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| {{title | | {{TextQuality|75%}}{{title |
| | title = Broken Ties | | | title = Broken Ties |
| | author = Rabindranath Tagore | | | author = Rabindranath Tagore |
| | translator = | | | translator = |
| | lang = | | | lang = English |
| | section = | | | section = |
| | previous = | | | previous = |
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| == Broken Ties == | | <div class="text"> |
| | * [[/Chapter I|Chapter I. Uncle]] |
| | * [[/Chapter II|Chapter II. Satish]] |
| | * [[/Chapter III|Chapter III. Damini]] |
| | * [[/Chapter IV|Chapter IV. Srivilas]] |
| | </div> |
|
| |
|
| CHAPTER I
| | {{PD-India}} |
| | | {{PD-pma|1941}} |
| UNCLE
| | [[Category:Rabindranath Tagore]] |
| | | [[Category:1925]] |
| I
| | [[Category:Works originally in Bengali]] |
| | |
| When I first met Satish he appeared to me like a constellation of
| |
| stars, his eyes shining, his tapering fingers like flames of fire, his
| |
| face glowing with a youthful radiance. I was surprised to find that
| |
| most of his fellow-students hated him, for no other fault than that he
| |
| resembled himself more than he resembled others. Because with men, as
| |
| well as with some insects, taking the colour of the surroundings is
| |
| often the best means of self-protection.
| |
| | |
| The students in the hostel where I lived could easily guess my
| |
| reverence for Satish. This caused them discomfort, and they never
| |
| missed an opportunity of reviling him in my hearing. If you have a
| |
| speck of grit in your eye it is best not to rub it. And when words
| |
| smart it is best to leave them unanswered.
| |
| | |
| But one day the calumny against Satish was so gross that I could not
| |
| remain silent.
| |
| | |
| Yet the trouble was that I hardly knew anything about Satish. We never
| |
| had even a word between us, while some of the other students were his
| |
| close neighbours, and some his distant relatives. These affirmed,
| |
| with assurance, that what they said was true; and I affirmed, with
| |
| even greater assurance, that it was incredible. Then all the residents
| |
| of the hostel bared their arms, and cried: 'What impertinence!'
| |
| | |
| That night I was vexed to tears. Next day, in an interval between
| |
| lectures, when Satish was reading a book lying at full length on the
| |
| grass in College Square, I went up to him without any introduction,
| |
| and spoke to him in a confused manner, scarcely knowing what I said.
| |
| Satish shut his book, and looked in my face. Those who have not seen
| |
| his eyes will not know what that look was like.
| |
| | |
| Satish said to me: 'Those who libel me do so, not because they love to
| |
| know the truth, but because they love to believe evil of me. Therefore
| |
| it is useless to try to prove to them that the calumny is untrue.'
| |
| | |
| 'But,' I said,'the liars must be---'
| |
| | |
| 'They are not liars,' interrupted Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'I have a neighbour,' he went on, 'who has epileptic fits. Last winter
| |
| I gave him a blanket. My servant came to me in a furious temper, and
| |
| told me that the boy only feigned the disease. These students who
| |
| malign me are like that servant of mine. They believe what they say.
| |
| Possibly my fate has awarded me an extra blanket which they think
| |
| would have suited them better.'
| |
| | |
| I asked him a question: 'Is it true what they say, that you are an
| |
| atheist?'
| |
| | |
| He said: 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| I bent my head to the ground. I had been arguing with my
| |
| fellow-students that Satish could not possibly be an atheist.
| |
| | |
| I had received two severe blows at the outset of my short acquaintance
| |
| with Satish. I had imagined that he was a Brahman, but I had come to
| |
| know that Satish belonged to a Bania family, and I in whose veins
| |
| flowed a bluer blood was bound duly to despise all Banias. Secondly, I
| |
| had a rooted belief that atheists were worse than murderers, nay,
| |
| worse even than beef-eaters.
| |
| | |
| Nobody could have imagined, even in a dream, that I would ever sit
| |
| down and take my meals with a Bania student, or that my fanatical zeal
| |
| in the creed of atheism would surpass even that of my instructor. Yet
| |
| both these things came to pass.
| |
| | |
| Wilkins was our professor in the College. His learning was on a level
| |
| with his contempt for his pupils. He felt that it was a menial
| |
| occupation to teach literature to Bengali students. Therefore, in our
| |
| Shakespeare class, he would give us the synonym for 'cat' as 'a
| |
| quadruped of the feline species.' But Satish was excused from taking
| |
| notes. The Professor told him: 'I will make good to you the hours
| |
| wasted in this class when you come to my room.'
| |
| | |
| The other less favoured students used to ascribe this indulgent
| |
| treatment of Satish to his fair complexion and to his profession of
| |
| atheism. Some of the more worldly-wise among them went to Wilkins's
| |
| study with a great show of enthusiasm to borrow from him some book on
| |
| Positivism. But he refused, saying that it would be too hard for them.
| |
| That they should be held unfit even to cultivate atheism made their
| |
| minds all the more bitter against Satish.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| II
| |
| | |
| | |
| Jagamohan was Satish's uncle. He was a notorious atheist of that time.
| |
| It would be inadequate to say that he did not believe in God. One
| |
| ought rather to say that he vehemently believed in no God. As the
| |
| business of a captain in the navy is rather to sink ships than to
| |
| steer, so it was Jagamohan's business to sink the creed of theism,
| |
| wherever it put its head above the water.
| |
| | |
| The order of his arguments ran like this:
| |
| | |
| (1) If there be a God, then we must owe our intelligence to Him.
| |
| | |
| (2) But our intelligence clearly tells us that there is no God.
| |
| | |
| (3) Therefore God Himself tells us that there is no God.
| |
| | |
| 'Yet you Hindus,' he would continue, 'have the effrontery to say that
| |
| God exists. For this sin thirty-three million gods and goddesses exact
| |
| penalties from you people, pulling your ears hard for your
| |
| disobedience.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan was married when he was a mere boy. Before his wife died he
| |
| had read Malthus. He never married again.
| |
| | |
| His younger brother, Harimohan, was the father of Satish. Harimohan's
| |
| nature was so exactly the opposite of his elder brother's, that people
| |
| might suspect me of fabricating it for the purpose of writing a story.
| |
| But only stories have to be always on their guard to sustain their
| |
| reader's confidence. Facts have no such responsibility, and laugh at
| |
| our incredulity. So, in this world, there are abundant instances of
| |
| two brothers, the exact opposites of one another, like morning and
| |
| evening.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan, in his infancy, had been a weakly child. His parents had
| |
| tried to keep him safe from the attacks of all maladies by barricading
| |
| him behind amulets and charms, dust taken from holy shrines, and
| |
| blessings bought from innumerable Brahmans at enormous expense. When
| |
| Harimohan grew up, he was physically quite robust, yet the tradition
| |
| of his poor health lingered on in the family. So nobody claimed from
| |
| him anything more arduous than that he should continue to live. He
| |
| fulfilled his part, and did hold on to his life. Yet he never allowed
| |
| his family to forget for a moment that life in his case was more
| |
| fragile than in most other mortals. Thus he managed to divert towards
| |
| himself the undivided attention of all his aunts and his mother, and
| |
| had specially prepared meals served to him. He had less work and more
| |
| rest than other members of the family. He was never allowed to forget
| |
| that he was under the special protection, not only of his aforesaid
| |
| mother and aunts, but also of the countless gods and goddesses
| |
| presiding in the three regions of earth, heaven, and air. He thus
| |
| acquired an attitude of prayerful dependence towards all the powers of
| |
| the world, both seen and unseen,--sub-inspectors, wealthy neighbours,
| |
| highly placed officials, let alone sacred cows and Brahmans.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan's anxieties went altogether in an opposite direction. He
| |
| would give a wide berth to men of power, lest the slightest suspicion
| |
| of snobbishness should cling to him. It was this same sentiment which
| |
| had greatly to do with his defiance of the gods. His knees were too
| |
| stiff to bend before those from whom favour could be expected.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan got himself married at the proper time, that is to say, long
| |
| before the time. After three sisters and three brothers, Satish was
| |
| born. Everybody was struck by his resemblance to his uncle, and
| |
| Jagamohan took possession of him, as if he were his own son.
| |
| | |
| At first Harimohan was glad of this, having regard to the educational
| |
| advantage of the arrangement; for Jagamohan had the reputation of
| |
| being the most eminent scholar of that period.
| |
| | |
| He seemed to live within the shell of his English books. It was easy
| |
| to find the rooms he occupied in the house by the rows of books about
| |
| the walls, just as it is easy to find out the bed of a stream by its
| |
| lines of pebbles.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan petted and spoilt his eldest son, Purandar, to his heart's
| |
| content. He had an impression that Purandar was too delicate to
| |
| survive the shock of being denied anything he wanted. His education
| |
| was neglected. No time was lost in getting him married, and yet nobody
| |
| could keep him within the connubial limits. If Harimohan's
| |
| daughter-in-law expressed any disapprobation of his vagaries in that
| |
| direction,
| |
| | |
| Harimohan would get angry with her and ascribe his son's conduct to
| |
| her want of tact and charm.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan entirely took charge of Satish to save him from similar
| |
| paternal solicitude. Satish acquired a mastery of the English language
| |
| while he was still a child, and the inflammatory doctrines of Mill and
| |
| Bentham set his brain on fire, till he began to burn like a living
| |
| torch of atheism.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan treated Satish, not as his junior, but as his boon
| |
| companion. He held the opinion that veneration in human nature was a
| |
| superstition, specially designed to make men into slaves. Some
| |
| son-in-law of the family wrote to him a letter, with the usual formal
| |
| beginning:
| |
| | |
| 'To the gracious feet of----'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan wrote an answer, arguing with him as follows:
| |
| | |
| MY DEAR NOREN--Neither you nor I know what special significance it
| |
| gives to the feet to call them 'gracious.' Therefore the epithet is
| |
| worse than useless, and had better be dropped. And then it is apt to
| |
| give one a nervous shock when you address your letter only to the
| |
| feet, completely ignoring their owner. But you should understand, that
| |
| so long as my feet are attached to my body, you should never
| |
| dissociate them from their context.
| |
| | |
| Next, you should bear in mind that human feet have not the advantage
| |
| of prehensibility, and it is sheer madness to offer anything to them,
| |
| confounding their natural function.
| |
| | |
| Lastly, your use of the plural inflection to the word 'feet,' instead
| |
| of the dual, may denote special reverence on your part (because there
| |
| are animals with four feet which have your particular veneration) but
| |
| I consider it my duty to disabuse your mind of all errors concerning
| |
| my own zoological identity.--Yours, JAGAMOHAN.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan used to discuss with Satish subjects which are usually kept
| |
| out of sight in conversation. If people objected to this plainness of
| |
| speech with one so young, he would say that you can only drive away
| |
| hornets by breaking in their nest. So you can only drive away the
| |
| shamefulness of certain subjects by piercing through the shame itself.
| |
| | |
| When Satish had completed his College course, Harimohan tried his best
| |
| to extricate him from his uncle's sphere of influence. But when once
| |
| the noose is fixed round the neck, it only grows tighter by pulling at
| |
| it. Harimohan became more and more annoyed at his brother, the more
| |
| Satish proved recalcitrant. If this atheism of his son and elder
| |
| brother had been merely a matter of private opinion, Harimohan could
| |
| have tolerated it. He was quite ready to pass off dishes of fowl as
| |
| 'kid curry.' [Footnote: In Bengal kid curry is often eaten without
| |
| blame. But fowl curry would come within the prohibitions.] But matters
| |
| had now become so desperate that even lies became powerless to
| |
| whitewash the culprits. What brought things to a head was this:
| |
| | |
| The positive side of Jagamohan's atheistic creed consisted in doing
| |
| good to others. He felt a special pride in it, because doing good, for
| |
| an atheist, was a matter of unmitigated loss. It had no allurements of
| |
| merit and no deterrents of punishment in the hereafter. If he was
| |
| asked what concern he had in bringing about'the greatest happiness of
| |
| the greatest number,' he used to answer that his best incentive was
| |
| that he could expect nothing in return. He would say to Satish:
| |
| | |
| 'Baba, [Footnote: A term of endearment, literally 'father.'] we are
| |
| atheists. And therefore the very pride of it should keep us absolutely
| |
| stainless. Because we have no respect for any being higher than
| |
| ourselves, therefore we must respect ourselves.'
| |
| | |
| There were some leather shops in the neighbourhood kept by
| |
| Muhammadans. The uncle and nephew bestirred themselves with great zeal
| |
| in doing good to these Muhammadans and their untouchable leather
| |
| workers! [Footnote: As leather is made from the hides of dead
| |
| animals, those who work in leather are regarded as unclean by orthodox
| |
| Hindus. Only the very lowest castes are tanners.] This made Harimohan
| |
| beside himself with indignation. Since he knew that any appeal to
| |
| Scriptures, or to tradition, would have no effect upon these two
| |
| renegades, he complained to his brother concerning the wasting of his
| |
| patrimony.
| |
| | |
| 'When my expenditure,' his brother answered, 'comes up to the amount
| |
| you have spent upon your full-fed Brahman priests, we shall be quits.'
| |
| | |
| One day Harimohan's people were surprised to find that a preparation
| |
| was going on in Jaga-mohan's quarters for a grand feast. The cooks and
| |
| waiters were all Mussulmans. Harimohan called for his son, and said to
| |
| him angrily:
| |
| | |
| 'I hear that you are going to give a feast to all your reverend
| |
| friends, the leather workers.'
| |
| | |
| Satish replied that he was far too poor to think of it. His uncle had
| |
| invited them. Purandar, Satish's elder brother, was equally
| |
| indignant. He threatened to drive all the unclean guests away. When
| |
| Harimohan expressed his protest to his brother, he answered:
| |
| | |
| 'I never make any objection to your offering food to your idols. You
| |
| should make no objection to my offering food to my gods.'
| |
| | |
| 'Your gods!' exclaimed Harimohan.
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, my gods,' his brother answered.
| |
| | |
| 'Have you become a theist all of a sudden?' sneered Harimohan.
| |
| | |
| 'No!' his brother replied. 'Theists worship the God who is invisible.
| |
| You idolaters worship gods who are visible, but dumb and deaf. The
| |
| gods I worship are both visible and audible, and it is impossible not
| |
| to believe in them.'
| |
| | |
| 'Do you really mean to say,' cried Harimohan, 'that these leather
| |
| workers and Mussulmans are your gods?'
| |
| | |
| 'Indeed, they are,' said Jagamohan; 'you shall see their miraculous
| |
| power when I put food before them. They will actually swallow it,
| |
| which I defy your gods to do. It delights my heart to see my gods
| |
| perform such divine wonders. If you are not morally blind, it will
| |
| delight your heart also.'
| |
| | |
| Purandar came to his uncle, and told him in a high-pitched voice that
| |
| he was prepared to take desperate measures to stop the proceedings.
| |
| Jagamohan laughed at him, and said:
| |
| | |
| 'You monkey! If you ever try to lay hands on my gods, you will
| |
| instantly discover how powerful they are, and I shall not have to do
| |
| anything to defend them.'
| |
| | |
| Purandar was even a greater coward than his father. He was a tyrant
| |
| only where he was sure of receiving submission. In this case he did
| |
| not dare to pick a quarrel with his Muhammadan neighbours. So he came
| |
| to Satish, and reviled him. Satish gazed at him with those wonderful
| |
| eyes of his, and remained silent.
| |
| | |
| The feast was a great success.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| III
| |
| | |
| | |
| Harimohan could not take this insult passively. He declared war. The
| |
| property on whose income the whole family subsisted was a temple
| |
| endowment. Harimohan brought a suit in the law court against his
| |
| brother, accusing him of such grave breaches of propriety as made him
| |
| unworthy of remaining the trustee of a religious endowment. Harimohan
| |
| had as many witnesses as ever he wished. The whole Hindu neighbourhood
| |
| was ready to support him.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan professed in open court that he had no faith in gods or
| |
| idols of any description whatever; that all eatable food was for him
| |
| food to be eaten; that he never bothered his head to find out the
| |
| particular limb of Brahma from which the Muhammadans had issued, and
| |
| therefore he had not the smallest hesitation in taking food in their
| |
| company.
| |
| | |
| The judge ruled Jagamohan to be unfit to hold the temple property.
| |
| Jagamohan's lawyers assured him that the decision could be upset by an
| |
| appeal to the higher Court. But Jagamohan refused to appeal. He said
| |
| he could not cheat even the gods whom he did not believe in. Only
| |
| those who had the intelligence to believe such things had the
| |
| conscience to cheat them.
| |
| | |
| His friends asked him: 'How are you going to maintain yourself?'
| |
| | |
| He answered: 'If I have nothing else to eat, I shall be content to
| |
| gulp down my last breath.'
| |
| | |
| After this, a partition was made of the family house. A wall was
| |
| raised from the ground floor to the upper storey, dividing the house
| |
| into two parts.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan had great faith in the selfish sanity of prudence in human
| |
| nature. He was certain that the savour of good living would tempt
| |
| Satish into his golden trap, away from the empty nest of Jagamohan.
| |
| But Satish gave another proof that he had neither inherited his
| |
| father's conscience nor his sanity. He remained with his uncle.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan was so accustomed to look upon Satish as his own that he was
| |
| not surprised to find him remaining on his side after the partition.
| |
| | |
| But Harimohan knew his brother's temperament very well. He went about
| |
| talking to people, explaining that the reason why Jagamohan did not
| |
| let go his hold on Satish was that he expected to make a good thing
| |
| out of Satish's presence, keeping him as a kind of hostage.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan almost shed tears while he said to his neighbour: 'Could my
| |
| brother ever imagine that I was going to starve him? Since he is
| |
| cunning enough to concoct this diabolical plot against me, I shall
| |
| wait and see whether he is cleverer than I am.'
