‘You are not hurt, I hope?’ he inquired, observing his pallor.
‘No, there’s nothing the matter with me,’ the gentleman replied, forcing a smile; but the smile faded instantly, and he seemed about to faint. Binoy caught him in his arms.
‘This is my house,’ he said to the agitated girl. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Once they had helped the elderly man to bed, the girl looked about and noticed a kunjo in a corner of the room. Pouring a tumbler of water from the pitcher, she sprinkled some of it on the old man’s face and began to fan him.
‘Shouldn’t we send for a doctor?’ she suggested to Binoy. He sent a bearer to fetch a doctor who lived nearby.
On a table at one end of the room were a mirror, a bottle of hair oil, and some combs and brushes. Standing behind the girl, Binoy gazed at the mirror in silence. Since childhood, Binoy had lived and studied in Kolkata. All he knew about the world had been gleaned entirely from books. Never before had he encountered an unattached woman from a respectable family. Looking in the mirror, he marveled at the beauty of the face reflected in it. His eye was not experienced enough to analyze the individual features of her countenance. But the tender glow that the anxious affection had awakened in that young face appeared to Binoy like a newfound wonder of the world.
Shortly after, the old man slowly opened his eyes and sighed, ‘Ma!’ The girl’s eyes glistened with tears.
‘Baba, where are you hurt?’ she asked agitatedly, bending her face close to his.
‘Where am I?’ The old man tried to sit up.
‘Don’t get up, please!’ cried Binoy, coming before him. ‘Please take some rest, the doctor is on his way.’
The old man now recalled the entire incident. ‘It hurts a little here, on my head,’ he said, ‘but it is nothing serious.’
At that moment the doctor arrived, his shoes squeaking on the floor. ‘It’s nothing serious,’ he also confirmed. He departed, having prescribed warm milk laced with brandy. At once the old man grew very embarrassed and agitated.
‘Baba, why are you so anxious?’ said his daughter, sensing his feelings. ‘We shall send across the money for the doctor’s visit and the medicine.’ She glanced at Binoy.
What extraordinary eyes! Whether they were large or small, dark or amber, one did not notice at all. At the very first glance, one felt the unquestionable power of that gaze. There was no coyness in it, no hesitation: it was full of calm strength.
‘The doctor’s charges are trifling,’ Binoy tried to insist. ‘So … you need not … I will …’ With the girl’s eyes fixed on his face, he could not complete his sentence. But there remained no doubt that he must accept the money for the doctor’s fee.
‘Look, I don’t require any brandy …’ the old man began.
‘Why Baba, didn’t the doctor prescribe it?’ his daughter interrupted.
‘Doctors often prescribe such things; it is one of their vices,’ the old man replied. ‘A little warm milk is enough to dispel any weakness I feel.’
‘We’ll take your leave now,’ he said to Binoy, after the milk had revived him. ‘We have caused you a lot of trouble.’
‘A carriage …’ requested the girl, looking at Binoy.
‘Why trouble him any further?’ protested the old man, embarrassed. ‘Our house is quite close after all, we’ll walk this little distance.’
‘No, Baba, that can’t be allowed,’ his daughter insisted. The old man did not contradict her. Binoy went personally to summon a cab.
‘What is your name?’ the old man asked, before mounting it. ‘My name is Binoybhushan Chattopadhyay.’
‘I am Poreshchandra Bhattacharya,’ the old man said. ‘I live close by, at number 78. If you ever find the time to drop by, I shall be delighted.’
Raising her eyes to look at Binoy, the girl silently reinforced this request. Binoy was ready to mount the carriage instantly to visit their house, but unsure if such conduct would be proper, he remained standing there. As the cab drove away, the girl joined her hands in a brief namaskar. Utterly unprepared for this gesture, Binoy remained frozen, unable to respond. Back home, he repeatedly cursed himself for this minor lapse. Scrutinizing his own conduct in their company from their first encounter to the moment of parting, he felt his manner throughout had been rather uncivil. He tormented himself with futile thoughts of what he could have said or done at specific moments. Returning to his room, he found on the bed the handkerchief which the girl had used to wipe her father’s face. Quickly, he picked it up. The baul’s song rang in his ears:
In and out the cage, how the unknown bird doth flit.
