd and weird stories.
Bipradas added, ‘How have you come to such a pass?’
Baikuntha than narrated his story—a few years back he had married his daughter into a well-to-do household. And because they had really no need for it, their demand for a dowry seemed to be a bit excessive. They settled for twelve hundred rupees in cash and eight kilos of gold in ornaments. Baikuntha had recklessly agreed to it for the sake of his favourite daughter. Because he was unable to gather together all of it at once, they tortured her and bled him dry. He soon went through all his resources, but still owed about two hundred and fifty rupees. So now the humiliation of the girl was complete. When it became too unbearable for her, she escaped to her father’s home. This was like a breach of the jail regulations by a prisoner, and this compounded her offence. The father could now think of his own escape from this world only if he could save this girl by paying up the remaining amount.
Bipradas could only smile faintly. In his present state, he could not even think of helping out this man all the way. He hesitated a little, then went in, took out his last ten-rupee note and gave it to Baikuntha. ‘Try a few more places, I can’t do more than this,’ he said.
Baikuntha did not believe him one bit. His slippers sounded most disgruntled as he dragged his feet on his way out.
Bipradas had forgotten this incident; but he suddenly recalled it today. He ordered the diwanjee, ‘Send two hundred and fifty rupees to Baikuntha right away.’ Diwanjee stood silently, scratching his head. The cost of the wedding rivalry had been met somehow, but it would still take quite a while to recover from it. And two hundred and fifty rupees at this point of time was a large sum for them to simply give away in charity!
Bipradas saw the expression on the treasurer’s face and took the diamond ring off his finger, ‘Take the money from what I have set aside in Chhoto Babu’s account, and let this ring be the surety. The two hundred and fifty rupees should be sent on behalf of Kumu,’ he said.
19
THE LAST EXPLOSIVE EPISODE OF THE WEDDING WAS STILL TO COME. The couple was to leave soon after the final ritual (which was to be held in the bride’s house) was over in the morning. Nabagopal had arranged things accordingly. But when they came out of Bipradas’s room the Rajabahadur announced that the final ritual—the kushandika—was to be held at his residence in Madhupuri.
The insolence of the proposal was too much for Nabagopal. If it were anyone else, it would surely have lead to a criminal action. As it was, the vehemence of his protest only stopped short of physical violence.
The womenfolk also took this departure from the norm seriously. Relations had gathered from far and wide to participate in the ritual. Amongst them were some not so friendly or considerate. And all this humiliation had to take place in front of them. Aunt Kshema sulked so much that she could barely utter the usual blessings. Everyone said that it would have been better if the rites were finished in the groom’s Kolkata home and not at his Noornagar residence. Kumu felt very small at this insult to her family. She felt as if she herself was guilty of offending her ancestors. In her own mind she remonstrated with her deity, ‘My lord, what sin have I committed to deserve this punishment? Did I not accept everything in good faith, as your command?’
The couple boarded the carriage and left her home. In Madhupuri the band that had come from Kolkata played a dance tune loudly. The holy fire was lit underneath a huge canopy. Some of the English guests—men and women—watched the ceremony from the comfort of upholstered sofas, some approached closer and leaned forward to watch the rituals. In between, cakes and biscuits arrived for them. A large wedding-cake adorned a teapoy nearby. At the end of the ceremony, when the guests started congratulating the newly-weds, Kumu was red in the face and hung her head in shame. A portly elderly woman lifted the end of Kumu’s Benarasi sari and examined it closely. Her thick gold armlet also attracted the woman’s curiosity enough for her to actually turn it round and round. She even had words of praise in English. Some of the English guests went up to Madhusudan and commented about the ceremony, ‘How interesting!’ and some others echoed, ‘Isn’t it?’
Kumu had witnessed how he had behaved with her brother and other relatives; now she saw the same Madhusudan with his English friends. Bowing with an effusion of politeness, he wore a perpetual grin of welcome. His character seemed to be like the moon, lit up on one side and perpetually dark on the other. Towards the British it was pleasant like the full moon, bright and soothing. The other side was unapproachable, unfathomable and impenetrable like a mass of frozen ice and this side seemed to be unwaveringly reserved for her brother and relatives.
Madhusudan chose to be with his English friends in the saloon car, leaving Kumu with the ladies in the other reserved compartment. Some of them felt her arms, some lifted her chin and analysed her features. Some said she was too tall and some others found her too thin. Some pretended to ask her naively, ‘What make-up do you use? Is it something sent from England by your brother?’ They came to the conclusion that her eyes were not large enough and that her stature was a bit too large for a woman.Then they got down to probing each item of her jewellery. Family jewellery it may be, heavy solid gold, but how old-fashioned!