| |
| | |
| Harimohan's talk about Satish reached Jaga-mohan's ears. Jagamohan was
| |
| surprised at his own stupidity in not anticipating such a turn of
| |
| events.
| |
| | |
| He said: 'Good-bye, Satish.'
| |
| | |
| Satish was absolutely certain that nothing could make Jagamohan change
| |
| his mind, so he had to take his leave, after having spent his eighteen
| |
| years of life in his uncle's company.
| |
| | |
| When Satish had put his books and bedding on the top of the carriage,
| |
| and driven away, Jagamohan shut the door of his room, and flung
| |
| himself on the floor. When evening came, and the old servant knocked
| |
| at the door with the lighted lamp, he got no answer.
| |
| | |
| Alas for the greatest happiness of the greatest number! The estimate
| |
| in number is not the only measure of human affairs. The man who counts
| |
| 'one' may go beyond all arithmetic when the heart does the sum. When
| |
| Satish took his departure, he at once became infinite to Jagamohan.
| |
| | |
| Satish went into a students' lodging to share a room with one of his
| |
| friends. Harimohan shed tears while meditating on the neglect of
| |
| filial duties in this god-forsaken age. Harimohan had a very tender
| |
| heart.
| |
| | |
| After the partition, Purandar dedicated a room in their portion of the
| |
| house to the family god. It gave him a peculiar pleasure to know that
| |
| his uncle must be execrating him for the noise raised every morning
| |
| and every evening by the sacred conches and prayer gongs.
| |
| | |
| In order to maintain himself, Satish secured a post as a private
| |
| tutor. Jagamohan obtained an appointment as head master of a high
| |
| school. And it became a religious duty with Harimohan and Purandar to
| |
| persuade parents and guardians to take away their boys from the malign
| |
| influence of the atheist Jagamohan.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| IV
| |
| | |
| | |
| One day, after a very long interval of absence, Satish came to
| |
| Jagamohan. These two had given up the usual form of greeting
| |
| [Footnote: This greeting in Bengal is for the younger to touch the | |
| feet of the elder.] which passes between elder and younger.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan embraced Satish, led him to a chair, and asked him for the
| |
| news.
| |
| | |
| There was news indeed!
| |
| | |
| A girl named Nonibala had taken shelter with her widowed mother in the
| |
| house of the mother's brother. So long as her mother lived, there was
| |
| no trouble. But a short time ago her mother had died. Her cousins were
| |
| rascals. One of their friends had taken away this girl. Then,
| |
| suspecting her of infidelity, after a while he made her life a
| |
| constant torture. This had happened in the house next to the one where
| |
| Satish had his tutorship. Satish wanted to save her from this misery,
| |
| but he had no money or shelter of his own. Therefore he had come to
| |
| his uncle. The girl was about to give birth to a child.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan, when he heard the story, was filled with indignation. He
| |
| was not the man to calculate coldly the consequence of his deeds, and
| |
| he at once said to his nephew: 'I have the room in which I keep my
| |
| books. I can put the girl there.'
| |
| | |
| 'But what about your books?' Satish asked in surprise. Very few books,
| |
| however, were now remaining. During the time when he had been unable
| |
| to secure an appointment, he had been obliged to eke out a living by
| |
| selling his books.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan said: 'Bring the girl at once.'
| |
| | |
| 'She is waiting downstairs,' said Satish. 'I have brought her here.'
| |
| Jagamohan ran downstairs, and found the girl crouching in the corner,
| |
| wrapped in her _sari_, looking like a bundle of clothes.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan, in his deep bass voice, said at once: 'Come, little Mother,
| |
| why do you sit in the dust?'
| |
| | |
| The girl covered her face, and burst into tears. Jagamohan was not a
| |
| man to give way to emotion, but his eyes were wet as he turned to
| |
| Satish and said: 'The burden that this girl is bearing is ours.'
| |
| | |
| Then he said to the girl: 'Mother, don't be shy on my account. My
| |
| schoolfellows used to call me "Mad Jagai," and I am the same madcap
| |
| even now.'
| |
| | |
| Then, without hesitation, he took the girl by both her hands, and
| |
| raised her. The veil dropped from off her face.
| |
| | |
| The girl's face was fresh and young, and there was no line of hardness
| |
| or vice in it. The inner purity of her heart had not been stained,
| |
| just as a speck of dust does not soil a flower. Jagamohan took
| |
| Nonibala to his upper room, and said to her: 'Mother, look what a
| |
| state my room is in! The floor is all unswept. Everything is upside
| |
| down; and as for myself, I have no fixed hour for my bath or my meals.
| |
| Now that you have come to my house, everything will be put right, and
| |
| even this mad Jagai will be made respectable.'
| |
| | |
| Nonibala had never felt before, even when her mother lived, how much
| |
| one person could be to another; because her mother had looked upon
| |
| her, not so much as a daughter, but as a young girl who had to be
| |
| watched.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan employed an elderly woman servant to help Nonibala. At first
| |
| Noni was afraid lest Jagamohan should refuse to take food from her
| |
| hand because of her impurity. But it turned out that Jagamohan refused
| |
| to take his meals unless they were cooked and served by Noni.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan was aware that a great wave of calumny was about to break
| |
| over his head. Noni also felt that it was inevitable, and she had no
| |
| peace of mind. Within a day or two it began.
| |
| | |
| The servant who waited on her had at first supposed that Noni was
| |
| Jagamohan's daughter. But she came one day, saying hard things to
| |
| Noni, and resigned her service in contempt. Noni became pale with
| |
| fear, thinking of Jagamohan.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan said to her: 'My little Mother, the full moon is up in the
| |
| horizon of mr life, so the time is ripe for the flood-tide of
| |
| revilement. But, however muddy the water may become, it will never
| |
| stain my moonlight.'
| |
| | |
| An aunt of Jagamohan's came to Harimohan's quarters, and said to him:
| |
| 'Jagai, what a disgrace, what a disgrace! Wipe off this stain of sin
| |
| from your house.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan answered: 'You are pious people, and this advice is worthy
| |
| of you. But if I try to drive away all relics of sin, what will become
| |
| of the sinner?'
| |
| | |
| Some old grandmother of a woman came to him, and said: 'Send this
| |
| wench away to the hospital. Harimohan is ready to bear all the cost.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan said: 'But she is my mother. Because some one is ready to
| |
| pay expenses, should I send my mother to the hospital?'
| |
| | |
| The grandmother opened her eyes wide with surprise and said: 'Who is
| |
| this you call your mother?'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan replied: 'Her who nourished life within her womb, and risks
| |
| her life to give birth to children. I cannot call that
| |
| scoundrel-father of the child "Father." He can only cause trouble,
| |
| keeping himself safely out of it.'
| |
| | |
| Harimohan's whole body shrank with the utter infamy of the thing. That
| |
| a fallen woman should be sheltered only on the other side of the wall,
| |
| and in the midst of a household sacred to the memory of generations of
| |
| mothers and grandmothers! The disgrace was intolerable.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan at once surmised that Satish was mixed up in this affair,
| |
| and that his uncle was encouraging him in his shameful conduct. He was
| |
| so sure of his facts that he went about spreading the news. Jagamohan
| |
| did not say a single word to contradict him.
| |
| | |
| 'For us atheists,' he said,'the only heaven waiting for good deeds is
| |
| calumny.'
| |
| | |
| The more the rumour of Jagamohan's doings became distorted, the more
| |
| he seemed to enjoy it, and his laughter rang loud in the sky.
| |
| Harimohan and respectable people of his class could never imagine that
| |
| the uncle could go so far as to jest openly on such a subject, and
| |
| indulge in loud unseemly buffoonery about it with his own nephew.
| |
| | |
| Though Purandar had been carefully avoiding that part of the house
| |
| where his uncle lived, he vowed that he would never rest till he had
| |
| driven the girl away from her shelter.
| |
| | |
| At the time when Jagamohan had to go to his school he would shut up
| |
| all access to his quarters, and he would come back the moment he had
| |
| any leisure to see how Noni was faring.
| |
| | |
| One day at noon Purandar, with the help of a bamboo ladder, crossed
| |
| the boundary wall and jumped down into Jagamohan's part of the house.
| |
| Nonibala had been resting after the morning meal. The door of her
| |
| room was open. Purandar, when he saw the sleeping figure of Noni, gave
| |
| a great start, and shouted out in anger: 'So _you_ are here, are you?'
| |
| | |
| Noni woke up and saw Purandar before her. She became pale as death,
| |
| and her limbs shrank under her. She felt powerless to run away or to
| |
| utter a single word.
| |
| | |
| Purandar, trembling with rage, shouted out: 'Noni!'
| |
| | |
| Just then Jagamohan entered the room from behind, and cried: 'Get out
| |
| of this room.'
| |
| | |
| Purandar's whole body began to swell up like an angry cat.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan said: 'If you don't get out at once, I will call in the
| |
| police.'
| |
| | |
| Purandar darted a terrible glance at Noni, and went out. Noni fainted.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan now understood the whole situation. By questioning, he
| |
| found out that Satish had been aware that Purandar had seduced Noni;
| |
| but, fearing an angry brawl, he had not informed Jagamohan of the
| |
| fact.
| |
| | |
| For days after this incident Noni trembled like a bamboo leaf. Then
| |
| she gave birth to a dead child.
| |
| | |
| One midnight Purandar had driven Noni away from her room, kicking her
| |
| in anger. Since then he had sought her in vain. When he suddenly found
| |
| her in his uncle's house, he was seized with an uncontrollable passion
| |
| of jealousy. He was sure that Satish had enticed her away from him, to
| |
| keep her for his own pleasure, and had then put her in the very next
| |
| house to his own in order to insult him. This was more than any mortal
| |
| man could bear.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan heard all about it. Indeed, Purandar never took any pains to
| |
| hide these doings from his father, for his father looked upon his
| |
| son's moral aberrations with a kindly indulgence. But Harimohan
| |
| thought it contrary to all notions of decency for Satish to snatch
| |
| away this girl whom his elder brother, Purandar, had looked upon with
| |
| favour. He devoutly hoped that Purandar would be successful in
| |
| recovering his spoil.
| |
| | |
| It was the time of the Christmas holidays. Jagamohan attended Noni
| |
| night and day. One evening he was translating a novel of Sir Walter
| |
| Scott's to her, when Purandar burst into the room with another young
| |
| man.
| |
| | |
| When Jagamohan was about to call for the police, the young man said:
| |
| 'I am Noni's cousin. I have come to take her away.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan caught hold of Purandar by his neck, and shoved him out of
| |
| the room and down the stairs. He then turned to the other young man
| |
| and said: 'You are a villain and a scoundrel! You assert this cousin's
| |
| right of yours to wreck her life, not to protect her.'
| |
| | |
| The young man hurried away. But when he had got to a safe distance, he
| |
| threatened Jagamohan with legal steps in order to rescue his ward.
| |
| | |
| Noni said within herself: 'O Earth, open and swallow me up!'
| |
| [Footnote: The reference is to Sita in the Ramayana, who uttered this | |
| cry when in extreme trouble.]
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan called Satish, and said to him: 'Let me leave this place and
| |
| go to some up-country town with Noni. It will kill her if this is
| |
| repeated.'
| |
| | |
| Satish urged that his brother was certain to follow her when once he
| |
| had got the clue.
| |
| | |
| 'Then what do you propose?' said Jagamohan.
| |
| | |
| 'Let me marry Noni,' was the answer.
| |
| | |
| 'Marry Noni!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, according to the civil marriage rites.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan stood up and went to Satish, and pressed him to his heart.
| |
| | |
| Since the partition of the house, Harimohan had not once entered the
| |
| house to see his elder brother. But that day he came in, dishevelled,
| |
| and said:
| |
| | |
| 'Dada, [Footnote: Elder brother.] what disaster is this you are
| |
| planning?'
| |
| | |
| 'I am saving everybody from disaster,' said Jagamohan.
| |
| | |
| 'Satish is just like a son to you,' said Harimohan, 'and yet you can
| |
| have the heart to see him married to that woman of the street!'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes,' he replied, 'I have brought him up almost as my own son, and I
| |
| consider that my pains have borne fruit at last.'
| |
| | |
| 'Dada,' said Harimohan, 'I humbly acknowledge my defeat at your hands.
| |
| I am willing to write away half my property to you, if only you will
| |
| not take revenge on me like this.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan started up from his chair and bellowed out:
| |
| | |
| 'You want to throw me your dirty leavings, as you throw a dog a bone!
| |
| I am an atheist--remember that! I am not a pious man like you! I
| |
| neither take revenge, nor beg for favours.'
| |
| | |
| Harimohan hastened round to Satish's lodgings. He cried out to him:
| |
| | |
| 'Satish! What in the world are you going to do? Can you think of no
| |
| other way of ruining yourself? Are you determined to plunge the whole
| |
| family into this hideous shame?'
| |
| | |
| Satish answered: 'I have no particular desire to marry. I only do it
| |
| in order to save my family from hideous shame.'
| |
| | |
| Harimohan shouted: 'Have you not got the least spark of conscience
| |
| left in you? That girl, who is almost like a wife to your brother--'
| |
| | |
| Satish caught him up sharply: 'What? Like a wife. Not that word, sir,
| |
| if you please!'
| |
| | |
| After that, Harimohan became wildly abusive in his language, and
| |
| Satish remained silent.
| |
| | |
| What troubled Harimohan most was that Purandar openly advertised his
| |
| intention to commit suicide if Satish married Noni. Purandar's wife
| |
| told him that this would solve a difficult problem--if only he would
| |
| have the courage to do it.
| |
| | |
| Satish sedulously avoided Noni all these days, but, when the proposed
| |
| marriage was settled, Jagamohan asked Satish that Noni and he should
| |
| try to know each other better before they were united in wedlock.
| |
| Satish consented.
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan fixed a date for their first talk together. He said to Noni:
| |
| | |
| 'My little Mother, you must dress yourself up for this occasion.'
| |
| | |
| Noni bent her eyes to the ground.
| |
| | |
| 'No, no,' said he,'don't be shy, Noni. I have a great longing to see
| |
| you nicely dressed, and you must satisfy my desire.'
| |
| | |
| He had specially selected some Benares silk and a bodice and veil for
| |
| Noni. He gave these things to her.
| |
| | |
| Noni prostrated herself at his feet. This made Jagamohan get up
| |
| hurriedly. He snatched away his feet from her embrace, and said:
| |
| | |
| 'I see, Noni, I have miserably failed in clearing your mind of all
| |
| this superstitious reverence. I may be your elder in age, but don't
| |
| you know you are greater than I am, for you are my mother?'
| |
| | |
| He kissed her on her forehead and said:
| |
| | |
| 'I have had an invitation to go out, and I shall be late back this
| |
| evening.'
| |
| | |
| Noni clasped his hand and said:
| |
| | |
| 'Baba, I want your blessing to-night.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan replied:
| |
| | |
| 'Mother, I see that you are determined to turn me into a theist in my
| |
| old age. I wouldn't give a brass farthing for a blessing, myself. Yet
| |
| I cannot help blessing you when I see your face.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan put his hand under her chin, and raised her face, and looked
| |
| into it silently, while tears ran down her cheeks.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VI
| |
| | |
| | |
| In the evening a man ran up to the place where Jagamohan was having
| |
| his dinner, and brought him back to his house.
| |
| | |
| He found the dead body of Noni, stretched on the bed, dressed in the
| |
| things he had given her. In her hand was a letter. Satish was
| |
| standing by her head. Jagamohan opened the letter, and read:
| |
| | |
| | |
| Baba, forgive me. I could not do what you wanted. I tried my best,
| |
| but I could never forget him. My thousand salutations to your gracious
| |
| feet.--NONIBALA, the Sinner.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| CHAPTER II
| |
| | |
| SATISH
| |
| | |
| I
| |
| | |
| | |
| The last words of Jagamohan, the atheist, to his nephew, Satish, were:
| |
| 'If you have a fancy for funeral ceremony, don't waste it on your
| |
| uncle,--reserve it for your father.'
| |
| | |
| This is how he came by his death.
| |
| | |
| When the plague first broke out in Calcutta, the poor citizens were
| |
| less afraid of the epidemic than of the preventive staff who wore its
| |
| badge. Satish's father, Harimohan, was sure that their Mussulman
| |
| neighbours, the untouchable leather-dealers, would be the first to
| |
| catch it, and thereupon defile him and his kith and kin by dragging
| |
| them along into a common end. Before he fled from his house, Harimohan
| |
| went over to offer refuge to his elder brother, saying: 'I have taken
| |
| a house on the river at Kalna, if you------'
| |
| | |
| 'Nonsense!' interrupted Jagamohan. 'How can I desert these people?'
| |
| | |
| 'Which people?'
| |
| | |
| 'These leather-dealers of ours.'
| |
| | |
| Harimohan made a grimace and left his brother without further parley.
| |
| He next proceeded to his son's lodgings, and to him simply said: 'Come
| |
| along.'
| |
| | |
| Satish's refusal was equally laconic. 'I have work to do here,' he
| |
| replied.
| |
| | |
| 'As pall-bearer to the leather-dealers, I suppose?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir; that is, if my services be needed.'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes, sir, indeed! You scamp, you scoundrel, you atheist! If need be
| |
| you're quite ready to consign fourteen generations of your ancestors
| |
| to perdition, I have no doubt!'
| |
| | |
| Convinced that the Kali Yuga [Footnote: According to the Hindu
| |
| Shastras the present age, the Kali Yuga, is the Dark Age when Dharma (
| |
| civilisation) will be at its lowest ebb.] had touched its lowest
| |
| depth, Harimohan returned home, despairing of the salvation of his
| |
| next of kin. In order to protect himself against contamination he
| |
| covered sheets of foolscap with the name of Kali, the protecting
| |
| goddess, in his neatest handwriting.