As the day advanced, the monsoon sun grew harsher, and a stream of office-bound carriages sped through the streets. Binoy could not concentrate on any of his daily tasks. In his whole life, he had never experienced such exquisite joy, mingled with such intense anguish. His tiny apartment and the hideous city of Kolkata that surrounded it now appeared to him like a fantasy kingdom. He seemed adrift in a lawless realm, where the impossible becomes possible, the unthinkable can be accomplished, and transcendent beauty assumes visible form. At this early hour the radiance of the monsoon sun penetrated his mind, coursed through his blood, and descended like a curtain of light, screening his inner being from the paltriness of everyday life. Binoy yearned to express his fulfillment in some extraordinary form, but failing to find the means, his heart began to chafe. He had presented himself to the visitors in an utterly ordinary light. His home was extremely humble, its interior disorderly, the bed none too clean. Some days, he would adorn his room with a bunch of flowers, but as luck would have it, there was not a flower-petal in his room that day! Everyone said it was evident from Binoy’s gift for spontaneous public speaking that he would one day become a great orator; but that day he had not uttered a single word that demonstrated his intelligence. ‘When that giant carriage was about to crash into their cab,’ he repeated to himself, ‘if only I had rushed into the street at lightning speed, and effortlessly reined in those wayward horses!’ When this heroic fantasy arose in his mind, he could not refrain from glancing at himself in the mirror once.
Just then he noticed a boy of about seven or eight, scanning the number on his building from the street.
‘Here, this is the very house you want!’ he called from above. He never doubted that his house was indeed the one the boy was trying to locate. Binoy rushed downstairs, sandals flapping noisily. Eagerly leading the boy indoors, he gazed at his face.
‘Didi has sent me to you,’ the boy said, handing a letter to Binoybhushan.
Taking the letter, Binoy first saw his name inscribed in English on the envelope, in a clear, feminine hand. There was no letter inside, only a few rupee-notes. When the boy prepared to leave, Binoy would not let him go. His arm round the lad’s shoulders, he led him to the room upstairs. The boy’s complexion was darker than his sister’s, but his features resembled hers somewhat. Looking at him, Binoy’s heart filled with affection and joy.
The boy was quite quick-witted. Entering the room, he noticed a picture on the wall. ‘Who is this?’ he enquired.
‘A friend of mine.’
‘A friend? Who is he?’
‘You wouldn’t know him,’ Binoy smiled. ‘He’s my friend Gourmohan. We call him Gora. We have been fellow-students since childhood.’
‘Are you still a student?’
‘No, not anymore.’
‘Have you finished studying e-v-e-r-y-thing?’
‘Yes, I have,’ answered Binoy, unable to resist bragging, even to this young boy. The boy gave a small sigh of surprise. He probably wondered when he too would be done with all this learning.
‘What’s your name?’ Binoy asked him.
‘Sri Satishchandra Mukhopadhyay is my name.’
‘Mukhopadhyay?’ repeated Binoy, in surprise.
Gradually, in bits and pieces, details of the boy’s identity emerged. Poreshbabu was not the father of this brother-sister duo, but had reared them from infanc
y. The boy’s didi was formerly called Radharani, but Poreshbabu’s wife had changed her name to ‘Sucharita.’ In no time, Binoy and Satish had become fast friends.
‘Can you get home on your own?’ Binoy asked when Satish prepared to leave.
‘I go about alone,’ was his proud reply.
‘Let me see you home.’
‘Why, I can go by myself!’ protested Satish, offended at Binoy’s lack of faith in his abilities. By way of example, he began to recount several amazing anecdotes about his solitary wanderings. Why Binoy still accompanied him to his doorstep, the lad could not quite fathom.
‘Won’t you come in?’ Satish asked him.
‘Another day,’ replied Binoy, quelling all his inner urges.
