Gora

by Rabindranath Tagore

  As soon as Krishnadayal returned from his bath in the Ganga, Gora met him, greeting him with a pranam from afar, without touching his feet. Embarrassed, Krishnadayal seated himself at a distance.

  ‘Baba, I want to do penance,’ Gora declared.

  ‘But I see no need for that.’

  ‘While in prison, I did not mind any other hardship, but I felt utterly impure. That sense of degradation has not left me yet. I must do penance.’

  ‘No, no,’ protested Krishnadayal in agitation. ‘There is no need for such an extreme step. Indeed I can’t agree to it.’

  ‘Achchha, perhaps I shall consult the pundits about it.’

  ‘No need to consult any pundit. I decree that you need not do penance.’

  Gora had never been able to understand why a man like Krishnadayal, so obsessed with rites of purity, refused to accept that Gora should observe any restrictions—for he not only rejected, but obdurately resisted any such suggestion.

  That day, Anandamoyi had placed Gora directly next to Binoy at mealtime. But Gora insisted:

  ‘Ma, please move Binoy’s mat a little further away.’

  ‘Why, what crime has Binoy committed?’ demanded Anandamoyi in surprise.

  ‘The fault is not in Binoy but in me. I am unclean.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Anandamoyi assured him, ‘Binoy is not so fussy about purity.’

  ‘Binoy may not be, but I am,’ Gora declared.

  After their meal, when the two friends went to their secluded room upstairs, both felt rather tongue-tied. Binoy could not think how to broach to Gora the one subject that had assumed the greatest importance for him in this last month. Gora, too, secretly wanted to ask about Poreshbabu’s family, but he said nothing at all. He was waiting for Binoy to raise the subject. True, Gora had asked Poreshbabu how all the girls in the family were doing, but that was just a polite query. Privately, he was eager for a more detailed account, beyond the mere assurance that they were all well.

  At this point Mahim entered the room, and taking a seat, took some time to recover his breath after the effort of climbing the stairs. Then he said:

  ‘Binoy, we have waited for Gora all these days. Now there is nothing to stop us. Let’s fix the date and time now. What do you say, Gora? You understand what we are talking about, don’t you?’ Gora smiled faintly without saying a word. ‘You smile!’ exclaimed Mahim. ‘Dada has still not forgotten the matter, you are thinking! But the girl is not a figment of the imagination—I see quite clearly that she is made of real stuff—so how can I forget the matter? This is no time to be facetious, Gora. Now let things be finalized somehow.’

  ‘The one who must finalize things is here in person,’ Gora pointed out.

  ‘That would be disastrous!’ cried Mahim. ‘When he is not even sure of his own life, how can he fix anything! Now you’re back, the entire responsibility is yours.’

  Binoy remained grave and silent on this occasion, making no attempt to say anything even with his customary jocularity. Gora sensed that something was wrong.

  ‘I may undertake to invite people, or to order the sweets, and may even be willing to serve the guests, but I cannot undertake to ensure that Binoy will marry your daughter. I am not well acquainted with the One who ordains such things, having always saluted Him from afar.’

  ‘Don’t imagine that He would keep away just because you remain aloof,’ Mahim cautioned him. ‘There is no saying when He might take you by surprise. I can’t say for sure what He intends for you, but regarding Binoy I fear grave complications. If you don’t involve yourself instead of leaving things entirely to Prajapati, the god of marriage, we may have cause for regret, I warn you.’

  ‘I’m willing to regret an undertaking for which I am not responsible,’ Gora replied, ‘but it is harder if one must regret a responsibility after accepting it. I want to save myself from such a predicament.’

  ‘Would you sit back and watch a Brahman’s son lose his caste, blood ties and social respect?’ Mahim demanded. ‘You sacrifice your food and sleep to preserve your countrymen’s Hindu beliefs, but if meanwhile your own best friend throws caste purity to the winds to marry into a Brahmo family, you will not be able to face the world. You may be angry, Binoy, but I have spoken to Gora in your presence, while many people might say the same things to him behind your back—they are dying to do so. It is best for everybody to be frank. If the rumours are indeed false, you just have to say so and the matter ends there; but if they are true, we must come to an understanding.’ Mahim rose to his feet and left. Still, Binoy did not say a word.