| |
| | |
| Harimohan left Calcutta. The plague and the preventive officials duly
| |
| made their appearance in the locality; and for dread of being dragged
| |
| off to the plague hospital, the wretched victims dared not call in
| |
| medical aid. After a visit to one of these hospitals, Jagamohan shook
| |
| his head and remarked: 'What if these people are falling ill,--that
| |
| does not make them criminals.'
| |
| | |
| Jagamohan schemed and contrived till he obtained permission to use his
| |
| own house as a private plague hospital. Some of us students offered to
| |
| assist Satish in nursing: there was a qualified doctor among our
| |
| number.
| |
| | |
| The first patient in our hospital was a Mussulman. He died. The next
| |
| was Jagamohan himself. He did not survive either. He said to Satish:
| |
| | |
| 'The religion I have all along followed has given me its last reward.
| |
| There is nothing to complain of.'
| |
| | |
| Satish had never taken the dust [Footnote: Touching the feet of a
| |
| revered elder, and then one's own head, is called taking the dust of
| |
| the feet. It is the formal way of doing reverence.] of his uncle's
| |
| feet while living. After Jagamohan's death he made that obeisance for
| |
| the first and last time.
| |
| | |
| 'Fit death for an atheist!' scoffed Hari-mohan when he first came
| |
| across Satish after the cremation.
| |
| | |
| 'That is so, sir!' agreed Satish, proudly.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| II
| |
| | |
| | |
| Just as, when the flame is blown out, the light suddenly and
| |
| completely disappears, so did Satish after his uncle's death. He went
| |
| out of our ken altogether.
| |
| | |
| We had never been able to fathom how deeply Satish loved his uncle.
| |
| Jagamohan was alike father and friend to him,--and, it may be said,
| |
| son as well; for the old man had been so regardless of himself, so
| |
| unmindful of worldly concerns, that it used to be one of the chief
| |
| cares of Satish to look after him and keep him safe from disaster.
| |
| Thus had Satish received from and given to his uncle his all.
| |
| | |
| What the bleakness of his bereavement meant for Satish, it was
| |
| impossible for us to conceive. He struggled against the agony of
| |
| negation, refusing to believe that such absolute blankness could be
| |
| true: that there could be emptiness so desolate as to be void even of
| |
| Truth. If that which seemed one vast 'No' had not also its aspect of
| |
| 'Yes,' would not the whole universe leak away through its yawning gap
| |
| into nothingness?
| |
| | |
| For two years Satish wandered from place to place,---we had no touch
| |
| with him. We threw ourselves with all the greater zeal into our self--
| |
| appointed tasks. We made it a special point to shock those who
| |
| professed belief in any kind of religion, and the fields of good work
| |
| we selected were such that not a good soul had a good word left for
| |
| us. Satish had been our flower; when he dropped off, we, the thorns,
| |
| cast off our sheaths and gloried in our sharpness.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| III
| |
| | |
| | |
| Two years had passed since we lost sight of Satish. My mind revolted
| |
| against harbouring the least thing evil against him, nevertheless I
| |
| could not help suspecting that the high pitch at which he used to be
| |
| kept strung must have been flattened down by this shock.
| |
| | |
| Uncle Jagamohan had once said of a _Sannyasin_: 'As the money-changer
| |
| tests the ring of each coin, so does the world test each man by the
| |
| response he gives to shocks of loss and pain, and the resistance he
| |
| offers to the craze for cheap salvation. Those who fail to ring true
| |
| are cast aside as worthless. These wandering ascetics have been so
| |
| rejected, as being unfit to take part in the world's commerce,--yet
| |
| the vagabonds swagger about, boasting that it is they who have
| |
| renounced the world! The worthy are permitted no loophole of escape
| |
| from duty,--only withered leaves are allowed to fall off the tree.'
| |
| | |
| Had it come to this, that Satish, of all people, had joined the ranks
| |
| of the withered and the worthless? Was he, then, fated to leave on the
| |
| black touchstone of bereavement his mark of spuriousness?
| |
| | |
| While assailed with these misgivings, news suddenly reached us that
| |
| Satish (our Satish, if you please!) was making the heavens resound
| |
| with his cymbals in some out-of-the-way village, singing frenzied
| |
| _kirtans_ [Footnote: The _kirtan_ is a kind of devotional oratorio
| |
| sung to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals, the libretto ranging
| |
| over the whole gamut of human emotions, which are made the vehicle for
| |
| communion with the Divine Lover. As their feelings get worked up, the
| |
| singers begin to sway their bodies with, and finally dance to, the
| |
| rhythm.] as a follower of Lilananda Swami, the Vaishnava revivalist!
| |
| | |
| It had passed my comprehension, when I first began to know Satish, how
| |
| he could ever have come to be an atheist. I was now equally at a loss
| |
| to understand how Lilananda Swami could have managed to lead him such
| |
| a dance with his _kirtans_.
| |
| | |
| And how on earth were we to show our faces? What laughter there would
| |
| be in the camp of the enemy,--whose number, thanks to our folly, was
| |
| legion! Our band waxed mightily wroth with Satish. Many of them said
| |
| they had known from the very first that there was no rational
| |
| substance in him,--he was all frothy idealism. And I now discovered
| |
| how much I really loved Satish. He had dealt his ardent sect of
| |
| atheists their deathblow, yet I could not be angry with him.
| |
| | |
| Off I started to hunt up Lilananda Swami. River after river I
| |
| crossed, and trudged over endless fields. The nights I spent in
| |
| grocers' shops. At last in one of the villages I came up against
| |
| Satish's party.
| |
| | |
| It was then two o'clock in the afternoon. I had been hoping to catch
| |
| Satish alone. Impossible! The cottage which was honoured with the
| |
| Swami's presence was packed all round with crowds of his disciples.
| |
| There had been _kirtans_ all the morning; those who had come from a
| |
| distance were now waiting to have their meal served.
| |
| | |
| As soon as Satish caught sight of me, he dashed up and embraced me
| |
| fervidly. I was staggered. Satish had always been extremely reserved.
| |
| His outward calm had been the only measure of his depth of feeling. He
| |
| now appeared as though intoxicated.
| |
| | |
| The Swami was resting in the front room, with the door ajar. He could
| |
| see us. At once came the call, in a deep voice: 'Satish!'
| |
| | |
| Satish was back inside, all in a flurry.
| |
| | |
| 'Who is that?' inquired the Swami.
| |
| | |
| 'Srivilas, a great friend of mine,' Satish reported.
| |
| | |
| During these years I had managed to make a name for myself in our
| |
| little world. A learned Englishman had remarked, on hearing one of my
| |
| English speeches: 'The man has a wonderful------.' But let that be.
| |
| Why add to the number of my enemies? Suffice it to say that, from the
| |
| students up to the students' grandparents, the reputation had
| |
| travelled round that I was a rampaging atheist who could bestride the
| |
| English language and race her over the hurdles at breakneck speed in
| |
| the most marvellous manner.
| |
| | |
| I somehow felt that the Swami was pleased to have me here. He sent for
| |
| me. I merely hinted at the usual salutation as I entered his
| |
| room,--that is to say, my joined hands were uplifted, but my head was
| |
| not lowered.
| |
| | |
| This did not escape the Swami. 'Here, Satish!' he ordered. 'Fill me
| |
| that pipe of mine.'
| |
| | |
| Satish set to work. But as he lit the tinder, it was I who was set
| |
| ablaze within. Moreover, I was getting fidgety, not knowing where to
| |
| sit. The only seat in the room was a wooden bedstead on which was
| |
| spread the Swami's carpet. Not that I confessed to any qualms about
| |
| occupying a corner of the same carpet on which the great man was
| |
| installed, but somehow my sitting down did not come off. I remained
| |
| standing near the door.
| |
| | |
| It appeared that the Swami was aware of my having won the
| |
| Premchand-Roychand [Footnote: The highest prize at the Calcutta
| |
| University. scholarship.] 'My son,' he said to me, 'it is good for
| |
| the pearl diver if he succeeds in reaching the bottom, but he would
| |
| die if he had to stay there. He must come up for the free breath of
| |
| life. If you would live, you must now come up to the light, out of the
| |
| depths of your learning. You have enjoyed the fruits of your
| |
| scholarship, now try a taste of the joys of its renunciation.'
| |
| | |
| Satish handed his Master the lighted pipe and sat down on the bare
| |
| floor near his feet. The Swami leant back and stretched his legs out
| |
| towards Satish, who began gently to massage them. This was more than I
| |
| could stand. I left the room. I could, of course, see that this
| |
| ordering about of Satish and making him fetch and carry was
| |
| deliberately directed at me.
| |
| | |
| The Swami went on resting. All the guests were duly served by the
| |
| householder with a meal of kedgeree. From five o'clock the _kirtans_
| |
| started again and went on till ten in the night.
| |
| | |
| When I got Satish alone at last, I said to him: 'Look here, Satish!
| |
| You have been brought up in the atmosphere of freedom from infancy.
| |
| How have you managed to get yourself entangled in this kind of bondage
| |
| to-day? Is Uncle Jagamohan, then, so utterly dead?'
| |
| | |
| Partly because the playfulness of affection prompted it, partly,
| |
| perhaps, because precision of description required it, Satish used to
| |
| reverse the first two syllables of my name and call me Visri.
| |
| [Footnote: Ungainly, ugly.]
| |
| | |
| 'Visri,' he replied, 'while Uncle was alive he gave me freedom in
| |
| life's field of work,--the freedom which the child gets in the
| |
| playground. After his death it is he, again, who has given me freedom
| |
| on the high seas of emotion,--the freedom which the child gains when
| |
| it comes back to its mother's arms. I have enjoyed to the full the
| |
| freedom of life's day-time; why should I now deprive myself of the
| |
| freedom of its evening?
| |
| | |
| Be sure that both these are the gift of that same uncle of ours.'
| |
| | |
| 'Whatever you may say,' I persisted, 'Uncle could have nothing to do
| |
| with this kind of pipe-filling, leg-massaging business. Surely this is
| |
| no picture of freedom.'
| |
| | |
| 'That,' argued Satish, 'was the freedom on shore. There Uncle gave
| |
| full liberty of action to our limbs. This is freedom on the ocean.
| |
| Here the confinement of the ship is necessary for our progress. That
| |
| is why my Master keeps me bound to his service. This massaging is
| |
| helping me to cross over.'
| |
| | |
| 'It does not sound so bad,' I admitted,'the way you put it. But, all
| |
| the same, I have no patience with a man who can thrust out his legs at
| |
| you like that.'
| |
| | |
| 'He can do it,' explained Satish, 'because he has no need of such
| |
| service. Had it been for himself, he might have felt ashamed to ask
| |
| it. The need is mine.'
| |
| | |
| I realised that the world into which Satish had been transported had
| |
| no place for me, his particular friend. The person, whom Satish has so
| |
| effusively embraced, was not Srivilas, but a representative of all
| |
| humanity,--just an idea. Such ideas are like wine. When they get into
| |
| the head any one can be embraced and wept over--I, only as much as
| |
| anybody else. But whatever joys may be the portion of the ecstatic
| |
| one, what can such embrace signify to me, the other party? What
| |
| satisfaction am I to get, merely to be accounted one of the ripples on
| |
| a grand, difference-obliterating flood,--I, the individual I?
| |
| | |
| However, further argument was clearly useless. Nor could I make up my
| |
| mind to desert Satish. So, as his satellite, I also danced from
| |
| village to village, carried along the current of _kirtan_ singing.
| |
| | |
| The intoxication of it gradually took hold of me. I also embraced all
| |
| and sundry, wept without provocation, and tended the feet of the
| |
| Master. And one day, in a moment of curious exaltation, Satish was
| |
| revealed to me in a light for which there can be no other name than
| |
| divine.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| IV
| |
| | |
| | |
| With the capture of two such egregious, college-educated atheists as
| |
| we were, the fame of Lilananda Swami spread far and wide. His Calcutta
| |
| disciples now pressed him to take up his headquarters at the
| |
| metropolis.
| |
| | |
| So Swami Lilananda came on to Calcutta. Shivatosh had been a devoted
| |
| follower of Lilananda. Whenever the Swami visited Calcutta he had
| |
| stayed with Shivatosh. And it was the one delight of Shivatosh's life
| |
| to serve the Master, together with all his disciples, when they thus
| |
| honoured his house. When he died he bequeathed all his property to the
| |
| Swami, leaving only a life-interest in the income to his young
| |
| childless widow. It was his hope that this house of his would become a
| |
| pilgrim-centre for the sect.
| |
| | |
| This was the house where we now went into residence.
| |
| | |
| During our ecstatic progress through the villages I had been in an
| |
| elated mood, which I now found it difficult to keep up in Calcutta. In
| |
| the wonderland of emotion, where we had been revelling, the mystic
| |
| drama of the courting of the Bride within us and the Bridegroom who is
| |
| everywhere was being played. And a fitting accompaniment to it had
| |
| been the symphony of the broad grazing greens, the shaded ferry
| |
| landing-places, the enraptured expanse of the noonday leisure, the
| |
| deep evening silences vibrant with the tremolo of cicadas. Ours had
| |
| been a dream progress to which the open skies of the countryside
| |
| offered no obstacle. But with our arrival at Calcutta we knocked our
| |
| heads against its hardness, we got jostled by its crowds, and our
| |
| dream was at an end.
| |
| | |
| Yet, was not this the same Calcutta where, within the confines of our
| |
| students' lodgings, we had once put our whole soul into our studies,
| |
| by day and by night; where we had pondered over and discussed the
| |
| problems of our country with our fellow-students in the College
| |
| Square; where we had served as volunteers at the holding of our
| |
| National Assemblies; where we had responded to the call of Uncle
| |
| Jagamohan, and taken the vow to free our minds from all slavery
| |
| imposed by Society or State? Yes, it was in this self-same Calcutta
| |
| that, in the flood-tide of our youth, we had pursued our course,
| |
| regardless of the revilement of stranger and kindred alike, proudly
| |
| breasting all contrary currents like a boat in full sail. Why, then,
| |
| should we now fail, in this whirlpool of suffering humanity, ridden
| |
| with pleasure and pain, driven by hunger and thirst, to keep up the
| |
| exaltation proper to our tear-drenched cult of emotional Communion?
| |
| | |
| As I manfully made the attempt, I was beset with doubts at every step.
| |
| Was I then a mere weakling: unfaithful to my ideal: unworthy of
| |
| strenuous endeavour? When I turned to Satish, to see how he fared, I
| |
| found on his countenance no sign to show that Calcutta, for him,
| |
| represented any geographical reality whatsoever. In the mystic world
| |
| where he dwelt, all this city life meant no more than a mirage.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| V
| |
| | |
| | |
| We two friends took up our quarters, with the Master, in Shivatosh's
| |
| house. We had come to be his chief disciples, and he would have us
| |
| constantly near his person.
| |
| | |
| With our Master and our fellow-disciples we were absorbed day and
| |
| night in discussing emotions in general and the philosophy of
| |
| spiritual emotion in particular. Into the very thick of the abstruse
| |
| complexities which thus engaged our attention, the ripple of a woman's
| |
| laughter would now and again find its way from the inner apartments.
| |
| [Footnote: The women's part of the house.] Sometimes there would be
| |
| heard, in a clear, high-toned voice, the call 'Bami!'--evidently a
| |
| maid-servant of that name.
| |
| | |
| These were doubtless but trivial interruptions for minds soaring,
| |
| almost to vanishing point, into the empyrean of idea. But to me they
| |
| came as a grateful shower of rain upon a parched and thirsty soil.
| |
| When little touches of life, like shed flower petals, were blown
| |
| across from the unknown world behind the wall, then all in a moment I
| |
| could understand that the wonderland of our quest was just
| |
| there,--where the keys jingled, tied to the corner of Bami's sari;
| |
| where the sound of the broom rose from the swept floor, and the smell
| |
| of the cooking from the kitchen,--all trifles, but all true. That
| |
| world, with its mingling of fine and coarse, bitter and sweet,--that
| |
| itself was the heaven where Emotion truly held sway.
| |
| | |
| The name of the widow was Damini. We could catch momentary glimpses of
| |
| her through opening doors and flapping curtains. But the two of us
| |
| grew to be so much part and parcel of the Master as to share his
| |
| privilege, [Footnote: Women do not observe _purdah_ with religious
| |
| ascetics.] and very soon these doors and curtains were no longer
| |
| barriers in our case.
| |
| | |
| Damini [Footnote: Damini means Lightning.] was the lightning which
| |
| gleams within the massed clouds of July. Without, the curves of youth
| |
| enveloped her in their fulness, within flashed fitful fires. Thus runs
| |
| an entry in Satish's diary:
| |
| | |
| In Nonibala I have seen the Universal Woman in one of her
| |
| aspects,--the woman who takes on herself the whole burden of sin, who
| |
| gives up life itself for the sinner's sake, and in dying leaves for
| |
| the world the balm of immortality. In Damini I see another aspect of
| |
| Universal Woman. This one has nothing to do with death,--she is the
| |
| Artist of the Art of Life. She blossoms out, in limitless profusion,
| |
| in form and scent and movement. She is not for rejection; refuses to
| |
| entertain the ascetic; and is vowed to resist the least farthing of
| |
| payment to the tax-gathering Winter Wind.
| |
| | |
| It is necessary to relate Damini's previous history.
| |
| | |
| At the time when the coffers of her father, Annada, were overflowing
| |
| with proceeds of his jute business, Damini was married to Shivatosh.
| |
| So long, Shivatosh's fortune had consisted only in his pedigree: it
| |
| could now count a more substantial addition. Annada bestowed on his
| |
| son-in-law a house in Calcutta and sufficient money to keep him for
| |
| life. There were also lavish gifts of furniture and ornaments made to
| |
| his daughter.
