At this juncture, Sandipbabu arrived at our place with his entourage, to spread the swadeshi message. A meeting was to be held in our temple courtyard that evening. We women waited on one side of the hall, behind the woven screen. As the roars of ‘Vande Mataram’ drew closer, my heart began to tremble. Suddenly a stream of young men and boys, barefoot, dressed in saffron with turbans on their heads, burst into our immense front yard like the tawny flood of the first monsoon rains along a dry river bed. The place was thronged with people. Cutting through the throng a group of ten or twelve boys held aloft a large stool, on which Sandipbabu was seated, and bore him into the yard on their shoulders. ‘Vande Mataram!’ ‘Vande Mataram!’ ‘Vande Mataram!’ It felt as though the sky would shatter and fall around us in tiny bits.
I had once seen a photograph of Sandipbabu. I can’t say I’d really liked his looks then. He wasn’t unattractive, in fact quite the opposite. Yet I had somehow felt that although his appearance was bright, it was compounded with much dross: there was something about his eyes and mouth that were not quite genuine. So , when my husband met every one of his demands without so much as a question, I wasn’t pleased. I could’ve put up with the monetary loss, but I felt that as a friend this man was cheating my husband. He scarcely had the air of a hermit or a poor man—he looked quite the babu. Obviously, he liked his creature comforts, and yet—many such thoughts had clamoured in my mind. Today they are stirring again: but let them be.
Yet, on that day when Sandipbabu was making his speech and the heart of that huge gathering swayed and swelled, overflowing its banks, threatening to sweep everything away, I witnessed the compelling aura of the man! At a certain point, when the declining sun peeped below the rooftops and brushed his brow with its golden fingers, it felt as though a god had declared him, before all the men and women present there, to be one of the immortals. Every word of his speech, from beginning to end, seemed to carry the gust of a storm. His boldness knew no limits. The slight obstruction of the screen seemed unbearable to me. I don’t remember when, quite unaware of my action, I parted the screen a little, thrust out my face and gazed steadily at him. Not a single person in that assembly had the time to spare me a glance. But at one point, I noticed that Sandipbabu’s eyes, bright as Orion in the sky, settled on my face. I was past caring. At that moment I was no longer the daughter-in-law of this aristocratic household: I was the sole representative of all the women in Bengal and he was its hero. The sunbeams from the sky poured down upon his brow: it was no less needful to anoint him from the nation’s womanly heart. How else could his expedition be truly propitious?
I sensed very clearly that after he looked at my face, his words took on a new fire. It was as if the divine chariot could no longer be reined in—it was like thunderbolt upon thunderbolt, lightning flash upon lightning flash. My heart said it was the flames in my heart that lit this fire; we aren’t merely Lakshmi, we are also Bharati, the goddess of speech.
I returned to my room that day, full of joy and self-exaltation. A storm raging deep inside me dragged me from one state of mind to another in an instant. Like the brave women of Greece, I felt an urge to cut off my knee-length hair and hand it to that gallant warrior for his bowstring. If the ornaments on my body had any link with my heart, my necklace, torque and armlets would have dropped upon that meeting like shooting stars. I needed to do something self-destructive to be able to bear the ecstasy I felt.
When my husband returned that evening, I dreaded that he might say something about the day’s speech to strike a false note amidst the blazing symphony or disagree in the slightest over something that offended his sense of integrity. Had he done so, I was quite capable of treating him with open contempt that day.
But he didn’t say a word to me. That didn’t please me either. He should have said, ‘Sandip’s words have opened my eyes today: they have cleared my old misconceptions on these matters.’ I felt that he was keeping quiet obstinately and expressing disinterest deliberately.
I asked him, ‘How long will Sandipbabu stay here?’
‘He’s leaving for Rangpur tomorrow morning.’
‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘Yes—he’s supposed to give a speech there.’
I was silent for a while. Then I asked again, ‘Can he manage to stay a day longer?’
‘That won’t be possible. But why do you ask?’
‘I’d like to ask him to lunch and serve him myself.’
My husband was surprised. He had asked me to come out before his friends many times. I had never agreed. He looked at me fixedly, in a strange way; I couldn’t really interpret that look. But I suddenly felt embarrassed and said, ‘No, never mind.’