  ‘Why Binoy, what’s the matter?’ Gora enquired.

  ‘It is very hard,’ Binoy replied, ‘to explain the situation accurately by merely offering some items of news. That’s why I had thought I would gradually clarify the whole matter to you. But in this world, nothing tends to happen unhurriedly, according to one’s convenience. Events, too, advance slowly and silently at first like a tiger on the prowl, then suddenly they pounce on you. News of such events also remains initially suppressed like a fire, but when it suddenly bursts into flames afterwards, it can no longer be controlled. That’s why sometimes I feel that man’s freedom resides in giving up all action and remaining utterly immobile.’

  ‘How can freedom be possible if you alone are static?’ smiled Gora. ‘Unless the whole world also freezes, why would it let you remain still? On the contrary, it would create another problem. When the world is in action, if you do not act as well, you will be constantly cheated. Hence you must be careful not to let events get the better of your alertness. Let it not happen that you alone are unprepared while all else continues.’

  ‘That’s true. It is I who am unprepared. This time also I was not ready. I had no idea what was happening, and how. But when it has happened, one must take responsibility for it. Unpleasant though it is, one cannot now refuse to acknowledge what should not have happened in the first place.’

  ‘Without knowing what happened, it is hard for me to discuss it theoretically.’

  Binoy sat bolt upright and blurted out: ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control, my relationship with Lalita has reached a stage where she must suffer unjust and baseless social humiliation all her life, unless I marry her.’

  ‘What stage is that, may I know?’

  ‘That’s a long story. I shall narrate it to you in due course, but rest assured that the little bit I’ve told you is true.’

  ‘Very well, suppose I accept it as true. I have this to say: if the event is inevitable, so are its painful consequences. If Lalita must suffer humiliation in the Samaj, there’s no help for it.’

  ‘But it is within my power to prevent it,’ protested Binoy.

  ‘If so, that is a good thing. But asserting the fact forcefully is not enough, after all. When in need, it is within the power of human beings to steal or even murder, but is that power real? You want to do your duty towards Lalita by marrying her, but is that really your supreme duty? Don’t you have a duty towards your community?’

  Binoy did not point out that it was his sense of duty towards the community that had made him reject a Brahmo wedding ceremony.

  ‘I think you and I will perhaps differ on this issue,’ he argued even more passionately. ‘After all I am not opposing society in favour of individuals. I am saying that above both individual and society is something else, a spiritual ethic called dharma, and that must be kept in mind when we act. It is not my supreme duty to protect either a particular individual or my community. It is protecting my dharma that is my supreme duty.’

  ‘A dharma that exists without either individual or society! I have no faith in such a dharma.’

  Binoy grew even more obdurate. ‘Granted,’ he said. ‘Dharma is not based on individual and society; rather, both individual and society are based on dharma. To be forced to
accept society’s wishes as one’s dharma would ruin society itself. If society obstructs my legally and spiritually sanctioned freedom, it would be my duty towards society to flout such inappropriate prohibitions. If my marrying Lalita is not wrong, but in fact justified, then it would go against my dharma to desist simply because it violated social injunctions.’

  ‘Are questions of justice and injustice confined to you alone? Will you not consider where you are placing your future progeny by agreeing to this marriage?’

  ‘It is through such considerations indeed that people perpetuate social injustices. Why then blame the clerk who accepts lifelong degradation, kicked around by the sahebs who are his masters? After all he, too, has his children’s welfare in mind.’

  His argument with Gora had brought Binoy to a point he had not reached before. Just a little while earlier, his whole being had shrunk from the prospect of severing his ties with society. He had not mentally debated the issue in any way, and but for this exchange with Gora, Binoy’s heart would have followed its own accustomed prejudices and taken him on a course completely contrary to his present stance. But as he argued, his attitude, supported by his sense of duty, began to grow strong.