| |
| | |
| Annada, further, made a futile attempt to take Shivatosh into his own
| |
| business. But the latter had no interest in worldly concerns. An
| |
| astrologer had once predicted to Shivatosh that, on the happening of a
| |
| special conjunction of the stars, his soul would gain its emancipation
| |
| whilst still in the flesh. From that day he lived in this hope alone,
| |
| and ceased to find charm in riches, or even in objects still more
| |
| charming. It was while in this frame of mind that he had become a
| |
| disciple of Lilananda Swami.
| |
| | |
| In the meantime, with the subsidence of the jute boom, the full force
| |
| of the adverse wind caught the heavy-laden bark of Annada's fortune
| |
| and toppled it over. All his property was sold up and he had hardly
| |
| enough left to make a bare living.
| |
| | |
| One evening Shivatosh came into the inner apartments and said to his
| |
| wife: 'The Master is here. He has some words of advice for you and
| |
| bids you attend.'
| |
| | |
| 'I cannot go to him now,' answered Damini. 'I haven't the time.'
| |
| | |
| What? No time! Shivatosh went up nearer and found his wife seated in
| |
| the gathering dusk, in front of the open safe, with her ornaments
| |
| spread out before her. 'What in the world is keeping you?' inquired
| |
| he.
| |
| | |
| 'I am arranging my jewels,' was the reply.
| |
| | |
| So that was the reason for her lack of time. Indeed!
| |
| | |
| The next day, when Damini opened the safe, she found her jewel-box
| |
| missing. 'My jewels?' she exclaimed, turning inquiringly to her
| |
| husband.
| |
| | |
| 'But you offered them to the Master. Did not his call reach you at the
| |
| very moment?--for he sees into the minds of men. He has deigned, in
| |
| his mercy, to save you from the lure of pelf.'
| |
| | |
| Damini's indignation rose to white heat.
| |
| | |
| 'Give me back my ornaments!' she commanded.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, what will you do with them?'
| |
| | |
| 'They were my father's gift to me. I would return them to him.'
| |
| | |
| 'They have gone to a better place,' said Shivatosh. 'Instead of
| |
| pandering to worldly needs they are dedicated to the service of
| |
| devotees.'
| |
| | |
| That is how the tyrannical imposition of faith began. And the pious
| |
| ritual of exorcism, in all its cruelty, continued to be practised in
| |
| order to rid Damini's mind of its mundane affections and desires.
| |
| | |
| So, while her father and her little brother were starving by inches,
| |
| Damini had to prepare daily, with her own hands, meals for the sixty
| |
| or seventy disciples who thronged the house with the Master. She
| |
| would sometimes rebelliously leave out the salt, or contrive to get
| |
| the viands scorched, but that did not avail to gain her any respite
| |
| from her penance.
| |
| | |
| At this juncture Shivatosh died: and in departing he awarded his wife
| |
| the supreme penalty for her want of faith,--he committed his widow,
| |
| with all her belongings, to the guardianship of the Master.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VI
| |
| | |
| | |
| The house was in a constant tumult with rising waves of fervour.
| |
| Devotees kept streaming in from all quarters to sit at the feet of the
| |
| Master. And yet Damini, who had gained the Presence without effort of
| |
| her own, thrust aside her good fortune with contumely.
| |
| | |
| Did the Master call her for some special mark of his favour she would
| |
| keep aloof, pleading a headache. If he had occasion to complain of
| |
| some special omission of personal attention on her part, she would
| |
| confess to have been away at the theatre. The excuse was lacking in
| |
| truth, but not in rudeness.
| |
| | |
| The other women disciples were aghast at Damini's ways. First, her
| |
| attire was not such as widows [Footnote: Hindu widows in Bengal are
| |
| supposed to dress in simple white (sometimes plain brown silk),
| |
| without border, or ornamentation.] should affect. Secondly, she showed
| |
| no eagerness to drink in the Master's words of wisdom. Lastly, her
| |
| demeanour had none of the reverential restraint which the Master's
| |
| presence demanded. 'What a shame,' exclaimed they. 'We have seen many
| |
| awful women, but not one so outrageous.'
| |
| | |
| The Swami used to smile. 'The Lord,' said he,'takes a special delight
| |
| in wrestling with a valiant opponent. When Damini has to own defeat,
| |
| her surrender will be absolute.'
| |
| | |
| He began to display an exaggerated tolerance for her contumacy. That
| |
| vexed Damini still more, for she looked on it as a more cunning form
| |
| of punishment. And one day the Master caught her in a fit of laughter,
| |
| mimicking to one of her companions the excessive suavity of his manner
| |
| towards herself. Still he had not a word of rebuke, and repeated
| |
| simply that the final _denouement_ would be all the more
| |
| extraordinary, to which end the poor thing was but the instrument of
| |
| Providence, and so herself not to blame.
| |
| | |
| This was how we found her when we first came. The _denouement_ was
| |
| indeed extraordinary. I can hardly bring myself to write on further.
| |
| Moreover, what happened is so difficult to tell. The network of
| |
| suffering, which is woven behind the scenes, is not of any pattern set
| |
| by the Scriptures, nor of our own devising. Hence the frequent
| |
| discords between the inner and the outer life--discords that hurt, and
| |
| wail forth in tears.
| |
| | |
| There came, at length, the dawn when the harsh crust of rebelliousness
| |
| cracked and fell to pieces, and the flower of self-surrender came
| |
| through and held up its dew-washed face. Damini's service became so
| |
| beautiful in its truth that it descended on the devotees like the
| |
| blessing of the very Divinity of their devotions.
| |
| | |
| And when Damini's lightning flashes had matured into a steady
| |
| radiance, Satish looked on her and saw that she was beautiful; but I
| |
| say this, that Satish gazed only on her beauty, failing to see Damini
| |
| herself.
| |
| | |
| In Satish's room there hung a portrait of the Swami sitting in
| |
| meditation, done on a porcelain medallion. One day he found it on the
| |
| floor,--in fragments. He put it down to his pet cat.
| |
| | |
| But other little mischiefs began to follow, which were clearly beyond
| |
| the powers of the cat. There was some kind of disturbance in the air,
| |
| which now and again broke out in unseen electric shocks.
| |
| | |
| How others felt, I know not, but a growing pain gnawed at my heart.
| |
| Sometimes I thought that this constant ecstasy of emotion was proving
| |
| too much for me. I wanted to give it all up and run away. The old work
| |
| of teaching the leather-dealers' children seemed, in its unalloyed
| |
| prose, to be now calling me back.
| |
| | |
| One afternoon when the Master was taking his siesta, and the weary
| |
| disciples were at rest, Satish for some reason went off into his own
| |
| room at this unusual hour. His progress was suddenly arrested at the
| |
| threshold. There was Damini, her thick tresses dishevelled, lying
| |
| prone on the floor, beating her head on it as she moaned: 'Oh, you
| |
| stone, you stone, have mercy on me, have mercy and kill me outright!'
| |
| | |
| Satish, trembling from head to foot with a nameless fear, fled from
| |
| the room.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VII
| |
| | |
| | |
| It was a rule with Swami Lilananda to go off once a year to some
| |
| remote, out-of-the-way place, away from the crowd. With the month of
| |
| Magh [Footnote: January-February.] came round the time for his
| |
| journey. Satish was to attend on him.
| |
| | |
| I asked to go too. I was worn to the very bone with the incessant
| |
| emotional excitement of our cult, and felt greatly in need of physical
| |
| movement as well as of mental quiet.
| |
| | |
| The Master sent for Damini. 'My little mother,' he told her, 'I am
| |
| about to leave you for the duration of my travels. Let me arrange for
| |
| your stay meanwhile with your aunt, as usual.'
| |
| | |
| 'I would accompany you,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'You could hardly bear it, I am afraid. Our journeying will be
| |
| troublesome.'
| |
| | |
| 'Of course I can bear it,' she answered. 'Pray have no concern about
| |
| any trouble of mine.'
| |
| | |
| Lilananda was pleased at this proof of Damini's devotion. In former
| |
| years, this opportunity had been Damini's holiday time,--the one thing
| |
| to which she had looked forward through the preceding months.
| |
| 'Miraculous!' thought the Swami. 'How wondrously does even stone
| |
| become as wax in the Lord's melting-pot of emotion.'
| |
| | |
| So Damini had her way, and came along with us.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VIII
| |
| | |
| | |
| The spot we reached, after hours of tramping in the sun, was a little
| |
| promontory on the sea-coast, shaded by cocoa-nut palms. Profound was
| |
| the solitude and the tranquillity which reigned there, as the gentle
| |
| rustle of the palm tassels merged into the idle plash of the girdling
| |
| sea. The place looked like a tired hand of the sleepy shore, limply
| |
| fallen upon the surface of the waters. On this open hand stood a
| |
| bluish-green hill, and inside the hill was a sculptured cave-temple of
| |
| bygone days, which, for all its serene beauty, was the cause of much
| |
| disquiet amongst antiquarians as to the origin, style, and
| |
| subject-matter of its sculptures.
| |
| | |
| Our intention had been to return to the village where we had made our
| |
| halt, after paying a visit to this temple. That was now seen to be
| |
| impossible. The day was fast declining, and the moon was long past
| |
| its full. Lilananda Swami at length decided that we should pass the
| |
| night in the cave.
| |
| | |
| All four of us sat down to rest on the sandy soil beneath the
| |
| cocoa-nut groves fringing the sea. The sunset glow bent lower and
| |
| lower over the western horizon, as though Day was making its parting
| |
| obeisance to approaching Night.
| |
| | |
| The Master's voice broke forth in song--one of his own composition:
| |
| | |
| _The day has waned, when at last we meet at the turning;
| |
| | |
| And as I try to see thy face, the last ray of evening fades into the
| |
| night._
| |
| | |
| We had heard the song before, but never with such complete rapport
| |
| between singer, audience, and surroundings. Damini was affected to
| |
| tears. The Swami went on to the second verse:
| |
| | |
| _I shall not grieve that the darkness comes between thee and my
| |
| sight,---
| |
| | |
| Only, for a moment, stand before me, that I may kiss thy feet and
| |
| wipe them with my hair._
| |
| | |
| When he had come to the end, the placid eventide, enveloping sky and
| |
| waters, was filled, like some ripe, golden fruit, with the bursting
| |
| sweetness of melody.
| |
| | |
| Damini rose and went up to the Master. As she prostrated herself at
| |
| his feet, her loose hair slipped off her shoulders and was scattered
| |
| over the ground on either side. She remained long thus before she
| |
| raised her head.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| IX
| |
| | |
| (FROM SATISH'S DIARY)
| |
| | |
| | |
| There were several chambers within the temple. In one of these I
| |
| spread my blanket and laid myself down. The darkness pent up inside
| |
| the cave seemed alive, like some great black monster, its damp breath
| |
| bedewing my body. I began to be haunted by the idea that this was the
| |
| first of all created animals, born in the beginning of time, with no
| |
| eyes or ears, but just one enormous appetite. Confined within this
| |
| cavern for endless ages it knew nothing, having no mind; but having
| |
| sensibility it felt; and wept and wept in silence.
| |
| | |
| Fatigue overpowered my limbs like a dead weight, but sleep came not.
| |
| Some bird, or perhaps bat, flitted in from the outside, or out from
| |
| the inside,--its wings beating the air as it flew from darkness to
| |
| darkness; when the draught reached my body it sent a shiver through
| |
| me, making my flesh creep.
| |
| | |
| I thought I would go and get some sleep outside. But I could not
| |
| recollect the direction in which the entrance was. As I crawled on my
| |
| hands and knees along the way which appeared the right one, I knocked
| |
| against the cave wall. When I tried a different side, I nearly tumbled
| |
| into a hollow in which the water dripping through the cracks had
| |
| collected.
| |
| | |
| I crawled back to my blanket and stretched myself on it again. Again
| |
| was I possessed with the fancy that I had been taken right into the
| |
| creature's maw and could not extricate myself; that I was the victim
| |
| of a blind hunger which was licking me with its slimy saliva, through
| |
| which I would be sucked and digested noiselessly, little by little.
| |
| | |
| I felt that only sleep could save me. My living, waking consciousness
| |
| was evidently unable to bear such close embrace of this horrible,
| |
| suffocating obscurity--fit only for the dead to suffer. I cannot say
| |
| how long after it came upon me,--or whether it was really sleep at
| |
| all,--but a thin veil of oblivion fell at last over my senses. And
| |
| while in such half-conscious state I actually felt a deep breathing
| |
| somewhere near my bare feet. Surely it was not that primeval creature
| |
| of my imagining!
| |
| | |
| Then something seemed to cling about my feet. Some real wild animal
| |
| this time,--was my first thought. But there was nothing furry in its
| |
| touch. What if it was some species of serpent or reptile, of features
| |
| and body unknown to me, of whose method of absorbing its prey I could
| |
| form no idea? All the more loathsome seemed the softness of it,--of
| |
| this terrible, unknown mass of hunger.
| |
| | |
| What between dread and disgust, I could not even utter a cry. I tried
| |
| to push it away with ineffectual thrusts with my legs. Its face seemed
| |
| to be touching my feet, on which its panting breath fell thickly. What
| |
| kind of a face had it, I wondered. I launched a more vigorous kick as
| |
| the stupor left me. I had at first supposed there was no fur, but what
| |
| felt like a mane now brushed across my legs. I struggled up into a
| |
| sitting posture.
| |
| | |
| Something stole away in the darkness. There was also a curious kind of
| |
| sound. Could it have been sobbing?
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| CHAPTER III
| |
| | |
| DAMINI
| |
| | |
| I
| |
| | |
| | |
| We are back in our quarters in the village, near a temple, in a
| |
| two-storeyed house belonging to one of the Swami's disciples, which
| |
| had been placed at our disposal. Since our return we see but little of
| |
| Damini, though she is still in charge of our household affairs. She
| |
| has made friends with the neighbouring women, and spends most of her
| |
| spare time in going about with them from one house to another.
| |
| | |
| The Swami is not particularly pleased. Damini's heart, thinks he,
| |
| does not yet respond to the call of the ethereal heights. All its
| |
| fondness is still for earthen walls. In her daily work of looking
| |
| after the devotees,--formerly like an act of worship with her,--a
| |
| trace of weariness has become noticeable. She makes mistakes. Her
| |
| service has lost its radiance.
| |
| | |
| The Master, at heart, begins to be afraid of her again. Between her
| |
| brows there darkens a gathering frown; her temple is ruffled with
| |
| fitful breezes; the loosening knot of her hair lowers over her neck;
| |
| the pressure of her lips, the gleams from the corner of her eye, her
| |
| sudden wayward gestures presage a rebellious storm.
| |
| | |
| The Swami turned to his _kirtans_ with renewed attention. The
| |
| wandering bee, he hoped, would be brought to drink deep of the honey,
| |
| once enticed in by its fragrance. And so the short cool days were
| |
| filled to the brim with the foaming wine of ecstatic song.
| |
| | |
| But no, Damini refused to be caught. The exasperated Swami laughed out
| |
| one day: 'The Lord is out hunting: the resolute flight of the deer
| |
| adds zest to the chase: but succumb she must, in the end.'
| |
| | |
| When we had first come to know Damini, she was not to be found among
| |
| the band of devotees clustering round the Master. That, however, did
| |
| not attract our notice then. But now, her empty place had become
| |
| conspicuous. Her frequent absences smote us tempestuously.
| |
| | |
| The Swami put this down to her pride, and that hurt his own pride. As
| |
| for me,--but what does it matter what I thought?
| |
| | |
| One day the Master mustered up courage to say in his most dulcet
| |
| tones: 'Damini, my little mother, do you think you will have a little
| |
| time to spare this afternoon? If so------'
| |
| | |
| 'No,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'Would you mind telling me why?',
| |
| | |
| 'I have to assist in making sweetmeats at the Nandi's.'
| |
| | |
| 'Sweetmeats? What for?'
| |
| | |
| 'They have a wedding on.'
| |
| | |
| 'Is your assistance so indispensably------?'
| |
| | |
| 'I promised to be there.'
| |
| | |
| Damini whisked out of the room without waiting for further
| |
| questioning.
| |
| | |
| Satish, who was there with us, was dumbfounded. So many men of
| |
| learning, wealth, and fame had surrendered at the feet of the Master,
| |
| and this slip of a girl,--what gave her such hardihood of assurance?
| |
| | |
| Another evening Damini happened to be at home. The Master had
| |
| addressed himself to some specially important topic. After his
| |
| discourse had progressed awhile, something in our faces gave him
| |
| pause. He found our attention wandering. On looking round he
| |
| discovered that Damini, who had been seated in the room, sewing in
| |
| hand, was not to be seen. He understood the reason of our distraction.
| |
| She was not there, not there, not there,--the refrain now kept
| |
| worrying him too. He began to lose the thread of his discourse, and at
| |
| last gave it up altogether.
| |
| | |
| The Swami left the room and went off to Damini's door. 'Damini,' he
| |
| called. 'Why are you all alone here? Will you not come and join us?'
| |
| | |
| 'I am engaged,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| The baffled Swami could see, as he passed by the half-open door, a
| |
| captive kite in a cage. It had somehow struck against the telegraph
| |
| wires, and had been lying wounded when Damini rescued it from the
| |
| pestering crows, and she had been tending it since.
| |
| | |
| The kite was not the only object which engaged Damini's solicitude.
| |
| There was a mongrel pup, whose looks were on a par with its breeding.
| |
| It was discord personified. Whenever it heard our cymbals, it would
| |
| look up to heaven and voice forth a prolonged complaint. The gods,
| |
| being fortunate, did not feel bound to give it a hearing. The poor
| |
| mortals whose ears happened to be within reach were woefully agonised.
| |
| | |
| One afternoon, when Damini was engaged in practising horticulture in
| |
| sundry cracked pots on the roof-terrace, Satish came up and asked her
| |
| point-blank: 'Why is it you have given up coming over there
| |
| altogether?'
| |
| | |
| 'Over where?'
| |
| | |
| 'To the Master.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, what need have you people of me?'
| |
| | |
| 'We have no need,--but surely the need is yours.'