‘I don’t see why,’ he said. ‘Let me speak to Sandip. He’ll stay back another day if he possibly can.’
It turned out that it was indeed possible.
I will be very honest: that day I wished God had made me beautiful. It was not to steal anyone’s heart but because beauty was glory in itself. On this momentous day, the men of this land need to behold the Earth-mother (Jagatdhatri) in its women. But would male eyes be able to perceive the goddess unless there was surface beauty? Would Sandipbabu be able to glimpse in me the life force of the nation? Or would he think of me as an ordinary woman, his friend’s wife and the mistress of the house?
Early in the morning I washed my long hair, left it loose and tied it neatly with a red silk ribbon. Sandipbabu was coming to lunch; so there was no time to dry my hair and tie it up. I wore a white Madras sari with a zari border, a matching blouse with short sleeves and zari piping.
I decided that this was a very modest outfit: nothing could be simpler. But suddenly my second sister-in-law came in and subjected me to a head to toe inspection. She gave a sardonic smile and laughed a little. I asked, ‘Didi , why are you laughing?’
She said, ‘How you have dressed up.’
I felt a little irritated. ‘What’s so special about my dress?’ I asked.
She smiled sarcastically again and simply said, ‘Nothing at all, my lady: in fact it’s pretty good. But I can’t help wondering if that revealing jacket of yours from that foreign shop wouldn’t have completed the effort.’ She finished the sentence and left, her whole body shaking with suppressed laughter. I was very angry and even considered taking everything off and wearing a simple, coarse, everyday sari instead. I still don’t know why I didn’t carry out that impulse in the end. I thought, ‘If I don’t appear decently dressed before Sandipbabu, my husband will be upset—after all, women are supposed to uphold the social prestige of the household.’
I thought I would make my appearance as Sandipbabu sat down to eat. By tending to his meal, I could dispel the embarrassment of our first meeting. But lunch was late today—it was almost one o’clock. So my husband sent for me in order to introduce us. When I first entered the room, I felt too shy to look Sandipbabu in the face. Somehow I managed to brush aside my shyness and said, a little awkwardly, ‘Your lunch is a bit late today.’
He walked over quite spontaneously to the seat next to me and said, ‘We get our daily rice after a fashion, but the goddess who provides it stays out of sight. Today when Annapurna has deigned to appear, the meal actually becomes insignificant.’
His conduct was as confident as his speeches. There was no hesitation about him: he seemed used to securing his rightful place within minutes in any situation. If he upset someone or even seemed offensive that did not bother him. He assumed the right to come and sit very close to one; if people looked askance, it seemed more their fault than his.
I was afraid Sandipbabu might decide that I am an old-fashioned dullard. The very thought embarrassed me. I had hoped that my speech would turn brilliant and flow smoothly so that each of my responses would fill him with wonder. But that did not happen. I agonized inwardly. Why did I suddenly decide to appear before him?
I was about to make my escape after he finished his meal. But as before, he walked up to the door casually and block
ed my way, saying, ‘Please don’t take me for a glutton. I didn’t come here to eat. I was eager to come only because you have invited me. If you run away like this after the meal, you’ll be cheating your guest.’
If these remarks hadn’t been uttered very frankly and persuasively they could have struck a false chord. But after all, my husband was his dearest friend and I was like a sister-in-law to him. As I was battling my own feelings and trying hard to attain the same level of informal familiarity, my husband sensed my discomfiture and said, ‘Why don’t you finish your lunch and then join us here again?’
Sandipbabu said, ‘But promise me that you will keep your word.’
I smiled a little, ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Let me explain why I don’t trust you. It’s nine years since Nikhilesh married. But you’ve cheated me of your presence all these nine years. If you disappear now for another nine years, I’ll never see you again.’
I reciprocated the familiar tone and replied softly, ‘Why will you never see me again?’
‘My horoscope says I’ll die young. Neither my father nor his father lived to be thirty years, and I’ve just completed twenty-seven.’
He knew this would distress me and so it did. Now my softly spoken words were laced with compassion as I said, ‘The blessings of the entire nation will ward off the curse.’
