Mirjan understood. He came to me, weeping and with folded hands, ‘Sire, I was wrong. Now—’
I said, ‘How did you come to figure it out so clearly just now?’
He didn’t answer that, but said, ‘Sire, that boat was worth two thousand rupees, if not more. Now I have come to my senses, if you please forgive me this one time—’
He fell at my feet, I told him to come again in another ten days or so. I could buy his loyalty for two thousand rupees. We needed to have people like this on our side, I needed to get hold of some money quickly.
That evening when Bimala came into the room, I stood up and said, ‘Queen, the work is almost done; now we need money.’
Bimala said, ‘Money? How much?’
I said, ‘Not much, but I need the money somehow.’
Bimala asked, ‘Tell me how much money you need.’
I said, ‘Right now, about fifty thousand would do.’
Bimala was shaken to hear the amount, but she hid it well. How could she say she wasn’t up to it, again and again?
I said, ‘Queen, you can make the impossible happen. You have done it too. If I could show you what you have achieved, you’d have seen it too. But this is not the time for it; perhaps another day. Now we need the money.’
Bimala said, ‘I’ll get it.’
I knew that she had decided to sell her ornaments. I said, ‘Don’t touch your ornaments now. You never know what might come up in future.’
Bimala stood there staring at me.
‘You’ll have to get this money from your husband’s funds.’
Bimala was struck speechless. A little later she said, ‘How can I take his money?’
‘But isn’t his money yours too?’
With anguished emotion she said, ‘No.’
I said, ‘In that case it isn’t his either; it belongs to the country. When the country is in need of it, Nikhil has kept it away from her, stolen it from her.’
Bimala asked, ‘How will I get that money?’
‘By hook or by crook; you can do it. You will bring the money back to its rightful owner. Vande Mataram. Today this chant of “Vande Mataram” will break open the iron chest, bring down the walls of the store room and it would pierce the hearts of those who, in the name of faith, refuse to bow down to its power. Bee, say it with me: Vande Mataram.’
‘Vande Mataram.’
We are men, we are kings, we have the right to collect tax. Ever since we have stepped onto this earth, we have been looting it. The more we have demanded from her, the more homage she has paid us. We are men: since the beginning of time we have plucked and plundered, chopped down trees, dug up the soil, killed animals, birds and fish. From the depths of the ocean, the womb of the earth and from the jaws of death, we have only ever seized. We are the male species. We have not spared a single iron chest ordained by God; we have pillaged and seized.
The earth takes pleasure in satisfying the male of the species. Day in and day out, the earth has met our demands and thus grown greener, more beautiful and more fulfilled; or else, she would have stayed shrouded in woods and forests and never found her true self. All the doors to her heart would have been locked, her diamonds would have stayed buried in mines and the pearls of the oyster would never have seen the light of day.
By the sheer force of our demands, we the men, have discovered the women today. In the process of giving themselves to us constantly, they have found themselves more fully, more completely. Only when they come to submit the solitaires of their joy and the pearls of their sorrow to our treasury do they get a true sense of those jewels. Thus, for men to take is the best charity and for women to give is most profitable.
I have placed a tall order before Bimala. At first I had a doubt: was this in my nature or was it just a petty squabble with my own self? I felt this was a bit harsh. Just once I thought of calling her back and saying forget it, don’t go into all this. Why should I stir up your life like this? For that moment I forgot that this was the reason why the male species was an active one: we are meant to stir up the lives of the passive ones and make it a life worth living. If we hadn’t made the women weep for so many years, the door to the vast treasury of their grief would have stayed shut forever. The male was meant to make the universe weep and gratify it thus. Why else would his hands be so strong, his fist so powerful?
Bimala’s very self desired that I, Sandip, should make a heavy demand on her, call upon her to stake her life. She wouldn’t be fulfilled otherwise. She had been waiting for me only because she hadn’t been able to express her emotions through tears all these years. She had been so happy for so long that the moment she looked at me, the blue clouds of grief moved over her horizon. If I took pity on her and tried to dry her tears, then I would not be doing my duty.