The window in Kumu’s compartment opened out on the other side of the railway platform. She kept looking out of it, trying her best not to listen to anything that was being said by her fellow passengers. She saw a lame dog sniffing the ground for some food, hobbling on three legs. She thought it ironical that the loss of just one limb out of the four had made all that was easy for the dog, so very difficult now. Just then she heard a gentleman standing in front of the saloon car and pleading, ‘See this peasant girl was being lured away by agents of the tea estates of Assam. She has escaped from them, but she could only pay her fare up to Goalundo. Her home is in Dumraon in Bihar, if you gentlemen help her a little she can be free.’ She also heard a noisy rebuff from the saloon car. Kumu could not contain herself. She emptied her little purse and put a ten-rupee note in the hand of the girl and quickly shut the window. One woman spoke out, ‘Our new bride is indeed open-handed,’ ‘Yes , but it is opening the door to bankruptcy as well,’ said another. Yet another one added, ‘She has learnt well how to waste money, a little lesson in thrift would have been more useful.’ They thought it was a show of arrogance on her part. The menfolk did not spare a pice, but she had to throw ten rupees in their face and outdo them—that’s how they perceived it. They thought perhaps this was also a part of the Chatterjee-Ghoshal rivalry.
In the meantime a dark round girl with large eyes filled with tenderness, came and sat beside her. She whispered to Kumu, ‘Are you feeling homesick? Don’ t listen to these women. They will probe and gossip for a few days and when all the venom is out, they will stop on their own.’ This girl was the wife of Nabin, Madhusudan’s younger brother. Her name was Nistarini but everyone called her Motir-ma, that is, Moti’s mother.
She then went on to say, ‘The day we arrived in Noornagar
we saw your brother at the railway station.’
Kumu was startled.This was the first time she learnt about her brother’s visit to receive them at the railway station.
‘Oh he is so handsome! I was reminded of the kirtan which sings about the divine beauty of Gora—Sri Chaitanya—who swept the hearts of the housewives of Nadia.’
Kumu’s heart softened at that instant. She turned her face towards the window; tears blurring the landscape outside.
It did not take long for Motir-ma to realize that by mentioning Bipradas, she had hit upon the soft spot in Kumu’s mind. So she stuck to that topic and asked if he were married. Kumu replied in the negative. ‘What a pity!’ said Motir-ma. ‘No one yet to share the life of such a divinely handsome man! I wonder who that lucky woman will be!’
Meanwhile, Kumu was thinking of other things. ‘So he swallowed all his pride and went to meet them only for my sake. Yet these people did not have the courtesy to call on him even once. They dared insult such a person out of sheer money power! Maybe that is why his health broke down.’
Her regret would not leave her. ‘Why did Dada go to receive them? Why did he so humiliate himself? Wasn’t it all for my sake? I wish I were dead.’ Her mind went on torturing itself over all that which could not be undone. She kept recalling his sick and tired but calm face and his deep, gentle eyes full of compassion and blessing.
20
THETRAINREACHED HOWRAH STATION AT ABOUT FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON. Knotted up in scarves and wraps, the bride and the bridegroom climbed into the waiting Brougham. Kumu shrunk before the myriad eyes of Kolkata in daylight. How could she suddenly drop the extraordinary sense of purity that permeated the very existence of her nineteen years of maidenhood, which protected her like Karna’s charmed amulet. There must be a magic word which could take it off in a trice, only it had not yet touched her soul. In her heart of hearts, the man sitting next to her was still an outsider. Any effort by her family to come closer and forge bonds between the two households had only met with resistance on his part. The rudeness in his behaviour and expression pushed Kumu away as well every time.
On his part, Madhusudan felt as if Kumu was a novel discovery. He was a hardworking man who had had little time so far to come to know the female of the species. In the midst of his world of merchandise he had not even come across women of commerce. It is not as if no woman ever disturbed his peace of mind—the earth shook but the building was never damaged. He had very briefly met them in the environs of his household. They did their daily chores, quarrelled and gossiped and cried over trivial things. Contact with them was minimal in his world. He had expected that his wife would also be a part of that banal world, and lead a woman’s life, enveloped in trivial household chores, indirectly guided by the whims of menfolk. It had never entered his calculating head that to relate to one’s wife was also an art and that the husband-wife relationship was built on a foundation of understanding, trust and give and take. A butterfly is a useless luxury for a big tree, but it accepts the creature all the same. Madhusudan’s approach to his future wife was the same.
Then he met Kumu for the first time after the wedding. There is a kind of beauty which is akin to a divine presence, many times rarer than all that is common, and that which is above the usual happenings, exceeding one’s expectation every moment. Kumu’s beauty was of that kind. She was like the morning star, distinct from the night, yet, not of the day. Madusudan’s unconscious mind vaguely perceived her as better than himself. In such a frame of mind he found himself wondering how to behave with her, or what might be the appropriate words to use while addressing her.
At a loss to begin a conversation, he suddenly asked Kumu, ‘Is it too sunny on your side?’
Kumu said nothing. Madhusudan pulled the blinds down on the right window.
There was a long silence. He said, as suddenly, again, ‘Hope you are not feeling cold.’ And without waiting for an answer pulled his English rug over their feet, thus establishing the conjugality of a common cover. It thrilled his body and mind. A startled Kumu was about to remove the blanket but controlled herself and just stuck to the end of the seat.