  He and Gora started arguing heatedly. In such discussions Gora often expressed his views very forcefully, without relying on logic. Few could match his assertiveness. Now, he tried to demolish all Binoy’s arguments by this aggressive force, but found himself thwarted. As long as their ideas alone had clashed, Binoy had always been defeated. But this was a confrontation between two real persons; instead of fending off airy weapons of its own kind, Gora’s airborne verbal arrows now encountered a human heart full of pain.

  Ultimately Gora said: ‘I don’t want to engage in a war of words with you. There is nothing much to argue about here; it’s a matter for the heart to comprehend. It is your desire to disengage from the common people of the land by marrying a Brahmo girl: that is a source of great distress for me. You are capable of it, but I could never do such a thing. That is where we differ, not in learning or intellect. The target of my love is not the same as yours. You have no sympathy for what you would destroy in order to free yourself. But I have blood-ties with it. I want my Bharatvarsha; blame and curse it if you will, but it is Bharatvarsha I desire. I don’t desire myself or any other human being above that. I would not take the slightest step that might create the minutest division between me and my Bharatvarsha.’

  ‘No Binoy, you argue in vain,’ Gora insisted when Binoy tried to reply. ‘I want to share the degradation of the Bharatvarsha that the world has forsaken and condemned, this Bharatvarsha with its caste discrimination, social evils, idol worship. If you wish to distance yourself from it, you must distance yourself from me as well.’

  Gora arose, went out of the room, and began to wander about on the terrace. Binoy remained where he was, silent and motionless. The attendant came to inform Gora that several babus were waiting for him in the outer chamber. Relieved to find an escape route, Gora went away.

  Emerging into the outer room, he noticed Abinash among the motley crowd assembled there. Gora had assumed Abinash must be feeling offended. But he saw no signs of anger. In terms even more effusively laudatory, Abinash was recounting to everyone the way Gora had spurned him the previous day.

  ‘My respect for Gourmohanbabu has grown immensely,’ he declared. ‘All these days I took him for an unusual man, but yesterday I realized that he is great. Yesterday we had gone to honour him, but the way he publicly spurned that honour—how many people in today’s world could have done that! Indeed it is no ordinary matter!’

  Gora’s mind was already overwrought. Now Abinash’s effusiveness made him furious. ‘Look here Abinash,’ he cried, losing his patience. ‘It is your devotion that is offensive. If you people want to make me dance like a clown by the roadside, do you think I lack the decorum to refuse? Is this what you call a sign of greatness? Do you consider this land of ours a mere jatra party with everyone dancing about in order to collect the rewards of their performance? Is nobody doing any real work? If you want to join us, or even to pick a quarrel, that is acceptable; but I beg all of you not to laud me in this fashion.’

  Abinash’s reverence grew even more intense. He beamed at all present, as if to draw their attention to the wonder of Gora’s words. ‘Give us your blessing,’ he pleaded, ‘that we may selflessly surrender our lives to protect the eternal glory of Bharatvarsha, just like you.’ With these words Abinash reached out to touch Gora’s feet in a pranam. Gora at once recoiled. ‘Gourmohanbabu,’ Abinash declared, ‘you will indeed accept no token of honour from us. But you cannot also remain averse to making us happy. We have planned a feast one day, where you will dine with all the rest of us. To this you must agree.’

  ‘Until I have done penance I cannot dine with you,’ Gora asserted.

  Penance! Abinash’s eyes lit up. ‘That had never occurred to any of us,’ he confessed, ‘but no decree of the Hindu dharma can ever escape Gourmohanbabu’s notice.’

  It was an excellent idea, everyone agreed. The penance ritual itself would provide all of them an occasion to sit down together to a feast. That day they must invite all the great teachers and pundits of the area. The invitation to Gourmohanbabu’s penance would make people aware that the Hindu dharma was alive and thriving, even now. The date and venue for the penance ceremony also came up for discussion. Gora declared that this house would not be suitable. A devotee proposed that the ritual be performed at his garden estate beside the Ganga. It was also decided that the group would collectively bear the expenses for the event. When it was time to depart, Abinash rose and addressed every one, gesturing like an orator:

  ‘This may annoy Gourmohanbabu, but my heart is so full today that I cannot refrain from saying that just as the avatars, divine incarnations, were once born into this sacred land to protect the Vedas, so we have now found this avatar to rescue the Hindu dharma. In this world, our land alone has six seasons; in our land alone, through the ages, have avatars been born, and there are more to come. It is our glory that this truth has now been demonstrated. Come, bhai, let us all cry, ‘Victory to Gourmohan!’ Swayed by Abinash’s eloquence all of them began chanting Gora’s praises. Deeply offended, Gora rushed away from the scene.