Actually the reason for my slight hesitation was that this was a demand for money. Money belonged to men. Asking for it brought an element of beggary into it all. Hence I had to make the amount a hefty one. If it were a few thousand, there’d be a strong stench of pilfering. But fifty thousand was a veritable raid.
Moreover, I should really have been very rich. All these years I have had to stifle many desires for the sheer lack of money. This was something that didn’t sit well on me of all people. If this was a fault of my Fate, I’d have let it pass; but this was indecent, tasteless. If I have to scrounge to pay my rent and dip into my moneybag only to come up with the fare for an intermediate class when I travel by train, it was not just pathetic but ludicrous. It was clear to me that for someone like Nikhil the ancestral property was quite superfluous. Poverty would have suited him just as well. He would have, quite easily, kept his Chandranathbabu company in a decrepit old buggy.
Just once, I want to have fifty thousand rupees in my hands and blow it in two days, on my own comforts and a few deeds for the country. I want to shed this poor man’s disguise and look at the real me, the rich me, in the mirror just once.
But I don’t think Bimala would be able to procure the money easily. Perhaps eventually it’ll come down to the few thousand after all. Well, so be it. ‘It is wise to forego half’—so they say. But since the sacrifice is not by my choice, the wisdom lies in foregoing eighty or even ninety nine per cent.
All that I have written so far are vital matters; I will go back to it in detail again later when I have the time. Now there is none. The chief-clerk of this place has asked me to meet him immediately; I’ve heard something has gone wrong.
The chief-clerk said that the police suspect the man who drowned the boat. The man was a veteran and he was how in custody. It would be difficult getting him to talk. But it was a matter of time and since Nikhil was upset, the clerk couldn’t do anything too obvious. He said, ‘Look, if I get into trouble, I’ll drag you with me.’
I asked him, ‘Where are the ropes by which you’ll hang me?’
The clerk said, ‘I have one letter written by you and three written by Amulyababu.’
Now I understood why the clerk had written to me and got me to send a reply; it served no other purpose. These wiles were new to me. The clerk had enough respect for me to know that I could drown my friend as easily as I did my foe. The respect would have increased if I had answered the letter verbally rather than given a written reply.
Now the point was, the police had to be bribed. If the matter worsened, then we’d have to settle out of court and offer compensation to the man whose boat we drowned. It was also clear to me that in this vile mesh being woven, the clerk would come by his fair share of the profits. But I couldn’t say any of this. On the face of it, I was saying ‘Vande Mataram’ and he was also saying ‘Vande Mataram’.
The fixtures that one has to deal with to do this work are often below par. I suppose a conscience is so ingrained within us, that at first I felt very angry with the chief-clerk. I was about to write some very harsh words in this diary regarding the fraudulence of our countrymen. But if there is a God, I owe him this debt of gratitude: he has given me a clear mi
nd. Nothing, both within and without, ever remains unclear to me. I may fool others but never could I fool myself. And that’s why I couldn’t stay angry for too long. The truth is never good or bad, it is merely the truth and that is empirical. Water bodies are formed only by the water that remains after the earth has sucked up as much water as it wants to. The layer of soil below our ‘Vande Mataram’ was bound to absorb some water and both the clerk and I were a part of that process. What will remain after that absorption, will be the true Vande Mataram. We may curse it and call it deceit, but this is the Truth and it has to be accepted. At the bottom of every noble deed in this world, there is a layer of pure filth, even at the bottom of the ocean. Hence, in doing noble deeds, one must take into account this filth and its demands. So, the clerk would grab some and so would I: it was all a part of the greater need. Feeding the horse some grains wasn’t enough, the wheels also have to be oiled.