| |
| | |
| 'No, no!' flung out Damini. 'Not at all, not at all!'
| |
| | |
| Taken aback by her heat, Satish gazed at her in silence. Then he mused
| |
| aloud: 'Your mind lacks peace. If you would gain peace------'
| |
| | |
| 'Peace from you,--you who are consumed day and night with your
| |
| excitement,--where have you the peace to give? Leave me alone, I beg
| |
| and pray you. I was at peace. I would be at peace.'
| |
| | |
| 'You see but the waves on the surface. If you have the patience to
| |
| dive deep, you will find all calm there.'
| |
| | |
| Damini wrung her hands as she cried: 'I beseech you, for the Lord's
| |
| sake, don't insist on my diving downwards. If only you will give up
| |
| all hope of my conversion, I may yet live.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| II
| |
| | |
| | |
| My experience has never been large enough to enable me to penetrate
| |
| the mysteries of woman's mind. Judging from what little I have seen of
| |
| the surface from the outside, I have come to the belief that women are
| |
| ever ready to bestow their heart where sorrow cannot but be their lot.
| |
| They will either string their garland of acceptance [Footnote: In the
| |
| old days, when a girl had to choose between several suitors, she
| |
| signified her choice by putting a garland round the neck of the
| |
| accepted one.] for some brute of a man who will trample it under foot
| |
| and defile it in the mire of his passions, or dedicate it to some
| |
| idealist, on whose neck it will get no hold, attenuated as he is, like
| |
| the dream-stuff of his imaginings.
| |
| | |
| When left to do their own choosing, women invariably reject ordinary
| |
| men like me, made up of gross and fine, who know woman to be just
| |
| woman,--that is to say, neither a doll of clay made to serve for our
| |
| pastime, nor a transcendental melody to be evoked at our master touch.
| |
| They reject us, because we have neither the forceful delusions of the
| |
| flesh, nor the roseate illusions of fancy: we can neither break them
| |
| on the wheel of our desire, nor melt them in the glow of our fervour
| |
| to be cast in the mould of our ideal.
| |
| | |
| Because we know them only for what they are, they may be friendly, but
| |
| cannot love us. We are their true refuge, for they can rely on our
| |
| devotion; but our self-dedication comes so easy that they forget it
| |
| has a price. So the only reward we get is to be used for their
| |
| purposes; perchance to win their respect. But I am afraid my
| |
| excursions into the region of psychology are merely due to personal
| |
| grievances, which have my own experience behind them. The fact
| |
| probably is, what we thus lose is really our gain,--anyway, that is
| |
| how we may console ourselves.
| |
| | |
| Damini avoids the Master because she cannot bear him. She fights shy
| |
| of Satish because for him her feelings are of the opposite
| |
| description. I am the only person, near at hand, with whom there is
| |
| no question either of love or hate. So whenever I am with her, Damini
| |
| talks away to me of unimportant matters concerning the old days, the
| |
| present times, or the daily happenings at the neighbours' houses.
| |
| These talks usually take place on the shaded part of the roof-terrace,
| |
| which serves as a passage between our several rooms on the second
| |
| storey, where Damini sits slicing betel-nuts.
| |
| | |
| What I could not understand was, how these trifling talks should have
| |
| attracted the notice of Satish's emotion-clouded vision. Even suppose
| |
| the circumstance was not so trifling, had I not often been told that,
| |
| in the world where Satish dwelt, there were no such disturbing things
| |
| as circumstances at all? The Mystic Union, in which personified cosmic
| |
| forces were assisting, was an eternal drama, not an historical
| |
| episode. Those who are rapt with the undying flute strains, borne
| |
| along by the ceaseless zephyrs which play on the banks of the
| |
| ever-flowing Jamuna of that mystic paradise, have no eyes or ears left
| |
| for the ephemeral doings immediately around them. This much at least
| |
| is certain, that before our return from the cave, Satish used to be
| |
| much denser in his perception of worldly events.
| |
| | |
| For this difference I may have been partly responsible. I also had
| |
| begun to absent myself from our _kirtans_ and discourses, perhaps with
| |
| a frequency which could not elude even Satish. One day he came round
| |
| on inquiry, and found me running after Damini's mongoose,--a recent
| |
| acquisition,--trying to lure it into bondage with a pot of milk, which
| |
| I had procured from the local milkman. This occupation, viewed as an
| |
| excuse, was simply hopeless. It could easily have waited till the end
| |
| of our sitting. For the matter of that, the best thing clearly would
| |
| have been to leave the mongoose to its own devices, thus at one stroke
| |
| demonstrating my adherence to the two principal tenets of our
| |
| cult,--Compassion for all creatures, and Passion for the Lord.
| |
| | |
| That is why, when Satish came up, I had to feel ashamed. I put down
| |
| the pot, then and there, and tried to edge away along the path which
| |
| led back to self-respect.
| |
| | |
| But Damini's behaviour took me by surprise. She was not in the least
| |
| abashed as she asked: 'Where are you off to, Srivilas Babu?'
| |
| | |
| I scratched my head, as I mumbled: 'I was thinking of joining
| |
| the------'
| |
| | |
| 'They must have finished by this time. Do sit down.'
| |
| | |
| This coming from Damini, in the presence of Satish, made my ears burn.
| |
| | |
| Damini turned to Satish. 'I am in awful trouble with the mongoose,'
| |
| she said. 'Last night it stole a chicken from the Mussulman quarters
| |
| over there. I dare not leave it loose any longer. Srivilas Babu has
| |
| promised to look out for a nice big hamper to keep it in.'
| |
| | |
| It seemed to me that it was my devotion to her which Damini was using
| |
| the mongoose to show off. I was reminded how the Swami had given
| |
| orders to Satish so as to impress me. The two were the same thing.
| |
| | |
| Satish made no reply, and his departure was somewhat abrupt. I gazed
| |
| on Damini and could see her eyes flash out as they followed his
| |
| disappearing figure; while on her lips there set a hard, enigmatic
| |
| smile.
| |
| | |
| What conclusion Damini had come to she herself knew best; the only
| |
| result apparent to me was that she began to send for me on all kinds
| |
| of flimsy pretexts. Sometimes she would make sweetmeats, which she
| |
| pressed on me. One day I could not help suggesting: 'Let's offer some
| |
| to Satish as well.'
| |
| | |
| 'That would only annoy him,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| And it happened that Satish, passing that way, caught me in the act of
| |
| being thus regaled.
| |
| | |
| In the drama which was being played, the hero and the heroine spoke
| |
| their parts 'aside.' I was the one character who, being of no
| |
| consequence, had to speak out. This sometimes made me curse my lot;
| |
| none the less, I could not withstand the temptation of the petty cash
| |
| with which I was paid off, from day to day, for taking up the role of
| |
| middleman.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| III
| |
| | |
| | |
| For some days Satish clanged his cymbals and danced his _kirtans_ with
| |
| added vigour. Then one day he came to me and said: 'We cannot keep
| |
| Damini with us any longer.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why?' I asked.
| |
| | |
| 'We must free ourselves altogether from the influence of women.'
| |
| | |
| 'If that be a necessity,' said I,'there must be something radically
| |
| wrong with our system.'
| |
| | |
| Satish stared at me in amazement.
| |
| | |
| 'Woman is a natural phenomenon,' I continued, undaunted, 'who will
| |
| have her place in the world, however much we may try to get rid of
| |
| her. If your spiritual welfare depends on ignoring her existence, then
| |
| its pursuit will be like the chasing of a phantom, and will so put you
| |
| to shame, when the illusion is gone, that you will not know where to
| |
| hide yourself.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, stop your philosophising!' exclaimed Satish. 'I was talking
| |
| practical politics. It is only too evident that women are emissaries
| |
| of Maya, and at Maya's behest ply on us their blandishments,--for they
| |
| cannot fulfil the design of their Mistress unless they overpower our
| |
| reason. So we must steer clear of them if we would keep our intellect
| |
| free.'
| |
| | |
| I was about to make my reply, when Satish stopped me with a gesture,
| |
| and went on: 'Visri, old fellow! let me tell you plainly: if the hand
| |
| of Maya is not visible to you, that is because you have allowed
| |
| yourself to be caught in her net. The vision of beauty with which she
| |
| has ensnared you to-day will vanish, and with the beauty will
| |
| disappear the spectacles of desire, through which you now see it as
| |
| greater than all the world. Where the noose of Maya is so glaringly
| |
| obvious, why be foolhardy enough to take risks?'
| |
| | |
| 'I admit all that,' I rejoined. 'But, my dear fellow, the
| |
| all-pervading net of Maya was not cast by my hands, nor do I know the
| |
| way to escape through it. Since we have not the power to evade Maya,
| |
| our spiritual striving should help us, while acknowledging her, to
| |
| rise above her. Because it does not take such a course, we have to
| |
| flounder about in vain attempts to cut away the half of Truth.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, well, let's have your idea a little more clearly,' said Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'We must sail the boat of our life,' I proceeded, 'along the current
| |
| of nature, in order to reach beyond it. Our problem is, not how to get
| |
| rid of this current, but how to keep the boat afloat in its channel
| |
| until it is through. For that, a rudder is necessary.'
| |
| | |
| 'You people who have ceased to be loyal to the Master,--how can I make
| |
| you understand that in _him_ we have just this rudder? You would
| |
| regulate your spiritual life according to your own whims. That way
| |
| death lies!' Satish went to the Master's chamber, and fell to tending
| |
| his feet with fervour.
| |
| | |
| The same evening, when Satish lit the Master's pipe, he also put
| |
| forward his plaint against Maya and her emissaries. The smoking of one
| |
| pipe, however, did not suffice for its adjudication. Evening after
| |
| evening, pipe after pipe was exhausted, yet the Master was unable to
| |
| make up his mind.
| |
| | |
| >From the very beginning Damini had given the Swami no end of trouble.
| |
| Now the girl had managed to set up this eddy in the midst of the
| |
| smooth course of the devotees' progress. But Shivatosh had thrown her
| |
| and her belongings so absolutely on the Master's hands that he knew
| |
| not how or where to cast her off. What made it more difficult still
| |
| was that he harboured a secret fear of his ward.
| |
| | |
| And Satish, in spite of all the doubled and quadrupled enthusiasm
| |
| which he put into his _kirtans_, in spite of all the pipe-filling and
| |
| massaging in which he tried to rest his heart, was not allowed to
| |
| forget for a moment that Maya had taken up her position right across
| |
| the line of his spiritual advance.
| |
| | |
| One day some _kirtan_ singers of repute had arrived, and were to sing
| |
| in the evening at the temple next door. The _kirtan_ would last far
| |
| into the night. I managed to slip away after the preliminary overture,
| |
| having no doubt that, in so thick a crowd, no one would notice my
| |
| absence.
| |
| | |
| Damini that evening had completely thrown off her reserve. Things
| |
| which are difficult to speak of, which refuse to leave one's choking
| |
| throat, flowed from her lips so simply, so sweetly. It was as if she
| |
| had suddenly come upon some secret recess in her heart, so long hidden
| |
| away in darkness,--as if, by some strange chance, she had gained the
| |
| opportunity to stand before her own self, face to face.
| |
| | |
| Just at this time Satish came up from behind and stood there
| |
| hesitating, without our being aware of it at the moment. Not that
| |
| Damini was saying anything very particular, but there were tears in
| |
| her eyes,--all her words, in fact, were then welling up from some
| |
| tear-flooded depth. When Satish arrived, the _kirtan_ could not have
| |
| been anywhere near its end. I divined that he must have been goaded
| |
| with repeated inward urgings to have left the temple then.
| |
| | |
| As Satish came round into our view, Damini rose with a start, wiped
| |
| her eyes, and made off towards her room. Satish, with a tremor in his
| |
| voice, said: 'Damini, will you listen to me? I would have a word with
| |
| you.'
| |
| | |
| Damini slowly retraced her steps, and came and sat down again. I made
| |
| as though to take myself off, but an imploring glance from her
| |
| restrained me from stirring. Satish, who seemed to have made some kind
| |
| of effort meanwhile, came straight to the point.
| |
| | |
| 'The need,' said he to Damini, 'which brought the rest of us to the
| |
| Master, was not yours when you came to him.'
| |
| | |
| 'No,' avowed Damini expectantly.
| |
| | |
| 'Why, then, do you stay amongst his devotees?'
| |
| | |
| Damini's eyes flamed up as she cried: 'Why do I stay? Because I did
| |
| not come of my own accord! I was a helpless creature, and every one
| |
| knew my lack of faith. Yet I was bound hand and foot by your devotees
| |
| in this dungeon of devotion. What avenue of escape have you left me?'
| |
| | |
| 'We have now decided,' stated Satish,'that if you would go to stay
| |
| with some relative all your expenses will be found.'
| |
| | |
| 'You have decided, have you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Yes.'
| |
| | |
| 'Well, then,--I have not!'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, how will that inconvenience you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Am I a pawn in your game, that you devotees should play me, now this
| |
| way, now the other?'
| |
| | |
| Satish was struck dumb.
| |
| | |
| 'I did not come,' continued Damini, 'wanting to please your devotees.
| |
| And I am not going away at the bidding of the lot of you, merely
| |
| because I don't happen to please you!'
| |
| | |
| Damini covered her face with her hands and burst out sobbing as she
| |
| ran into her room and slammed the door.
| |
| | |
| Satish did not return to the _kirtan_ singing. He sank down in a
| |
| corner of the adjoining roof-terrace and brooded there in silence.
| |
| | |
| The sound of the breakers on the distant seashore came, wafted along
| |
| the south breeze, like despairing sighs, rising up to the watching
| |
| star clusters, from the very heart of the Earth. I spent the night
| |
| wandering round and round along the dark, deserted village lanes.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| IV
| |
| | |
| | |
| The World of Reality has made a determined onslaught on the Mystic
| |
| Paradise, within the confines of which the Master sought to keep
| |
| Satish and myself content by repeatedly filling for us the cup of
| |
| symbolism with the nectar of idea. Now the clash of the actual with
| |
| the symbolic bids fair to overturn the latter and spill its emotional
| |
| contents in the dust. The Master is not blind to this danger.
| |
| | |
| Satish is no longer himself. Like a paper kite, with its regulating
| |
| knot gone, he is still high in the skies, but may at any moment begin
| |
| to gyrate groundwards. There is no falling off as yet in the outward
| |
| rigour of his devotional and disciplinary exercises, but a closer
| |
| scrutiny reveals the totter of weakening.
| |
| | |
| As for my condition, Damini has left nothing so vague in it as to
| |
| require any guess-work. The more she notices the fear in the Master's
| |
| face, and the pain in Satish's, the oftener she makes me dance
| |
| attendance on her.
| |
| | |
| At last it came to this, that when we were engaged in talk with the
| |
| Master, Damini would sometimes appear in the doorway and interrupt us
| |
| with: 'Srivilas Babu, would you mind coming over this way?' without
| |
| even condescending to add what I was wanted for.
| |
| | |
| The Swami would glance up at me; Satish would glance up at me; I would
| |
| hesitate for a moment between them and her; then I would glance up at
| |
| the door,--and in a trice I was off the fence and out of the room. An
| |
| effort would be made, after my exit, to go on with the talk, but the
| |
| effort would soon get the better of the talk, whereupon the latter
| |
| would stop.
| |
| | |
| Everything seemed to be falling to pieces around us. The old
| |
| compactness was gone.
| |
| | |
| We two had come to be the pillars of the sect. The Master could not
| |
| give up either of us without a struggle. So he ventured once more to
| |
| make an overture to Damini. 'My little mother,' said he,'the time is
| |
| coming for us to proceed to the more arduous part of our journey. You
| |
| had better return from here.'
| |
| | |
| 'Return where?'
| |
| | |
| 'Home, to your aunt.'
| |
| | |
| 'That cannot be.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why?' asked the Swami. 'First of all,' said Damini,'she is not my
| |
| own aunt at all. Why should she bear my burden?'
| |
| | |
| 'All your expenses shall be borne by us.'
| |
| | |
| 'Expenses are not the only burden. It is no part of her duty to be
| |
| saddled with looking after me.'
| |
| | |
| 'But, Damini,' urged the Swami in his desperation, 'can I keep you
| |
| with me for ever?'
| |
| | |
| 'Is that a question for me to answer?'
| |
| | |
| 'But where will you go when I am dead?'
| |
| | |
| 'I was never allowed,' returned Damini icily, 'to have the
| |
| responsibility of thinking that out. I have been made to realise too
| |
| well that in this world I have neither home nor property; nothing at
| |
| all to call my own. That is what makes my burden so heavy to bear. It
| |
| pleased you to take it up. You shall not now cast it on another!'
| |
| | |
| Damini went off.
| |
| | |
| 'Lord, have mercy!' sighed the Swami.
| |
| | |
| Damini had laid on me the command to procure for her some good Bengali
| |
| books. I need hardly say that by 'good' Damini did not mean spiritual,
| |
| of the quality affected by our sect. Nor need I pause to make it clear
| |
| that Damini had no compunction in asking anything from me. It had not
| |
| taken her long to find out that making demands on me was the easiest
| |
| way of making me amends. Some kinds of trees are all the better for
| |
| being pruned: that was the kind of person I seemed to be where Damini
| |
| was concerned.
| |
| | |
| Well, the books I ordered were unmitigatedly modern. The author was
| |
| distinctly less influenced by Manu [Footnote: The Hindu law-giver.]
| |
| than by Man himself. The packet was delivered by the postman to the
| |
| Swami. He raised his eyebrows, as he opened it, and asked: 'Hullo,
| |
| Srivilas, what are these for?'
| |
| | |
| I remained silent.
| |
| | |
| The Master gingerly turned over some of the pages, as he remarked for
| |
| my benefit that he had never thought much of the author, having failed
| |
| to find in his writings the correct spiritual flavour.