They remained like this for some time, then Madhusudan suddenly noticed her hand. He took her left hand and said, ‘Let me see. What is this that you are wearing in your ring? Is it a blue sapphire?’
She kept quiet.
‘Look, you have to give it up. Sapphire is unlucky for me.’
At some point of time he had bought a sapphire, and the same year one of his trading boats full of jute had collided with the Howrah Bridge and sank. Since then he had never forgiven that precious stone.
Kumudini tried slowly to free her hand, but Madhusudan would not let go, ‘Let me take this ring off.’
‘No,’ said Kumu. Once she beat her brother in a game of chess and he had put this ring on her finger, as a prize.
Madhusudan was amused. So she was quite possessive about the ring, he said to himself. He felt more at ease having discovered what he thought to be a common trait between them. He reckoned that the way to win her out of her sulk now and then would be easy, by way of ornaments for her ears, her neck, her arms, or her wrists. Maybe he was a little too old for her but no one could deny his supremacy on this count.
He took off a large diamond ring which he was wearing and said, ‘Don’t worry, I shall put on another ring in place of this one.’
Kumu could take it no longer. She pulled her hand free. This stung Madhusudan to the quick. He was not one to tolerate defiance of his authority. He said sternly in a dry voice, ‘You have got to part with that ring.’
She hung her head, red in the face.
Madhusudan insisted, ‘Are you listening? I say it is better taken off. Give it to me,’ and he stretched his hand to pull it out.
Kumu waved her hand out of his reach and said, ‘I shall take it off.’ And she did.
‘Give it to me,’ he said.
‘I shall keep it with me,’ she replied.
Madhusudan was annoyed. ‘What is the point of keeping it with you? Perhaps you think it is very valuable, but I must make it clear that I shall never let you wear it.’
‘I shall not wear it,’ she repeated, and put it by in her little bead purse.
’Why are you so attached to this trifle? You seem to be very obstinate as well.’
His voice was abrasive, like sand-paper. Kumu’s whole being revolted at his tone.
‘Who gave you this ring?’
There was no answer from her.
‘Was it your mother?’
There was no avoiding a reply any longer; so she said in an undertone, ‘Dada.’ Of course it had to be the brother! Madhusudan was well aware of Bipradas’s situation. This ring of her Dada itself was the key to disaster and Bipradas’s plight. It must not come into this house by any means. But what irked him most was that the brother was still dearest to her. It is not always easy to accept something only because it is natural. It was something like the annoyance felt by the new landlord who has acquired at an auction an old estate, but faces the new tenants sighing for the old times. He had to impress upon his new wife in every way possible, that from now on he and he alone was to be her sole concern. Besides, it was difficult for him to believe that Bipradas was not a party to the humiliation suffered by the groom’s party on the day of the feast before the wedding day. This even when Nabagopal had told him the day after the wedding, ‘My dear man, let not Dada know about the manners of the rice merchant that you displayed during the wedding. He does not know anything about it, nor is he in good health.’
So the matter of the ring was rested for now, but not forgotten.
Apart from her beauty, one other factor suddenly raised Kumu’s stock. Whilst still in Noornagar Madhusudan got a telegram to say that he had made a profit of twenty lakhs in his export deals. Doubtless his new bride was lucky. It proved the popular adage that the wife’s luck was a man’s fortune. So driving with Kumudini by his side he had the supreme satisfac
tion of coming home with a live guarantee of future gains issued to him by the gods.
Otherwise, this brougham journey might have had an accidental end.
21
SOON AFTER HE WAS AWARDED THE TITLE ‘RAJA’, THE GHOSHAL RESIDENCE in Kolkata had a new name engraved: ‘Madhuprasad’—the Madhu Palace. By the iron gate of this palace an Indian orchestra played on one side and an English band played from a tent in the garden. On the top of the gate was a semi-circular sign displaying an invocation to the god of marrriage—‘prajapataye namah’. In the evening this would be lit up by gaslight. The gravelled driveway from the gate into the house was festooned on both sides with garlands of marigold and deodar leaves. The steps to the first floor were carpeted in red shallon. The bridal carriage arrived at the portico making its way through a crowd of friends and relatives. Conch-shells, ullulations, drums, gongs and the Indian and the English bands blared forth all at once. It seemed as if ten to fifteen differently sounding goods trains had collided at the same place at the same time.
A distant and elderly grandaunt of Madhusudan’s came forward to ritually welcome the new bride. She was in a wide red-bordered sari, wearing on her hair the sign of a married woman, the vermillion mark, which was as wide as her receding parting. She wore thick gold bangles and conch-shell bracelets on her stout arms. She sprinkled some water from a silver ewer on the bride’s feet, slid on the traditional flat iron bangle on her wrist and a touch of honey. She said, ‘How wonderful, at long last the full moon is up in our own blue sky and a golden lotus has bloomed in our blue pond.’