‘The nation’s blessings are best received from the lips of its goddesses. That’s why I’m begging you to return so that the warding off of the curse can begin from this very day.’
Flowing water, however muddy, is still good for a wash. Everything about Sandipbabu was so swift and vigorous that the same words, which may have seemed distasteful from someone else, seemed innocuous coming from him. He laughed as he said, ‘Look here, I’m holding your husband hostage. If you don’t return, he shan’t be released.’
As I was leaving the room he spoke again, ‘I have another small request.’
I stopped in my tracks and turned around. ‘Don’t worry, all I want is a glass of water.You must have noticed that I don’t drink water during the meal. I have it some time later.’
At this, I couldn’t but ask anxiously, ‘Why is that so?’
Then came the history of how he was once afflicted by severe dyspepsia. I also heard how he had suffered for nearly seven months. He described the drudgery of homeopathic and allopathic treatment before being miraculously cured at last by ayurveda. He laughed and said, ‘God has fashioned even my illnesses in such a way that they refuse to be cured without Indian-made pills.’
My husband now spoke up after a long time, ‘And what about the fact that bottles of allopathic medicine also refuse to leave your side? They take up nearly three shelves in your sitting room—’
‘Do you know why? They’re like the punitive police. They are not there because they serve a purpose; but the modern dispensation has brought them in and thrust them on us. I keep paying for them as punishment and I get my share of jabs as well.’
My husband abhors exaggeration. But rhetoric, by definition, exaggerates: it was, after all, invented by humans and not by God. Once while trying to justify a fib I had said to my husband, ‘It’s only trees, animals and birds that are always truthful; the poor things lack the capacity to lie. That’s where humans are superior to animals, and women again are superior to men. Women are best embellished with ornaments and fabrications.’
When I came out of the room my second sister-in-law was in the corridor, prising apart one of the window blinds. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I was eavesdropping,’ she whispered.
Later, when I returned to the room again, Sandipbabu said sympathetically, ‘You couldn’t have had much to eat today’
I was flustered. I was obviously back a little too soon. I hadn’t allowed the length of time needed to finish one’s meal decently. If one were to calculate, it’d be clear that I couldn’t have eaten much that day. But it had hardly occurred to me that anyone might notice.
Perhaps Sandipbabu sensed my discomfiture, which was more disconcerting still. He said, ‘You were all set to run away like the wild deer. I’m honoured that you did go to the trouble of keeping your word.’
I couldn’t make a suitable reply. Blushing and fretting, I sat on the edge of a sofa. It had been my resolve to present myself before Sandipbabu honourably and confidently as the image of the nation’s Shakti and to adorn his brow with victory garlands simply by appearing before him. So far, I had utterly failed.
At this point, Sandipbabu got into an argument with my husband quite deliberately. He must have known that in an argument his razor-sharp mind shone in all its brilliance. Many times later as well, I noticed that in my presence he never let slip the slightest opportunity for a debate.
He was aware of my husband’s opinions on theVande Mataram mantra. Referring to that he said, ‘Nikhil, don’t you agree that there is a space for the imagination in the act of serving the country?’
‘I agree there is a space, but it isn’t all of it. I intend to know that thing called “my country” in a more heartfelt, genuine fashion and that’s how I’d like to have others know it. I feel quite nervous and ashamed to use some kind of entertaining hocus-pocus mantra in relation to such a profound concept.’
‘That thing which you call an entertaining mantra is precisely what I call the Truth. I truly believe my country is my God. I believe God resides in man—He truly reveals Himself through men and their land.’
‘If you truly believe this, then you wouldn’t discriminate between two men or between two countries.’
‘That’s true. But I am a man of limited strengths and so I fulfil my duties towards God through the worship of my own land.’
‘I’d never stop you from worshipping, but if you disregard the presence of God in another land and feel hatred towards it, how will your worship be complete?’
‘Hatred is an aspect of puja. Arjuna got his boon only when he fought with Shiva dressed as a kirata. If we are ready to battle God, He will be pleased with us eventually.’
‘If that were the case, then those who are ruining the country and those who are serving it are both worshipping it in the same way. So what is the point of going out of your way to spread the message of patriotism?’