Anyway, money was sorely needed. I couldn’t wait for the fifty thousand. I’d have to collect whatever I could, right now. I know that on the face of such pressing needs one has to let go of the larger goals of the future. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush after all. That’s why I tell Nikhil that those who walk the road of surrender never have to curb their greed; but those who choose the path of greed have to surrender it every step of the way. I had to forego my fifty thousand—this was something Nikhil’s Chandranathbabu never had to do. Of the seven deadly sins, the first three and the last two are common to man and the two in the middle are for cowards. Lust is fine, but there should be no greed and no envy. Otherwise lust turns to dust. Envy clings to the past and the future. It can waylay the present with ease. Those who cannot concentrate on the immediate present, those who dance to a different drummer’s beat, they are like the sad lover, Shakuntala: they fail to attend to the guest at hand and the curse makes them lose the distant one for whom they yearn.
Today I had held Bimala’s hand and she was still under that spell. I too was bound by that spell. This echo had to be kept alive. If I were to repeat it often and bring it down to the level of the mundane, then today’s symphony would turn into a cacophony tomorrow. Now Bimala was incapable of questioning any of my demands. Some people need illusions to survive—why cut down on it? Right now I have a lot of work; so for now, let this cup of love skim the mere surface. Drinking the last dregs now would only stir up trouble. When the right time comes, I shall not gainsay it either. Oh lustful one, forfeit your greed and master the instrument of envy, playing it like the maestro.
Meanwhile, our work was on a roll. Our group had infiltrated deep inside and set up a stronghold. A lot of cajoling and sweet talk made me realize one thing: the Muslims were not going to come round by coaxing. They’d have to be subdued and shown who was the boss in no uncertain terms. Today they bare their fangs at us; but one day we’ll make them dance to our tune.
Nikhil says, ‘If India is a true entity, then Muslims are a part of it.’
I say, ‘That may be so. But we need to know which part of it they are and then squash them right there, or they’d be bound to revolt.’
Nikhil says, ‘Do you think you can quell the revolt by stepping it up?’
I say, ‘What is your plan?’
Nikhil says, ‘There is only one way to resolve the difference.’
I know that every one of Nikhil’s arguments is bound to end in a moral, just like the didactic writings of a philosopher. The strange thing is that even after fiddling around with these maxims for so many years, he still actually believes in them. No wonder I say that Nikhil is a born pupil. Fortunately, he is made of genuine stuff. Like Chand-saudagar of the Manasamangal, he has initiated himself into the mantra of fantasy; the bite of reality may kill him but he won’t accept it. The problem is that for people like this, death is no final proof. They have closed their eyes and decided that there is something beyond it.
For a while now, I have formulated a plan. If I can bring it to fruition, the entire country will be ablaze. The people of our land won’t wake up to her unless they can actually see her. They need a goddess with a form to denote the country. My friends liked the idea. They said, ‘Fine, let us build an idol.’ I said, ‘Our building it won’t work. We’ll have to use the idol that has always been in worship and make her the symbol of the country. The channels of devotion run deep in our land and we’ll have to use the same to channelize the devotion towards the country.’
Nikhil and I had an argument over this a while back. He said, ‘If I consider a task to be true and genuine, I cannot use illusions as a means.’
I said, ‘Yes , but sweetmeats do win you friends; the common man has to have his illusions and three-fourths of this world is made up of common men. It is to keep these illusions alive that every country has formulated its own gods. Man knows himself.’
Nikhil said, ‘Gods are for breaking illusions; only demons keep them in place.’
Fair enough, let them be demons, but they are essential to get the work done. The problem is, in our land, all the illusions are in their place. We pay homage to them and yet, do not put them to good use. Take the Brahmins for example: we bow to them, give them alms and yet we never utilize them. If we used their superiority to the fullest, we could take the world by storm because there is a bunch of people in this world who are doormats and they are the largest in number. They cannot accomplish much in life unless they get trod upon. Illusion is a means to make these people work. All this while we have sharpened these people as weapons and now the time has come to put them to use—I can’t put them away now.