| |
| | |
| 'If you read them carefully, sir,' I suddenly blurted out, 'you will
| |
| find his writings not to be lacking in the flavour of Truth.' The fact
| |
| is, rebellion had been long brewing within me. I was feeling done to
| |
| death with mystic emotion. I was nauseated with shedding tears over
| |
| abstract human feelings, to the neglect of living human creatures.
| |
| | |
| The Master blinked at me curiously before he replied: 'Very well, my
| |
| son, carefully read them I will.' He tucked the books away under the
| |
| bolster on which he reclined. I could perceive that his idea was not
| |
| to surrender them to me.
| |
| | |
| Damini, from behind the door, must have got wind of this, for at once
| |
| she stepped in and asked: 'Haven't the books you ordered for me
| |
| arrived yet?'
| |
| | |
| I remained silent.
| |
| | |
| 'My little mother!' said the Swami. 'These books are not fit for you
| |
| to read.'
| |
| | |
| 'How should you know that?'
| |
| | |
| The Master frowned. 'How, at least, could you know better?'
| |
| | |
| 'I have read the author: you, perhaps, have not.'
| |
| | |
| 'Why, then, need you read him over again?'
| |
| | |
| 'When _you_ have any need,' Damini flared up, 'nothing is allowed to
| |
| stand in _your_ way. It is only _I_ who am to have no needs!'
| |
| | |
| 'You forget yourself, Damini. I am a _sannyasin_. I have no worldly
| |
| desires.'
| |
| | |
| 'You forget that I am not a _sannyasin_. I have a desire to read these
| |
| books. Will you kindly let me have them?'
| |
| | |
| The Swami drew out the books from under his bolster and tossed them
| |
| across to me. I handed them over to Damini.
| |
| | |
| In the end, the books that Damini would have read alone by herself,
| |
| she now began to send for me to read out to her. It was in that same
| |
| shaded veranda along our rooms that these readings took place. Satish
| |
| passed and repassed, longing to join in, but could not, unasked.
| |
| | |
| One day we had come upon a humorous passage, and Damini was rocking
| |
| with laughter. There was a festival on at the temple and we had
| |
| supposed that Satish would be there. But we heard a door open behind,
| |
| through which Satish unexpectedly appeared and came and sat down
| |
| beside us.
| |
| | |
| Damini's laughter was at once cut short. I also felt awkward. I wanted
| |
| badly to say something to Satish, but no words would come, and I went
| |
| on silently turning over page after page of my book. He rose, and
| |
| left as abruptly as he had come. Our reading made no further progress
| |
| that day.
| |
| | |
| Satish may very likely have understood that while he envied the
| |
| absence of reserve between Damini and me, its presence was just what I
| |
| envied in his case. That same day he petitioned the Master to be
| |
| allowed to go off on a solitary excursion along the sea-coast,
| |
| promising to be back within a week. 'The very thing, my son!'
| |
| acquiesced the Swami, with enthusiasm.
| |
| | |
| Satish departed. Damini did not send for me to read to her any more,
| |
| nor had she anything else to ask of me. Neither did I see her going to
| |
| her friends, the women of the neighbourhood. She kept her room, with
| |
| closed doors.
| |
| | |
| Some days passed thus. One afternoon, when the Master was deep in his
| |
| siesta, and I was writing a letter seated out on our veranda, Satish
| |
| suddenly turned up. Without so much as a glance at me, he walked
| |
| straight up to Damini's door, knocking as he called: 'Damini, Damini.'
| |
| | |
| Damini came out at once. A strangely altered Satish met her inquiring
| |
| gaze. Like a storm-battered ship, with torn rigging and tattered
| |
| sails, was his condition,--eyes wild, hair dishevelled, features
| |
| drawn, garments dusty.
| |
| | |
| 'Damini,' said Satish, 'I asked you to leave us. That was wrong of
| |
| me. I beg your forgiveness.'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, don't say that,' cried the distressed Damini, clasping her hands.
| |
| | |
| 'You must forgive me,' he repeated. 'I will never again allow that
| |
| pride to overcome me, which led me to think I could take you or leave
| |
| you, according to my own spiritual requirements. Such sin will never
| |
| cross my mind again, I promise you. Do you also promise me one thing?'
| |
| 'Command me!' said Damini, making humble obeisance.
| |
| | |
| 'You must join us, and not keep aloof like this.'
| |
| | |
| 'I will join you,' said Damini. 'I will sin no more.' Then, as she
| |
| bowed low again to take the dust of his feet, she repeated, 'I will
| |
| sin no more.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| V
| |
| | |
| | |
| The stone was melted again. Damini's bewildering radiance remained
| |
| undimmed, but it lost its heat. In worship and ritual and service her
| |
| beauty blossomed out anew. She was never absent from the _kirtan_
| |
| singing, nor when the Master gave his readings and discourses. There
| |
| was a change in her raiment also. She reverted to the golden brown of
| |
| plain tussore, [Footnote: The tussore silk-worm is a wild variety, and
| |
| its cocoon has to be used after the moth has cut its way out and flown
| |
| away, thus not being killed in the process of unwinding the silk.
| |
| Hence tussore silk is deemed specially suitable for wear on occasions
| |
| of divine worship.] and whenever we saw her she seemed fresh from her
| |
| toilet.
| |
| | |
| The severest test came in her intercourse with the Master. When she
| |
| made her salutation to him, I could catch the glint of severely
| |
| repressed temper through her half-closed eyelids. I knew very well
| |
| that she could not bear to take orders from the Master; nevertheless,
| |
| so complete was her self-suppression, that the Swami was able to screw
| |
| up the courage to repeat his condemnation of the obnoxious tone of
| |
| that outrageously modern Bengali writer. The next day there was a heap
| |
| of flowers near his seat, and under them were the torn pages of the
| |
| books of the objectionable author.
| |
| | |
| I had always noticed that the attendance on the Master by Satish was
| |
| specially intolerable to Damini. Even now, when the Master asked him
| |
| for some personal service, Damini would try to hustle past Satish and
| |
| forestall him. This, however, was not possible in every case; and
| |
| while Satish kept blowing on the tinder to get it into a blaze for the
| |
| Master's pipe, Damini would have much ado to keep herself in hand by
| |
| grimly repeating under her breath,'I will sin no more. I will sin no
| |
| more.'
| |
| | |
| But what Satish had tried for did not come off. On the last occasion
| |
| of Damini's self-surrender, he had seen the beauty of the surrender
| |
| only, not of the self behind it. This time Damini herself had become
| |
| so true for him that she eclipsed all strains of music, and all
| |
| thoughts of philosophy. Her reality had become so dominant that Satish
| |
| could no longer lose himself in his visions, nor think of her merely
| |
| as an aspect of Universal Woman. It was not she who, as before, set
| |
| off for him the melodies which filled his mind; rather, these melodies
| |
| had now become part of the halo which encircled her person.
| |
| | |
| I should not, perhaps, leave out the minor detail that Damini had no
| |
| longer any use for me. Her demands on me had suddenly ceased
| |
| altogether. Of my colleagues, who used to assist in beguiling her
| |
| leisure, the kite was dead, the mongoose had escaped, and as for the
| |
| mongrel puppy, its manners having offended the Master's
| |
| susceptibilities, it had been given away. Thus, bereft both of
| |
| occupation and companionship, I returned to my old place in the
| |
| assembly surrounding the Master, though the talking and singing and
| |
| doing that went on there had all alike become horribly distasteful to
| |
| me.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VI
| |
| | |
| | |
| The laboratory of Satish's mind was not amenable to any outside laws.
| |
| One day, as he was compounding therein, for my special benefit, a
| |
| weird mixture of ancient philosophy and modern science, with reason as
| |
| well as emotion promiscuously thrown in, Damini burst in upon us,
| |
| panting: 'Oh, do come, both of you, come quick!'
| |
| | |
| 'Whatever is the matter?' I cried, as I leapt up.
| |
| | |
| 'Nabin's wife has taken poison, I think,' she said.
| |
| | |
| Nabin was a neighbour, one of our regular _kirtan_ singers--an ardent
| |
| disciple. We hurried after Damini, but when we arrived his wife was
| |
| dead.
| |
| | |
| We pieced together her story. Nabin's wife had brought her motherless
| |
| younger sister to live with them. She was a very pretty girl, and when
| |
| Nabin's brother had last been home, he was so taken with her that
| |
| their marriage was speedily arranged. This greatly relieved her elder
| |
| sister, for, high caste as they were, a suitable bridegroom was not
| |
| easy to find. The wedding-day had been fixed some months later, when
| |
| Nabin's brother would have completed his college course. Meanwhile
| |
| Nabin's wife lit upon the discovery that her husband had seduced her
| |
| sister. She forthwith insisted on his marrying the unfortunate
| |
| girl,--for which, as it happened, he did not require much persuasion.
| |
| The wedding ceremony had just been put through, whereupon the elder
| |
| sister had made away with herself by taking poison.
| |
| | |
| There was nothing to be done. The three of us slowly wended our way
| |
| back, to find the usual throng round the Master. They sang a _kirtan_
| |
| to him, and he waxed ecstatic in his usual manner, and began to dance
| |
| with them.
| |
| | |
| That evening the moon was near its full. One corner of our terrace was
| |
| overhung by the branch of a _chalta_ tree. At the edge of the shadow,
| |
| under its thick foliage, sat Damini lost in silent thought. Satish
| |
| was softly pacing up and down our veranda behind her. I had a hobby
| |
| for diary-writing, in which I was indulging, alone in my room, with
| |
| the door wide open.
| |
| | |
| That evening the _koil_ could not sleep; stirred by the south breeze
| |
| the leaves too were speaking out, and the moonlight, shimmering on
| |
| them, smiled in response. Something must also have stirred within
| |
| Satish, for he suddenly turned his steps towards the terrace and went
| |
| and stood near Damini.
| |
| | |
| Damini looked round with a start, adjusted her _sari_ [Footnote: A
| |
| formal recognition of the presence of an elder.] over the back of her
| |
| head, and rose as if to leave. Satish called, 'Damini!'
| |
| | |
| She stopped at once, and turning to him appealingly with folded hands
| |
| she said, 'My Master, may I ask you a question?'
| |
| | |
| Satish looked at her inquiringly, but made no reply.
| |
| | |
| Damini went on: 'Tell me truly, of what use to the world is this thing
| |
| with which your sect is occupied day and night? Whom have you been
| |
| able to save?'
| |
| | |
| I came out from my room and stood on the veranda.
| |
| | |
| Damini continued: 'This passion, passion, passion on which you
| |
| harp,--did you not see it in its true colours to-day? It has neither
| |
| religion nor duty; it regards neither wife nor brother, nor the
| |
| sanctuary of home; it knows neither pity nor trust, nor modesty, nor
| |
| shame. What way have you discovered to save men from the hell of this
| |
| cruel, shameless, soul-killing passion?'
| |
| | |
| I could not contain myself, but cried out: 'Oh yes, we have hit upon
| |
| the wonderful device of banishing Woman right away from our territory,
| |
| so as to make our pursuit of passion quite safe!'
| |
| | |
| Without paying any heed to my words, Damini spoke on to Satish: 'I
| |
| have learnt nothing at all from your Master. He has never given me one
| |
| moment's peace of mind. Fire cannot quench fire. The road along which
| |
| he is taking his devotees leads neither to courage, nor restraint, nor
| |
| peace. That poor woman who is dead,--her heart's blood was sucked dry
| |
| by this Fury, Passion, who killed her. Did you not see the hideous
| |
| countenance of the murderess? For God's sake, my Master, I implore
| |
| you, do not sacrifice me to that Fury. Oh, save me, for if anybody
| |
| can save me, it is you!'
| |
| | |
| For a space all three of us kept silent. So poignant became the
| |
| silence all around, it seemed to me that the vibrating drone of the
| |
| _cicadas_ was but a swoon-thrill of the pallid sky.
| |
| | |
| Satish was the first to speak. 'Tell me,' said he to Damini, 'what is
| |
| it you would have me do for you?'
| |
| | |
| 'Be my _guru_! I would follow none else. Give me some creed--higher
| |
| than all this--which can save me. Do not let me be destroyed, together
| |
| with the Divinity which is in me.'
| |
| | |
| Satish drew himself up straight, as he responded: 'So be it.'
| |
| | |
| Damini prostrated herself at his feet, her forehead touching the
| |
| ground, and remained long thus, in reverential adoration, murmuring:
| |
| 'Oh, my Master, my Master, save me, save me, save me from all sin.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VII
| |
| | |
| | |
| Once more there was a mighty sensation in our world, and a storm of
| |
| vituperation in the newspapers--for Satish had again turned renegade.
| |
| | |
| At first he had defiantly proclaimed active disbelief in all religion
| |
| and social convention. Next, with equal vehemence, he had displayed
| |
| active belief in gods and goddesses, rites and ceremonies, not
| |
| excluding the least of them. Now, lastly, he had thrown to the winds
| |
| all the rubbish-heaps both of religious and irreligious cults, and had
| |
| retired into such simple peacefulness that no one could even guess
| |
| what he believed, or what he did not. True, he took up good works as
| |
| of old; but there was nothing aggressive about it this time.
| |
| | |
| There was another event over which the newspapers exhausted all their
| |
| resources of sarcasm and virulence. That was the announcement of
| |
| Damini's marriage with me. The mystery of this marriage none will
| |
| perhaps fathom,--but why need they?
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| CHAPTER IV
| |
| | |
| SRIVILAS
| |
| | |
| I
| |
| | |
| | |
| There was once an indigo factory on this spot. All that now remains
| |
| of it are some tumble-down rooms belonging to the old house, the rest
| |
| having crumbled into dust. When returning homewards, after performing
| |
| Damini's last rites, the place, as we passed by it, somehow appealed
| |
| to me, and I stayed on alone.
| |
| | |
| The road leading from the river-side to the factory gate is flanked by
| |
| an avenue of sissoo trees. Two broken pillars still mark the site of
| |
| the gateway, and portions of the garden wall are standing here and
| |
| there. The only other memento of the past is the brick-built mound
| |
| over the grave of some Mussulman servant of the factory. Through its
| |
| cracks, wild flowering shrubs have sprung up. Covered with blossoms
| |
| they sway to the breeze and mock at death, like merry maidens shaking
| |
| with laughter while they chaff the bridegroom on his wedding-day. The
| |
| banks of the garden pool have caved in and let the water trickle away,
| |
| leaving the bottom to serve as a bed for a coriander patch. As I sit
| |
| out on the roadside, under the shade of the avenue, the scent of the
| |
| coriander, in flower, goes through and through my brain.
| |
| | |
| I sit and muse. The factory, of which these remnants are left, like
| |
| the skeleton of some dead animal by the wayside, was once alive. From
| |
| it flowed waves of pleasure and pain in a stormy succession, which
| |
| then seemed to be endless. Its terribly efficient English proprietor,
| |
| who made the very blood of his sweating cultivators run
| |
| indigo-blue,--how tremendous was he compared to puny me! Nevertheless,
| |
| Mother Earth girded up her green mantle, undismayed, and set to work
| |
| so thoroughly to plaster over the disfigurement wrought by him and his
| |
| activities, that the few remaining traces require but a touch or two
| |
| more to vanish for ever.
| |
| | |
| This scarcely novel reflection, however, was not what my mind
| |
| ruminated over. 'No, no!' it protested. 'One dawn does not succeed
| |
| another merely to smear fresh plaster [Footnote: The wattle-and-daub
| |
| cottages of a Bengal village are cleaned and renovated every morning
| |
| by a moist clay mixture being smeared by the housewife over the plinth
| |
| and floors.] over the floor. True, the Englishman of the factory,
| |
| together with the rest of its abominations, are all swept away into
| |
| oblivion like a handful of dust,--but my Damini!'
| |
| | |
| Many will not agree with me, I know. Shan-karacharya's philosophy
| |
| spares no one. All the world is _maya_, a trembling dewdrop on the
| |
| lotus leaf. But Shankaracharya was a _sannyasin_. 'Who is your wife,
| |
| who your son?' were questions he asked, without understanding their
| |
| meaning. Not being a _sannyasin_ myself, I know full well that Damini
| |
| is not a vanishing dewdrop on the lotus leaf.
| |
| | |
| But, I am told, there are householders also, who say the same thing.
| |
| That may be. They are mere householders, who have lost only the
| |
| mistress of their house. Their home is doubtless maya, and so likewise
| |
| is its mistress. These are their own handiwork, and when done with any
| |
| broom is good enough for sweeping their fragments clean away.
| |
| | |
| I did not keep house long enough to settle down as a householder, nor
| |
| is mine the temperament of a _sannyasin_,--that saved me. So the
| |
| Damini whom I gained became neither housewife nor _maya_. She ever
| |
| remained true to herself,--my Damini. Who dares to call her a shadow?
| |
| | |
| Had I known Damini only as mistress of my house, much of this would
| |
| never have been written. It is because I knew her in a greater, truer
| |
| relation, that I have no hesitation in putting down the whole truth,
| |
| recking nothing of what others may say.
| |
| | |
| Had it been my lot to live with Damini, as others do in the everyday
| |
| world, the household routine of toilet and food and repose would have
| |
| sufficed for me as for them. And after Damini's death, I could have
| |
| heaved a sigh and exclaimed with Shankaracharya: 'Variegated is the
| |
| world of _maya_!' before hastening to honour the suggestion of some
| |
| aunt, or other well-meaning elder, by another attempt to sample its
| |
| variety by marrying again. But I had not adjusted myself to the
| |
| domestic world, like a foot in a comfortable old shoe. From the very
| |
| outset I had given up hope of happiness,--no, no, that is saying too
| |
| much; I was not so non-human as that. Happiness I certainly hoped for,
| |
| but I did not arrogate to myself the right to claim it.
| |
| | |
| Why? Because it was I who persuaded Damini to give her consent to our
| |
| marriage. Not for us was the first auspicious vision [Footnote: At one
| |
| stage of the wedding ceremony a red screen is placed round the Bride
| |
| and Bridegroom, and they are asked to look at each other. This is the
| |
| Auspicious Vision,] in the rosy glow of festive lamps, to the
| |
| rapturous strains of wedding pipes. We married in the broad light of
| |
| day, with eyes wide open.