Back home, Binoy extracted from his pocket the envelope with his name on it, and gazed at it for a long time. He memorized the shape and form of every character inscribed on it. Then he lovingly placed the envelope, money and all, inside a box. There remained no possibility of his ever spending that money in some hour of need.
~2~
That rainy evening, the darkness of the sky seemed damp and heavy. Beneath the oppressive silence of those colourless, monotonous clouds, the city of Kolkata lay motionless like a giant despondent dog, curled up with its face tucked under its tail. It had drizzled incessantly since the previous night. The drizzle had turned the streets to mud, but lacked the force to wash away the slime. It had not rained since four this afternoon, but the clouds did not augur well. Fear of an impending downpour made it difficult to stay in alone after dark, but there was no comfort outdoors, either. At such a time, occupying cane moras on the damp terrace of a three-storied building, sat two men.
As children, the two friends would run about on this terrace after returning from school; before their examinations, they would pace like maniacs up and down this terrace, reciting their lessons aloud; in summer, back from college, they would dine on this same terrace, then argue sometimes until two in the night; when the sun touched their faces at dawn, they would awaken with a start to discover that they had fallen asleep on the floor-mat at that very place. When there were no further college degrees to be pursued, one friend would preside over the Hindu welfare society’s monthly meetings on this terrace, with the other as secretary.
The president’s name was Gourmohan; friends and relatives called him Gora. He seemed to have surpassed everyone else, to a disproportionate extent. His college professor had named him the Silver Mountain. His complexion was rather blatantly fair, not softened by the slightest hint of yellow. Almost six feet tall, he was heavy boned, with fists like tiger-paws. His voice was startlingly deep and resonant, enough to give one a fright if heard suddenly. His facial contours were also unduly large and excessively firm, the chin and jawbone resembling strong bolts on a fortress gate. He had virtually no eyebrows, and his brow was wide at the temples. The lips were thin and compressed, his nose suspended above them like a scimitar. The eyes were small but sharp, their arrowlike gaze seemingly fixed on a remote, invisible target, yet capable of turning instantaneously, like lightning, to strike an object close at hand. Though not exactly handsome, Gour was impossible to ignore. He would stand out in a crowd.
And his friend Binoy, like the average educated Bengali bhadralok, was gentle but bright. His gracious nature, combined with his sharpness of intellect, had lent his countenance a distinctive air. In college he had always earned high marks and scholarships; Gora could never keep up with him. Gora felt little attraction for academic subjects; he lacked Binoy’s quick comprehension and powers of retention. It was Binoy who had borne him like a vehicle through the sequence of college examinations.
‘Listen,’ Gora was saying, ‘Abinash’s denigration of the Brahmos is a sign of the man’s good health. Why did it suddenly infuriate you?’
‘How extraordinary! I could not have imagined that such things were open to question.’
‘Then you have lost your reason. It’s not natural for members of a society to adopt a calm, rational stance towards a group of people who violate social restrictions to act in a contrary fashion in all matters. Society is bound to misunderstand them, ascribing perverse motives to their straightforward actions, viewing as evil whatever they regard as good. So it should be. It is one of the penalties to be paid for deliberately breaking social laws.’
‘I can’t say that the natural alone is good.’
‘I have no use for goodness!’ exclaimed Gora, heatedly. ‘If there are a few good people in the world, let them be, but may all others remain natural. Otherwise, work can’t go on, nor can the soul survive. Those who fancy the heroism of becoming Brahmo must endure the minor pain of having all their actions misunderstood and denounced by non-Brahmos. That they should strut about puffed up with pride, while their opponents trail behind applauding them, is not the way of the world; and if it were so, the world would not benefit.’
‘I’m not referring to criticism of the group. It is personal …’
‘Criticism of the group is no criticism at all! It is a weighing of opinions. It’s personal criticism we want. Tell me, O saintly one, did you never criticize anybody?’
‘I did. Excessively. But I am ashamed of it.’
‘No, Binoy, that won’t do!’ cried Gora, clenching his right fist. ‘Not at all.’