But it was impossible to get Nikhil to see this point. Truth was lodged in his mind as firmly as a prejudice, as though Truth was an absolute, empirical given. I have told him many a time, in situations where falsehood was the Truth, it was the Truth. It was because our country knew this for a fact that it was said in olden days that for the ignorant the lie was the Truth. If he moved away from it, he would be deflecting the Truth. The man who could accept an idol as the symbol of the country would actually be working on that as the Truth. Given our nature and culture, it wasn’t easy for us to accept the nation in its abstraction, but we could easily accept the symbol. Since this was a fact, the ones who wanted results would work on this premise and work effectively.
Nikhil got very agitated and exclaimed, ‘Just because you have lost the capacity to strive for the Truth, you want an instant reward to fall into your lap. That’s why for hundreds of years, when all the work is left undone, you have turned the nation into a goddess and sat in front of her praying for a boon.’
I said, ‘The impossible must be achieved and that’s why the nation has to be a goddess.’
Nikhil said, ‘In other words, you are not interested in achieving that which is attainable but must be striven for. Everything should stay as it is and the consequences alone should be miraculous.’
I said, ‘Nikhil, your words are mere advice. It may be a good thing at a certain age, but not when a man’s teeth are itching to bite. I can see it right before my eyes: the harvest that I have never sown is flourishing and growing. On what basis? It is because I can see my nation as a goddess. Turning this into an eternal symbol is the need of the day. A genius doesn’t argue, he creates. I will give shape to what the nation thinks today. I will go from one house to another saying the goddess has appeared in my dreams and she wants homage. We will go to the Brahmins and say you are the true priests of the goddess and since you’re not giving her her dues, you have lost your status. You’d say I am lying. No, this is the truth. Millions of people all over the country are waiting to hear these words from my lips and that is why it is the truth. If I can successfully spread my own message, you’d see the miraculous results for yourself.’
Nikhil said, ‘But how long would I live? Even after the results you would hand to the nation now there may be other far-reaching consequences, which may not be so apparent now.
I said, ‘I want the consequences of here and now, only those are mi
ne.’
Nikhil said, ‘I want the consequences of tomorrow, only those belong to everybody.’
Fact of the matter is, perhaps Nikhil had his fair share of that gift so common to Bengalis: imagination. But a parasite of a plant called morality grew around and over it and nearly crushed the life out of it. The worship of Durga or Jagatdhatri that the Bengali had initiated in India was an amazing display of his true nature. I am very certain that this goddess is a political being. These two goddesses are different forms of that spirit of the nation to whom people prayed at the time of the Mughal rule, asking for strength to overthrow the enemy. No other people of India have been able to come up with such external manifestations of their enterprise. It was apparent that Nikhil’s imagination had died entirely when he said to me, ‘At least when the Muslims took up arms against the Marathas or the Sikhs, they held their own weapons and wanted victory. Bengalis placed the weapons in the hands of the goddess, mumbled some mantras and hoped for victory; but the nation is not a goddess and the only victory was the sacrifice of some goats and of bulls. The day we will work for the welfare of the nation, is the day we will get our reward from the true deity.’
The problem is that on paper Nikhil’s words sound very nice. But my words are not meant for paper; they are to be engraved on the nation’s heart with a branding iron. It is not the kind of farming the pundit theorizes about in books but the kind of dreams the farmer etches out on the earth’s bosom with his plough.
When I met Bimala I said, ‘Is it possible to realize that deity, the one for whose homage we have come into this world after a thousand births, until She appears before me in tangible form? How many times have I told you that if I hadn’t seen you, I would never have visualized my nation as one entity? I don’t know if you understand me. It is very difficult to explain that gods may stay hidden in the heavens, but they are visible on this earth.’
The Tagore Omnibus, Volume One Page 37