‘When it comes to one’s own country, it’s a different matter. On that the heart has clear orders to venerate.’
‘In that case, why just one’s own country, there are even clearer instructions about one’s self. The mantra that dwells in our heart to worship God through man, is the same one that resonates throughout all the lands.’
‘Nikhil, all your arguments are based on dry logic. Will you deny the fact that there is something called a heart?’
‘Sandip, I’ll be honest with you: when you try to pass off misdeeds as duty and irreverence as piety in the name of the nation-god, it pains my heart and I can’t keep still. If I steal to satisfy my own needs, isn’t it a blow to the true love that I bear for myself? That’s why I can’t steal. Is it because I am intelligent or because I respect my self?’
I was seething inwardly. I couldn’t hold back; I said, ‘English, French, German, Russian—is there a civilization that doesn’t have a history of stealing for the sake of the country?’
‘They will be answerable for those crimes; they’re still paying for them. History hasn’t yet come to an end.’
Sandipbabu said, ‘Fine then, we’ll pay up too. First let us stock up our home with the stolen loot and then we’ll pay for them slowly over many centuries. But let me ask you, where do you see them paying the price for it as you just mentioned?’
‘When Rome paid the price for her sins, there were no witnesses. There’s no telling when the day of reckoning will come upon renowned brigand civilizations and when they’ll have to pay for their misdeeds and at that time, no outsider will witness it. But aren’t you missing something—their bag of politics is full of lies, deception, betrayals, espionage, forfeiting right and Tru
th for the sake of saving their face; the weight of all these sins can’t be a light one. Isn’t this draining the blood, drop by drop, from the heart of their civilization every day? I believe that those who don’t accept the place of Truth over their land don’t respect their land either.’
Never before had I seen my husband argue with an outsider. He argued with me but his tenderness for me made him feel sorry to corner me in an argument. Today I got to see his fencing skills in a debate.
Somewhere my heart refused to agree with my husband’s words. I felt that there must be some appropriate rejoinders to his arguments but they wouldn’t come to mind just then. The problem was that if you bring up virtue/dharma, one has to keep silent. It’s difficult to claim that I don’t take dharma to those extremes. I decided to write a fitting retort to this debate and hand it over to Sandipbabu one day. So I quickly noted down today’s conversation once I returned to my room.
All of a sudden Sandipbabu turned to me and asked, ‘What do you feel about this?’
I said, ‘I won’t go into subtleties; I’ll state my case bluntly—I am human, I am avaricious and I’ll be greedy for the sake of my country. When I want something, I’m prepared to snatch it. I feel anger and I’ll use it for my land. I need someone to tear into bits, on whom I’ll avenge the humiliation I have lived with for so long. I have illusions and I shall be bewitched by my country; I need a tangible form for her—which will be Mother, a goddess or Durga to me—for whom I’ll sacrifice an animal and let loose a bloodbath. I am human, I am not a god.’
Sandipbabu jumped up from his seat, raised his right hand high in the air and shouted, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ The next moment he corrected himself and exclaimed, ‘Vande Mataram! Vande Mataram!’
A shadow of pain crossed my husband’s face. He spoke very softly, ‘Neither am I a god; I too am human and that’s why I will not, at any cost, thrust all my imperfections upon the country.’
Sandipbabu replied, ‘Look here Nikhil, Truth is something that is innate to womankind, at one with their heart and soul. For us men, Truth is all logic and no shades, emotions or life. The woman’s heart is the lotus on which Truth resides and it is not insubstantial like our Reason. That is precisely why it is only the women who can be truly heartless and not men, since rationality weakens them. Women can destroy someone with ease; so can men, but the threads of reason trip them up. Like a thunderstorm, women can wreak havoc—they have a terrible beauty—when men commit the same crimes, they look ugly since it is tainted by the pangs of Reason. One thing, Nikhil, is for sure—in these times, it is women who will salvage our nation. This is not the time for us to differentiate between good and evil, right and wrong; today unscrupulously and indifferently we have to be ruthless and unfettered; we have to anoint sin with holy markers and let the women of the nation receive it cordially. Don’t you remember what the poet has said?—
The Tagore Omnibus, Volume One Page 27