‘Why, what is the matter?’ Binoy asked, after a short pause. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘I see clearly that you are weakening.’
‘Weak!’ exclaimed Binoy, in some agitation. ‘Do you know, I can visit their house this very moment if I wish? They had even invited me, but I did not go!’
‘But you are unable to forget that you didn’t go there. Day and night, you remind yourself: I didn’t go, didn’t go, didn’t go to their house. Better to have gone there, indeed!’
‘So you insist that I go?’
‘No, I don’t insist!’ cried Gora, slapping his thigh. ‘I can give it to you in writing that the day you go there, you will be well and truly gone. From the very next day, you will start dining at their house, and having enrolled with the Brahmo Samaj, you’ll become a world-famous preacher.’
‘What do you say! And then?’
‘And then? Curse you! Son of a Brahman, you will end up in the dumping ground for dead cattle, with no way to preserve your purity, lost like a sailor with a broken compass. You will imagine then that docking your ship at port is a narrow-minded malpractice, that merely to drift without purpose is true navigation. But I have no patience with such prattle. I say you should go. Why keep us in suspense too, with one foot over the precipice?’
‘When doctors give up, patients don’t always die,’ laughed Binoy. ‘I see no signs that my end is near.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you feel your pulse grow faint?’
‘No, it feels as strong as ever.’
‘Don’t you feel that, if served by those gracious hands, even the outcaste’s food can become a feast for the gods?’
‘Enough, Gora!’ cried Binoy, highly embarrassed. ‘Stop now.’
‘Why, there is nothing improper in what I say. It’s not as if those gracious hands are screened from public view. If you can’t tolerate even the bare mention of those pure, petal-like hands, hands that often exchange handshakes with men, that means you are as good as dead!’
‘Look, Gora, I honour the female sex. Even in our holy texts the shastras …’
‘Don’t quote the shastras to defend your way of honouring the female sex! That is not honour; if I called it by the right name, you’d assault me.’
‘You say this with brute force.’
‘Pujarha grihadiptayah: so our shastras describe women. Women should be worshipped, for they light up our homes. It is best not to use the word ‘worship’ for the kind of respect English culture accords to women when they light up the hearts of men.’
‘Should you so despise a noble emotion, just because it sometimes assumes a dis
torted form?’
‘Binu,’ urged Gora impatiently, ‘Now you have lost your reason, you may as well accept my advice. In the English scriptures, all that hyperbole about women conceals one inner motive, sexual desire. We should worship the female sex at the mother’s chamber and the virtuous housewife’s holy shrine; when women are worshipped elsewhere, such adoration conceals an element of degradation. “Love” is the English word for what makes your heart circle Pareshbabu’s house like a moth around a flame. But may you not ape the English in becoming obsessed with the frivolous notion that this “love” must be revered as life’s ultimate goal!’
‘Oh, Gora!’ Binoy winced like a restive horse under the lash. ‘Let it be, that’s enough!’
‘Enough? By no means. It is because we have not learned to regard men and women normally, in their own proper places, that we have conjured up a cluster of poetic notions about them.’
‘Very well, granted that our passions impel us to and falsify the ideal situation where man-woman relationships could be normalized; but is the foreign culture entirely to blame? If the claims of English poetry are false, so is our excessive insistence on renouncing the lure of women and gold. To protect human nature from easy distractions some people poeticize the beautiful aspects of love, ignoring its darker side, while others exaggerate the evils of love, prescribing renunciation. These are merely two different modes adopted by two kinds of people. If you blame one, you cannot absolve the other.’
‘No, I must admit I had misunderstood you. You are not in such bad shape, after all. Since your mind still has room for philosophy, you can fearlessly indulge in “love”. But pull yourself back in time. That’s a well-meant, friendly request.’
‘Are you crazy?’ exclaimed Binoy, in agitation. ‘Me, and “love”? But I must admit, from whatever I’ve seen of Poreshbabu and the rest, and whatever I’ve heard about them, I’ve developed considerable respect for them. Perhaps that explains my urge to see their lifestyle at home.’
Gora Page 3