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| II
| |
| | |
| | |
| When we went away from Lilananda Swami, the time came to think of ways
| |
| and means, as well as of a sheltering roof. We had all along been more
| |
| in danger of surfeit than of starvation, with the hospitality which
| |
| the devotees of the Master pressed on us, wherever we went with him.
| |
| We had almost come to forget that to be a householder involves the
| |
| acquiring, or building, or at least the renting of a house, so
| |
| accustomed had we become to cast the burden of its supply upon
| |
| another, and to look on a house as demanding from us only the duty of
| |
| making ourselves thoroughly comfortable in it.
| |
| | |
| At length we recollected that Uncle Jagamohan had bequeathed his share
| |
| of the house to Satish. Had the will been left in Satish's custody,
| |
| it would by this time have been wrecked, like a paper boat, on the
| |
| waves of his emotion. It happened, however, to be with me; for I was
| |
| the executor. There were three conditions attached to the bequest
| |
| which I was responsible for carrying out. No religious worship was to
| |
| be performed in the house. The ground floor was to be used as a school
| |
| for the leather-dealers' children. And after Satish's death, the whole
| |
| property was to be applied for the benefit of that community. Piety
| |
| was the one thing Uncle Jagamohan could not tolerate. He looked on it
| |
| as more defiling even than worldliness; and probably these provisions,
| |
| which he facetiously referred to in English as 'sanitary precautions,'
| |
| were intended as a safeguard against the excessive piety which
| |
| prevailed in the adjoining half of the house.
| |
| | |
| 'Come along,' I said to Satish. 'Let's go to your Calcutta house.'
| |
| | |
| 'I am not quite ready for that yet,' Satish replied.
| |
| | |
| I did not understand him.
| |
| | |
| 'There was a day,' he explained, 'when I relied wholly on reason, only
| |
| to find at last that reason could not support the whole of life's
| |
| burden. There was another day, when I placed my reliance on emotion,
| |
| only to discover it to be a bottomless abyss. The reason and the
| |
| emotion, you see, were alike mine. Man cannot rely on himself alone. I
| |
| dare not return to town until I have found my support.'
| |
| | |
| 'What then do you suggest?' I asked.
| |
| | |
| 'You two go on to the Calcutta house. I would wander alone for a time.
| |
| I seem to see glimpses of the shore. If I allow it out of my sight
| |
| now, I may lose it for ever.'
| |
| | |
| As soon as we were by ourselves, Damini said to me: 'That will never
| |
| do! If he wanders about alone, who is to look after him? Don't you
| |
| remember in what plight he came back when he last went wandering? The
| |
| very idea of it fills me with fear.'
| |
| | |
| Shall I tell the truth? This anxiety of Damini's stung me like a
| |
| hornet, leaving behind the smart of anger. Had not Satish wandered
| |
| about for two whole years after Uncle Jagamohan's death,--had that
| |
| killed him? My question did not remain unuttered. Rather, some of the
| |
| smart of the sting got expressed with it.
| |
| | |
| 'I know, Srivilas Babu,' Damini replied. 'It takes a great deal to
| |
| kill a man. But why should he be allowed to suffer at all, so long as
| |
| the two of us are here to prevent it?'
| |
| | |
| The two of us! Half of that meant this wretched creature, Srivilas! It
| |
| is of course a law of the world, that in order to save some people
| |
| from suffering others shall suffer. All the inhabitants of the earth
| |
| may be divided into two such classes. Damini had found out to which I
| |
| belonged. It was compensation, indeed, that she included herself in
| |
| the same class.
| |
| | |
| I went and said to Satish: 'All right, then, let us postpone our
| |
| departure to town. We can stay for a time in that dilapidated house on
| |
| the river-side. They say it is subject to ghostly visitations. This
| |
| will serve to keep off human visitors.'
| |
| | |
| 'And you two?' inquired Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'Like the ghosts, we shall keep in hiding as far as possible.'
| |
| | |
| Satish threw a nervous glance at Damini,--there may have been a
| |
| suggestion of dread in it.
| |
| | |
| Damini clasped her hands as she said imploringly: 'I have accepted you
| |
| as my guru.
| |
| | |
| Whatever my sins may have been, let them not deprive me of the right
| |
| to serve you.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| III
| |
| | |
| | |
| I must confess that this frenzied pertinacity of Satish's quest is
| |
| beyond my understanding. There was a time when I would have laughed to
| |
| scorn the very idea. Now I had ceased to laugh. What Satish was
| |
| pursuing was fire indeed, no will-o'-the-wisp. When I realised how its
| |
| heat was consuming him, the old arguments of Uncle Jagamohan's school
| |
| refused to pass my lips. Of what avail would it be to find, with
| |
| Herbert Spencer, that the mystic sense might have originated in some
| |
| ghostly superstition, or that its message could be reduced to some
| |
| logical absurdity? Did we not see how Satish was burning,--his whole
| |
| being aglow?
| |
| | |
| Satish was perhaps better off when his days were passing in one round
| |
| of excitement,--singing, dancing, serving the Master,--the whole of
| |
| his spiritual effort exhausting itself in the output of the moment.
| |
| Since he has lapsed into outward quiet, his spirit refuses to be
| |
| controlled any longer. There is now no question of seeking emotional
| |
| satisfaction. The inward struggle for realisation is so tremendous
| |
| within him, that we are afraid to look on his face.
| |
| | |
| I could remain silent no longer. 'Satish,' I suggested,'don't you
| |
| think it would be better to go to some _guru_ who could show you the
| |
| way and make your spiritual progress easier?'
| |
| | |
| This only served to annoy him. 'Oh, do be quiet, Visri,' he broke out
| |
| irritably. 'For goodness' sake keep quiet! What does one want to make
| |
| it easier for? Delusion alone is easy. Truth is always difficult.'
| |
| | |
| 'But would it not be better,' I tried again, 'if some _guru_ were to
| |
| guide you along the path of Truth?'
| |
| | |
| Satish was almost beside himself. 'Will you never understand,' he
| |
| groaned,'that I am not running after any geographical truth? The
| |
| Dweller within can only come to me along my own true path. The path of
| |
| the _guru_ can only lead to the _guru's_ door.'
| |
| | |
| What a number of opposite principles have I heard enunciated by this
| |
| same mouth of Satish! I, Srivilas, once the favourite disciple of
| |
| Uncle Jagamohan,--who would have threatened me with a big stick if I
| |
| had called him Master,--had actually been made by Satish to massage
| |
| the legs of Lila-nanda Swami. And now not even a week has passed but
| |
| he needs must preach to me in this strain! However, as I dared not
| |
| smile, I maintained a solemn silence.
| |
| | |
| 'I have now understood,' Satish went on, 'why our Scriptures say that
| |
| it is better to die in one's own _dharma_ rather than court the
| |
| terrible fate of taking the _dharma_ of another. All else may be
| |
| accepted as gifts, but if one's _dharma_ is not one's own, it does not
| |
| save, but kills. I cannot gain my God as alms from anybody else. If I
| |
| get Him at all, it shall be I who win Him. If I do not, even death is
| |
| better.'
| |
| | |
| I am argumentative by nature, and could not give in so easily. 'A
| |
| poet,' said I,'may get a poem from within himself. But he who is not a
| |
| poet needs must take it from another.'
| |
| | |
| 'I am a poet,' said Satish, without blenching.
| |
| | |
| That finished the matter. I came away.
| |
| | |
| Satish had no regular hours for meals or sleep. There was no knowing
| |
| where he was to be found next. His body began to take on the
| |
| unsubstantial keenness of an over--sharpened knife. One felt this
| |
| could not go on much longer. Yet I could not muster up courage to
| |
| interfere. Damini, however, was utterly unable to bear it. She was
| |
| grievously incensed at God's ways. With those who ignored Him, God was
| |
| powerless,--was it fair thus to take it out of one who was helplessly
| |
| prostrate at His feet? When Damini used to wax wroth with Lilananda
| |
| Swami, she knew how to bring it home to him. Alas, she knew not how to
| |
| bring her feelings home to God! Anyhow, she spared no pains in trying
| |
| to get Satish to be regular in satisfying his physical needs.
| |
| Numberless and ingenious were her contrivances to get this misfit
| |
| creature to conform to domestic regulations. For a considerable space
| |
| Satish made no overt objection to her endeavours. But one morning he
| |
| waded across the shallow river to the broad sand-bed along the
| |
| opposite bank, and there disappeared from sight.
| |
| | |
| The sun rose to the meridian; it gradually bent over to the west; but
| |
| there was no sign of Satish. Damini waited for him, fasting, till she
| |
| could contain herself no longer. She put some food on a salver, and
| |
| with it toiled through the knee-deep water, and at last found herself
| |
| on the sand-bank.
| |
| | |
| It was a vast expanse on which not a living creature of any kind was
| |
| to be seen. The sun was cruel. Still more so were the glowing billows
| |
| of sand, one succeeding the other, like ranks of crouching sentinels
| |
| guarding the emptiness. As she stood on the edge of this spreading
| |
| pallor, where all limits seemed to have been lost, where no call could
| |
| meet with any response, no question with any answer, Damini's heart
| |
| sank within her. It was as if her world had been wiped away and
| |
| reduced to the dull blank of original colourlessness. One vast 'No'
| |
| seemed to be stretched at her feet. No sound, no movement, no red of
| |
| blood, no green of vegetation, no blue of sky,--but only the drab of
| |
| sand. It looked like the lipless grin of some giant skull, the
| |
| tongueless cavern of its jaws gaping with an eternal petition of
| |
| thirst to the unrelenting fiery skies above.
| |
| | |
| While she was wondering in what direction to proceed, the faint track
| |
| of footsteps caught Damini's eye. These she pursued, and went on and
| |
| on, over the undulating surface, till they stopped at a pool on the
| |
| farther side of a sand-drift. Along the moist edge of the water could
| |
| be seen the delicate tracery of the claw-marks of innumerable
| |
| water-fowl. Under the shade of the sand-drift sat Satish.
| |
| | |
| The water was the deepest of deep blue. The fussy snipe were poking
| |
| about on its margin, bobbing their tails and fluttering their
| |
| black-and-white wings. At some distance were a flock of wild duck
| |
| quacking vigorously, and seeming never to get the preening of their
| |
| feathers done to their own satisfaction. When Damini reached the top
| |
| of the mound, which formed one bank of the pool, the ducks took
| |
| themselves off in a body, with a great clamour and beating of wings.
| |
| Satish looked round and saw Damini. 'Why are you here?' he cried.
| |
| | |
| 'I have brought you something to eat,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'I want nothing,' said Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'It is very late------' ventured Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'Nothing at all,' repeated Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'Let me then wait a little,' suggested Damini. 'Perhaps later
| |
| on------?'
| |
| | |
| 'Oh, why will you------' burst out Satish, but as his glance fell on
| |
| Damini's face he stopped short.
| |
| | |
| Damini said nothing further. Tray in hand she retraced her steps
| |
| through the sand, which glared round her like the eye of a tiger in
| |
| the dark.
| |
| | |
| Tears had always been rarer in Damini's eyes than lightning flashes.
| |
| But when I saw her that evening,--seated on the floor, her feet
| |
| stretched out before her,--she was weeping. When she saw me her tears
| |
| seemed to burst through some obstruction and showered forth in
| |
| torrents. I cannot tell what it felt like within my breast. I came
| |
| near and sat down on one side.
| |
| | |
| When she had calmed herself a little I inquired: 'Why does Satish's
| |
| health make you so anxious?'
| |
| | |
| 'What else have I to be anxious about?' she asked simply. 'All the
| |
| rest he has to think out for himself. There I can neither understand
| |
| nor help.'
| |
| | |
| 'But consider, Damini,' I said. 'When man's mind puts forth all its
| |
| energy into one particular channel, his bodily needs become reduced
| |
| correspondingly. That is why, in the presence of great joy or great
| |
| sorrow, man does not hunger or thirst. Satish's state of mind is now
| |
| such that it will do him no harm even if you do not look after his
| |
| body.'
| |
| | |
| 'I am a woman,' replied Damini. 'The building up of the body with our
| |
| own body, with our life itself, is our _dharma_. It is woman's own
| |
| creation. So when we women see the body suffer, our spirit refuses to
| |
| be comforted.'
| |
| | |
| 'That is why,' I retorted,'those who are busy with things of the
| |
| spirit seem to have no eyes for you, the guardians of mere bodies!'
| |
| | |
| 'Haven't they!' Damini flared up. 'So wonderful, rather, is the vision
| |
| of their eyes, it turns everything topsy-turvy.'
| |
| | |
| 'Ah, woman,' said I to myself. 'That is what fascinates you. Srivilas,
| |
| my boy, next time you take birth, take good care to be born in the
| |
| world of topsy-turvydom.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| IV
| |
| | |
| | |
| The wound which Satish inflicted on Damini that day on the sands had
| |
| this result, that he could not remove from his mind the agony he had
| |
| seen in her eyes. During the succeeding days he had to go through the
| |
| purgatory of showing her special consideration. It was long since he
| |
| had freely conversed with us. Now he would send for Damini and talk to
| |
| her. The experiences and struggles through which he was passing were
| |
| the subject of these talks.
| |
| | |
| Damini had never been so exercised by his indifference as she now was
| |
| by his solicitude. She felt sure this could not last, because the cost
| |
| was too much to pay. Some day or other Satish's attention would be
| |
| drawn to the state of the account, and he would discover how high the
| |
| price was; then would come the crash. The more regular Satish became
| |
| in his meals and rest, as a good householder should, the more anxious
| |
| became Damini, the more she felt ashamed of herself. It was almost as
| |
| if she would be relieved to find Satish becoming rebellious. She
| |
| seemed to be saying: 'You were quite right to hold aloof. Your
| |
| concern for me is only punishing yourself. That I cannot bear!--I
| |
| must,' she appeared to conclude,'make friends with the neighbours
| |
| again, and see if I cannot contrive to keep away from the house.'
| |
| | |
| One night we were roused by a sudden shout: 'Srivilas! Damini!' It
| |
| must have been past midnight, but Satish could not have taken count of
| |
| the hour. How he passed his nights we knew not, but the way he went on
| |
| seemed to have cowed the very ghosts into flight.
| |
| | |
| We shook off our slumbers, and came out of our respective rooms to
| |
| find Satish on the flagged pavement in front of the house, standing
| |
| alone in the darkness. 'I have understood!' he exclaimed as he saw us.
| |
| 'I have no more doubts.'
| |
| | |
| Damini softly went up and sat down on the pavement. Satish absently
| |
| followed her example and sat down too. I also followed suit.
| |
| | |
| 'If I keep going,' said Satish, 'in the same direction along which He
| |
| comes to me, then I shall only be going further and further away from
| |
| Him. If I proceed in the opposite direction, then only can we meet.'
| |
| | |
| I silently gazed at his flaming eyes. As a geometrical truth what he
| |
| said was right enough. But what in the world was it all about? 'He
| |
| loves form,' Satish went on,'so He is continually descending towards
| |
| form. We cannot live by form alone, so we must ascend towards His
| |
| formlessness. He is free, so His play is within bonds. We are bound,
| |
| so we find our joy in freedom. All our sorrow is because we cannot
| |
| understand this.'
| |
| | |
| We kept as silent as the stars.
| |
| | |
| 'Do you not understand, Damini?' pursued Satish. 'He who sings
| |
| proceeds from his joy to the tune; he who hears, from the tune to joy.
| |
| One comes from freedom into bondage, the other goes from bondage into
| |
| freedom; only thus can they have their communion. He sings and we
| |
| hear. He ties the bonds as He sings to us, we untie them as we hear
| |
| Him.'
| |
| | |
| I cannot say whether Damini understood Satish's words, but she
| |
| understood Satish. With her hands folded on her lap she kept quite
| |
| still.
| |
| | |
| 'I was hearing His song through the night,' Satish went on,'till in a
| |
| flash the whole thing became clear to me. Then I could not keep it to
| |
| myself, and called out to you. All this time I had been trying to
| |
| fashion Him to suit myself, and so was deprived.--O Desolator! Breaker
| |
| of ties! Let me be shattered to pieces within you, again and again,
| |
| for ever and ever. Bonds are not for me, that is why I cannot hold on
| |
| to bonds for long. Bonds are yours, and so are you kept eternally
| |
| bound to creation. Play on, then, with our forms and let me take my
| |
| flight into your formlessness.--O Eternal, you are mine, mine,
| |
| mine!'--Satish departed into the night towards the river.
| |
| | |
| After that night, Satish lapsed back into his old ways, forgetful of
| |
| all claims of rest or nourishment. As to when his mind would rise
| |
| into the light of ecstasy, or lapse into the depths of gloom, we could
| |
| make no guess. May God help her who has taken on herself the burden of
| |
| keeping such a creature within the wholesomeness of worldly habit....