  On this day of his release from prison, a powerful sense of fatigue assailed Gora. In the confines of the jail, he had often imagined that he would work for the nation with renewed enthusiasm. But today he kept asking himself:

  ‘Alas, where is my nation? Is it a nation to me alone! That my childhood friend, with whom I had discussed all my life’s resolves, should be willing, after all this time, to ruthlessly abandon his nation’s entire past and future, just to marry a woman! And as for those who are generally identified as members of my group, after all I have explained to them all along, that they should now conclude that I was an avatar born only to rescue the Hindu faith! Am I merely the shastras personified? And does Bharatvarsha have no place in their scheme of things? Six seasons! Bharatvarsha has six seasons indeed! If the six seasons have conspired to produce a man like Abinash, we could have done with a few seasons less!’

  The bearer came to say that Ma had sent for Gora. Gora started. ‘Ma has sent for me!’ he exclaimed to himself. The words seemed to assume a new significance. ‘Come what may, my mother is there,’ he said. ‘And it is she who has sent for me. It is she who will unite me with everybody, allowing no separation between people; I shall find my dear ones in her space. In prison, Ma had called me, and had appeared to me in a vision; out of prison, too, Ma is calling me; I shall set forth now to meet her.’ With these words Gora gazed out at the wintry afternoon sky. The discordant note struck by Binoy on the one hand and Abinash on the other dwindled and faded away. Bharatvarsha seemed to open its arms to the afternoon sunlight. Before Gora’s eyes the rivers, mountains, human habitations of Bharatvarsha lay outspread, extending to the sea; from t
he eternal realm, a free, pure light seemed to irradiate this Bharatvarsha everywhere. Gora’s heart was full. His eyes began to blaze, and no trace of despair remained in any corner of his mind. His nature blissfully readied itself for ceaseless service of Bharatvarsha, with its distant goals. He felt no bitterness that he would not witness in his lifetime the glory of Bharatvarsha that he had seen in his contemplation. Again and again he told himself: ‘Ma is calling me. I am on my way to the place where the mother goddess awaits me as Annapurna, as Jagaddhatri—to that distant time, yet at this very moment, to that other shore beyond death, yet within this present lifetime—to that glorious future which has brightened my humble present, making it completely worthwhile—I am on my way to that very place—to that place which is very distant, yet very near, Ma is calling me.’ It seemed to Gora that Binoy, and even Abinash, were part of that bliss, that they too were no longer alienated from him. All the petty conflicts of the present were lost in a tremendous sense of achievement.

  When Gora entered Anandamoyi’s room his face was alight with joy, as if his eyes were gazing at some exquisite image, beyond the material things before him. When he suddenly entered the scene, he seemed not to quite recognize the person who was with his mother. Sucharita arose and greeted Gora with a namaskar.

  ‘So you have arrived! Please make yourself comfortable,’ said Gora. He spoke as if Sucharita’s arrival was no ordinary event, but an extraordinary manifestation.

  Gora had once avoided Sucharita’s company. As long as he wandered, undergoing many hardships and performing diverse tasks, he had managed to keep thoughts of Sucharita at bay. But in the confines of prison, he had been unable to ward off memories of her. There was once a time when Gora had not even been aware that there were women in Bharatvarsha. At last, he newly discovered this fact in the shape of Sucharita; his nature, so robust, trembled at the impact of the sudden and immediate apprehension of such an important truth, so ancient and so great. In prison, when the sunshine and open breeze outside tormented his mind, he did not view that world as merely his workplace or as a male society. Whatever form of meditation he adopted, he could see only the faces of two founding deities, singled out by the light of sun, moon and stars, enveloped exclusively by the tender blue sky. One was the face of the mother he had known all his life, and the other gentle, lovely face, glowing with intelligence, was that of his new acquaintance.