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| V
| |
| | |
| | |
| It had been stiflingly oppressive the whole day. In the night a great
| |
| storm burst on us. We had our several rooms along a veranda, in which
| |
| a light used to be kept burning all night. That was now blown out. The
| |
| river was lashed into foaming waves, and a flood of rain burst forth
| |
| from the clouds. The splashing of the waves down below, and the
| |
| dashing of the torrents from above, played the cymbals in this chaotic
| |
| revel of the gods. Nothing could be seen of the deafening movements
| |
| which resounded within the depths of the darkness, and made the sky,
| |
| like a blind child, break into shivers of fright. Out of the bamboo
| |
| thickets pierced a scream as of some bereaved giantess. From the
| |
| mango groves burst the cracking and crashing of breaking timber. The
| |
| river--side echoed with the deep thuds of falling masses from the
| |
| crumbling banks. Through the bare ribs of our dilapidated house the
| |
| keen blasts howled and howled like infuriated beasts.
| |
| | |
| On such a night the fastenings of the human mind are shaken loose. The
| |
| storm gains entry and plays havoc within, scattering into disorder its
| |
| well-arranged furniture of convention, tossing about its curtains of
| |
| decorous restraint in disturbing revealment. I could not sleep. But
| |
| what can I write of the thoughts which assailed my sleepless brain?
| |
| They do not concern this story.
| |
| | |
| 'Who is that?' I heard Satish cry out all of a sudden in the darkness.
| |
| | |
| 'It is I,--Damini,' came the reply. 'Your windows are open, and the
| |
| rain is streaming in. I have come to close them.'
| |
| | |
| As she was doing this, she found Satish had got out of his bed. He
| |
| seemed to stand and hesitate, just for a moment, and then he went out
| |
| of the room.
| |
| | |
| Damini went back to her own room and sat long on the threshold. No one
| |
| returned. The fury of the wind went on increasing in violence.
| |
| | |
| Damini could sit quiet no longer. She also left the house. It was
| |
| hardly possible to keep on one's feet in the storm. The sentinels of
| |
| the revelling gods seemed to be scolding Damini and repeatedly
| |
| thrusting her back. The rain made desperate attempts to pervade every
| |
| nook and cranny of the sky.
| |
| | |
| A flash rent the sky from end to end with terrific tearing thunder. It
| |
| revealed Satish standing on the river brink. With a supreme effort
| |
| Damini reached him in one tempestuous rush, outvying the wind. She
| |
| fell prone at his feet. The shriek of the storm was overcome by her
| |
| cry: 'At your feet, I swear I had no thought of sin against your God!
| |
| Why punish me thus?' Satish stood silent.
| |
| | |
| 'Thrust me into the river with your feet, if you would be rid of me.
| |
| But return you must!'
| |
| | |
| Satish came back. As he re-entered the house he said: 'My need for Him
| |
| whom I seek is immense,--so absolutely, that I have no need for
| |
| anything else at all. Damini, have pity on me and leave me to Him.'
| |
| | |
| After a space of silence Damini said: 'I will.'
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VI
| |
| | |
| | |
| I knew nothing of this at the time, but heard it all from Damini
| |
| afterwards. So when I saw through my open door the two returning
| |
| figures pass along the veranda to their rooms, the desolation of my
| |
| lot fell heavy on my heart and took me by the throat. I struggled up
| |
| from my bed. Further sleep was impossible that night.
| |
| | |
| Next morning, what a changed Damini met my eyes! The demon dance of
| |
| last night's storm seemed to have left all its ravages on this one
| |
| forlorn girl. Though I knew nothing of what had happened, I felt
| |
| bitterly angry with Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'Srivilas Babu,' said Damini, 'will you take me on to Calcutta?'
| |
| | |
| I could guess all that these words meant for her; so I asked no
| |
| question. But, in the midst of the torture within me, I felt the balm
| |
| of consolation. It was well that Damini should take herself away from
| |
| here. Repeated buffeting against the rock could only end in the vessel
| |
| being broken up.
| |
| | |
| At parting, Damini made her obeisance to Satish, saying: 'I have
| |
| grievously sinned at your feet. May I hope for pardon?'
| |
| | |
| Satish, with his eyes fixed on the ground, replied: 'I also have
| |
| sinned. Let me first purge my sin away, and then will I claim
| |
| forgiveness.'
| |
| | |
| It became clear to me, on our way to Calcutta, what a devastating fire
| |
| had all along been raging within Damini. I was so scorched by its heat
| |
| that I could not restrain myself from breaking out in revilement of
| |
| Satish.
| |
| | |
| Damini stopped me frenziedly. 'Don't you dare talk so in my presence!'
| |
| she exclaimed. 'Little do you know what he saved me from! You can
| |
| only see my sorrow. Had you no eyes for the sorrow he has been
| |
| through, in order to save me? The hideous tried once to destroy the
| |
| beautiful, and got well kicked for its pains.--Serve it right!--Serve
| |
| it right!'--Damini began to beat her breast violently with her
| |
| clenched hands. I had to hold them back by main force.
| |
| | |
| When we arrived in the evening, I left Damini at her aunt's and went
| |
| over to a lodging-house, where I used to be well known. My old
| |
| acquaintances started at sight of me. 'Have you been ill?' they cried.
| |
| | |
| By next morning's post I got a letter from Damini. 'Take me away,' she
| |
| wrote. 'There is no room for me here.'
| |
| | |
| It appeared that her aunt would not have her. Scandal about us was
| |
| all over the town. The Pooja numbers of the weekly newspapers had come
| |
| out shortly after we had given up Lilananda Swami. All the
| |
| instruments for our execution had been kept sharpened. The carnage
| |
| turned out to be worthy of the occasion. In our _shastras_ the
| |
| sacrifice of she-animals is prohibited. But, in the case of modern
| |
| human sacrifice, a woman victim seems to add to the zest of the
| |
| performers. The mention of Damini's name was skilfully avoided. But no
| |
| less was the skill which did away with all doubt as to the intention.
| |
| Anyhow, it had resulted in this shrinkage of room in the house of
| |
| Damini's distant aunt.
| |
| | |
| Damini had lost her parents. But I had an idea that her brother was
| |
| living. I asked Damini for his address, but she shook her head, saying
| |
| they were too poor. The fact was, Damini did not care to place her
| |
| brother in an awkward position. What if he also came to say there was
| |
| no room?
| |
| | |
| 'Where will you stay, then?' I had to inquire.
| |
| | |
| 'I will go back to Lilananda Swami.' I could not trust myself to speak
| |
| for a time,--I was so overcome. Was this, then, the last cruel trick
| |
| which Fate had held in reserve?
| |
| | |
| 'Will the Swami take you back?' I asked at length.
| |
| | |
| 'Gladly!'
| |
| | |
| Damini understood men. Sect-mongers rejoice more in capturing
| |
| adherents than in comprehending truths. Damini was quite right. There
| |
| would be no dearth of room for her at Lilananda's, but-------
| |
| | |
| 'Damini,' I said, just at this juncture. 'There is another way. If you
| |
| promise not to be angry, I will mention it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Tell me,' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'If it is at all possible for you to think of marrying a creature,
| |
| such as I am------'
| |
| | |
| 'What are you saying, Srivilas Babu?' interrupted Damini. 'Are you
| |
| mad?'
| |
| | |
| 'Suppose I am,' said I. 'One can sometimes solve insoluble problems by
| |
| becoming mad. Madness is like the wishing carpet of the _Arabian
| |
| Nights_. It can waft one over the thousand petty considerations which
| |
| obstruct the everyday world.'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you call petty considerations?'
| |
| | |
| 'Such as: What will people think?--What will happen in the
| |
| future?--and so on, and so forth.'
| |
| | |
| 'And what about the vital considerations?'
| |
| | |
| 'What do you call vital?' I asked in my turn.
| |
| | |
| 'Such as, for instance: What will be your fate if you marry a creature
| |
| like me?' said Damini.
| |
| | |
| 'If that be a vital consideration, I am reassured. For I cannot
| |
| possibly be in a worse plight than now. Any movement of my prostrate
| |
| fortune, even though it be a turning over to the other side, cannot
| |
| but be a sign of improvement.'
| |
| | |
| Of course I could not believe that some telepathic news of my state of
| |
| mind had never reached Damini. Such news, however, had not, so far,
| |
| come under the head of 'Important'--at least it had not called for any
| |
| notice to be taken. Now action was definitely demanded of her.
| |
| | |
| Damini was lost in silent thought.
| |
| | |
| 'Damini,' I said, 'I am only one of the very ordinary sort of
| |
| men,--even less, for I am of no account in the world. To marry me, or
| |
| not to marry me, cannot make enough difference to be worth all this
| |
| thought.'
| |
| | |
| Tears glistened in Damini's eyes. 'Had you been an ordinary man, it
| |
| would not have cost me a moment's hesitation,' she said.
| |
| | |
| After another long silence, Damini murmured: 'You know what I am.'
| |
| | |
| 'You also know what I am,' I rejoined.
| |
| | |
| Thus was the proposal mooted, relying more on things unspoken than on
| |
| what was said.
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| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| VII
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| | |
| | |
| Those who, in the old days, had been under the spell of my English
| |
| speeches had mostly shaken off their fascination during my absence;
| |
| except only Naren, who still looked on me as one of the rarest
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| products of the age. A house belonging to him was temporarily vacant.
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| In this we took shelter.
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| | |
| It seemed at first that my proposal would never be rescued from the
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| ditch of silence, into which it had lumbered at the very start; or at
| |
| all events that it would require any amount of discussion and repair
| |
| work before it could be hauled back on the high road of 'yes' or 'no.'
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| | |
| But man's mind was evidently created to raise a laugh against mental
| |
| science, with its sudden practical jokes. In the spring, which now
| |
| came upon us, the Creator's joyous laughter rang through and through
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| this hired dwelling of ours.
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| | |
| All this while Damini never had the time to notice that I was anybody
| |
| at all; or it may be that the dazzling light from a different quarter
| |
| had kept her blinded. Now that her world had shrunk around her, it was
| |
| reduced to me alone. So she had no help but to look on me with seeing
| |
| eyes. Perhaps it was the kindness of my fate which contrived that this
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| should be her first sight of me.
| |
| | |
| By river and hill and seashore have I wandered along with Damini, as
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| one of Lilananda's kirtan party, setting the atmosphere on fire with
| |
| passionate song, to the beat of drum and cymbal. Great sparks of
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| emotion were set free as we rang the changes on the text of the
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| Vaishanava poet: _The noose of love hath bound my heart to thy feet_.
| |
| Yet the curtain which hid me from Damini was not burnt away.
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| | |
| But what was it that happened in this Calcutta lane? The dingy houses,
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| crowding upon one another, blossomed out like flowers of paradise.
| |
| Verily God vouchsafed to us a miracle. Out of this brick and mortar He
| |
| fashioned a harp-string to voice forth His melody. And with His wand
| |
| He touched me, the least of men, and made me, all in a moment,
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| wonderful.
| |
| | |
| When the curtain is there, the separation is infinite; when it is
| |
| lifted, the distance can be crossed in the twinkling of an eye. So it
| |
| took no time at all. 'I was in a dream,' said Damini. 'It wanted this
| |
| shock to wake me. Between that "you" of mine and this "you" of mine,
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| there was a veil of stupor. I salute my Master again and again, for it
| |
| is he who dispelled it.'
| |
| | |
| 'Damini,' I said,'do not keep your gaze on me like that. Before, when
| |
| you made the discovery that this creation of God is not beautiful, I
| |
| was able to bear it; but it will be difficult to do so now.'
| |
| | |
| 'I am making the discovery,' she replied,'that this creation of God
| |
| has its beauty.'
| |
| | |
| 'Your name will go down in history!' I exclaimed. 'The planting of the
| |
| explorer's flag on the South Pole heights was child's play to this
| |
| discovery of yours. "Difficult" is not the word for it. You will have
| |
| achieved the impossible!'
| |
| | |
| I had never realised before how short our spring month of Phalgun is.
| |
| It has only thirty days, and each of the days is not a minute more
| |
| than twenty-four hours. With the infinite time which God has at His
| |
| disposal, such parsimony I failed to understand!
| |
| | |
| 'This mad freak that you are bent on,' said Damini; 'what will your
| |
| people have to say to it?'
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| | |
| 'My people are my best friends. So they are sure to turn me out of
| |
| their house.'
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| | |
| 'What next?'
| |
| | |
| 'Next it will be for you and me to build up a home, fresh from the
| |
| very foundations, that will be our own special creation.'
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| | |
| 'You must also fashion afresh the mistress of your house, from the
| |
| very beginning. May she also be your creation, with no trace left of
| |
| her old battered condition!'
| |
| | |
| We fixed a day in the following month for the wedding. Damini insisted
| |
| that Satish should be brought over.
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| | |
| 'What for?' I asked.
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| | |
| 'He must give me away.'
| |
| | |
| Where the madcap was wandering I was not sure. I had written several
| |
| letters, but with no reply. He could hardly have given up that old
| |
| haunted house, otherwise my letters would have been returned as
| |
| undelivered. The chances were that he had not the time to be opening
| |
| and reading letters.
| |
| | |
| 'Damini,' said I, 'you must come with me and invite him personally.
| |
| This is not a case for sending a formal invitation letter. I could
| |
| have gone by myself, but my courage is not equal to it. For all we
| |
| know, he may be on the other side of the river, superintending the
| |
| preening of ducks' feathers. To follow him there is a desperate
| |
| venture of which you alone are capable!'
| |
| | |
| Damini smiled. 'Did I not swear I would never pursue him there again?'
| |
| | |
| 'You swore you would not go to him with food any more. That does not
| |
| cover your going over to invite him to a repast!'
| |
| | |
| VIII
| |
| | |
| This time everything passed off smoothly. We each took Satish by one
| |
| hand and brought him along with us back to Calcutta. He was as pleased
| |
| as a child receiving a pair of new dolls!
| |
| | |
| Our idea had been to have a quiet wedding. But Satish would have none
| |
| of that. Moreover, there were the Mussulman friends of Uncle
| |
| Jagamohan. When they heard the news, they were so extravagantly
| |
| jubilant that the neighbours must have thought it was for the Amir of
| |
| Kabul or the Nizam of Hyderabad, at the very least. But the height of
| |
| revelry was reached by the newspapers in a very orgy of calumny. Our
| |
| hearts, however, were too full to harbour any resentment. We were
| |
| quite willing to allow the blood-thirstiness of the readers to be
| |
| satisfied, and the pockets of the proprietors to be filled,--along
| |
| with our blessings to boot.
| |
| | |
| 'Come and occupy my house, Visri, old fellow,' said Satish.
| |
| | |
| 'Come with us, too,' I added. 'Let us set to work together over
| |
| again.'
| |
| | |
| 'No, thank you,' said Satish. 'My work is elsewhere.'
| |
| | |
| 'You won't be allowed to go till you have assisted at our
| |
| house-warming,' insisted Damini.
| |
| | |
| This function was not going to be a crowded affair, Satish being the
| |
| only guest. But it was all very well for him to say: 'Come and occupy
| |
| my house.' That had already been done by his father, Harimohan,--not
| |
| directly, but through a tenant. Harimohan would have entered into
| |
| possession himself, but his worldly and other-worldly advisers warned
| |
| him that it was best not to risk it,--a Mussulman having died there of
| |
| the plague. Of course the tenant to whom it was offered ran the same
| |
| spiritual and physical risks, but then why need he be told?
| |
| | |
| How we got the house out of Harimohan's clutches is a long story. The
| |
| Mussulman leather-dealers were our chief allies. When they got to know
| |
| the contents of the will, we found further legal steps to be
| |
| superfluous.
| |
| | |
| The allowance which I had all along been getting from home was now
| |
| stopped. It was all the more of a joy to us to undertake together the
| |
| toil of setting up house without outside assistance. With the seal of
| |
| Premchand-Roychand it was not difficult for me to secure a
| |
| professorship. I was able to supplement my income by publishing notes
| |
| on the prescribed text--books, which were eagerly availed of as patent
| |
| nostrums for passing examinations. I need not have done so much, for
| |
| our own wants were few. But Damini insisted that Satish should not
| |
| have to worry about his own living while we were here to prevent it.
| |
| | |
| There was another thing about which Damini did not say a word. I had
| |
| to attend to it secretly. That was the education of her brother's son
| |
| and the marriage of his daughter. Both of these matters were beyond
| |
| the means of her brother himself. His house was barred to us, but
| |
| pecuniary assistance has no caste to stand in the way of its
| |
| acceptance. Moreover, acceptance did not necessarily involve
| |
| acknowledgment. So I had to add the sub-editorship of a newspaper to
| |
| my other occupations.
| |
| | |
| Without consulting Damini, I engaged a cook and two servants. Without
| |
| consulting me, Damini sent them packing the very next day. When I
| |
| objected, she made me conscious how ill-judged was my attempted
| |
| consideration for her. 'If I am not allowed,' she said,'to do my share
| |
| of work while you are slaving away, where am I to hide my shame?'
| |
| | |
| My work outside and Damini's work at home flowed on together like the
| |
| confluent Ganges and Jumna. Damini also began to teach sewing to the
| |
| leather-dealers' little girls. She was determined not to take defeat
| |
| at my hands. I am not enough of a poet to sing how this Calcutta house
| |
| of ours became Brindaban itself, our labours the flute strains which
| |
| kept it enraptured. All I can say is that our days did not drag,
| |
| neither did they merely pass by,--they positively danced along.
| |
| | |
| One more springtime came and went; but never another.
| |
| | |
| Ever since her return from the cave-temple Damini had suffered from a
| |
| pain in her breast, of which, however, she then told no one. This
| |
| suddenly took a turn for the worse, and when I asked her about it she
| |
| said: 'This is my secret wealth, my touchstone. With it, as dower, I
| |
| was able to come to you. Otherwise I would not have been worthy.'
| |
| | |
| The doctors, each of them, had a different name for the malady.
| |
| Neither did they agree in their prescriptions. When my little hoard of
| |
| gold was blown away between the cross-fire of the doctors' fees and
| |
| the chemist's bills, the chapter of medicament came to an end, and
| |
| change of air was advised. As a matter of fact, hardly anything of
| |
| changeable value was left to us except air.
| |
| | |
| 'Take me to the place from which I brought the pain,' said Damini. 'It
| |
| has no dearth of air.'
| |
| | |
| When the month of Magh ended with its full moon and Phalgun began,
| |
| while the sea heaved and sobbed with the wail of its lonely eternity,
| |
| Damini, taking the dust of my feet, bade farewell to me with the
| |
| words:
| |
| | |
| 'I have not had enough of you. May you be mine again in our next
| |
| birth.'
| |
