BANKIMCHANDRA CHATTOPADHYAY
The Bankimchandra Omnibus
Volume 1
KAPALKUNDALA
Translated by Radha Chakravarty
BISHABRIKSHA (THE POISON TREE)
Translated by Marian Maddern
INDIRA
Translated by Marian Maddern
KRISHNAKANTA’S WILL
Translated by S.N. Mukherjee
RAJANI
Translated by Sreejata Guha
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Kapalkundala
Part 1
1 At the Estuary
2 On the Beach
3 In the Wilderness
4 On the Crest of the Sand-dune
5 On the Seashore
6 With the Kapalik
7 The Hunt
8 Refuge
9 In the Temple
Part 2
1 On the Highway
2 The Wayside Inn
3 A View of Female Beauty
4 The Palanquin Ride
5 Back Home
6 In Seclusion
Part 3
1 In the Past
2 Change of Route
3 In the Rival’s Home
4 At the Royal Palace
5 In the Temple of the Self
6 Obeisance
7 On the Outskirts of the City
Part 4
1 Inside the Bedchamber
2 In the Woods
3 In the World of Dreams
4 Hints and Signals
5 On the Threshold
6 Re-encounter
7 In Conversation with the Co-wife
8 On the Way Home
9 In the Land of Spirits
Bishabriksha (The Poison Tree)
1 Nagendra’s Boat-journey
2 The Lamp Goes Out
3 Coming Events Cast Their Shadow Before
4 ‘That is the One’
5 Of Different Matters
6 Taracharan
7 You, With Eyes Like Lotus Petals! Who Are You?
8 A Reason for Great Anger on the Part of the Gentle Reader
9 Haridasi the Vaishnavi
10 Babu
11 Suryamukhi’s Letter
12 The Seed Sprouts
13 A Great Battle
14 Found Out
15 Hira
16 ‘No’
17 Birds of a Feather
18 Protectorless
19 Hira’s Anger
20 Hira’s Malice
21 Hira’s Quarrel—the Poison Tree Buds
22 Highway Robbery on Top of Theft
23 The Caged Bird
24 Descent
25 Good News
26 Who Has Any Objection?
27 Suryamukhi and Kamalamani
28 Letter of Blessing
29 What Is the Poison Tree?
30 The Search
31 All Happiness Has Bounds
32 The Fruit of the Poison Tree
33 As a Sign of Love
34 By the Roadside
35 In Hope
36 Hira’s Poison Tree Flowers
37 News of Suryamukhi
38 Eventually, Everything Was Lost
39 All Was Lost, But Not Suffering
40 The Fruit of Hira’s Poison Tree
41 Hira’s Grandmother
42 Dark House—Dark Life
43 Return
44 By the Dim Lamp
45 Shadow
46 What Had Happened
47 The Simple-hearted and the Snake
48 Kunda’s Prompt Action
49 After So Long, Speech
50 Conclusion
Endnotes
Indira
1 I Am to Go to My Father-in-law’s House
2 I Go to My Father-in-law’s House
3 The Pleasure of Travelling to My Father-in-law’s House
4 Now Where Do I Go?
5 ‘We Will Make Our Anklets Sound as We Go’
6 Subo
7 A Bottle of Ink
8 The Pandavas’ Queen
9 A Grey-Haired Person’s Happiness and Sorrow
10 The Lamp of Hope
11 A Stolen Glance
12 Haramani’s Laughter Is Checked
13 I Am Given an Examination
14 My Vow to Cast Off This Life
15 A Loose Woman
16 Having Committed Murder, I Am Hanged
17 After the Hanging, the Lawsuit’s Investigation
18 Plans for a Great Deception
19 Demi-Goddess
20 Disappearance of the Demi-Goddess
21 How It Was Then
22 Conclusion
Endnotes
Krishnakanta’s Will
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
10 Second Year
11 Third Year
12 Fifth Year
13 Sixth Year
14 Seventh Year
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Endnotes
Rajani
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II Amarnath
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part III Sachindra
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part IV Everyone
1 Labangalata
2 Amarnath
3 Labangalata
4 Labangalata
5 Sachindra
6 Sachindra
7 Labangalata
Part V Amarnath
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE BANKIMCHANDRA OMNIBUS VOLUME 1
Radha Chakravarty is a Reader in English at Gargi College, University of Delhi. Her doctoral thesis is a cross-cultural study of contemporary women writers. Her translations include Crossings: Stories from Bangladesh and India, Rabindranath Tagore’s Chokher Bali and Shesher Kabita: Farewell Song, and Mahasweta Devi’s In the Name of the Mother.
*
Marian Maddern has lectured in Literature in the Faculty of Education at the University of Mel
bourne and has translated variously from Bengali prose and poetry.
*
Soumyendra Nath Mukherjee has taught History at Oxford, Cambridge and Sydney. Author of several books on India, S.N. Mukherjee has also edited a number of translations from Bengali.
*
Sreejata Guha has an MA in Comparative Literature from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has translated Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s Picture Imperfect and Band of Soldiers, Taslima Nasrin’s French Lover, Rabindranath Tagore’s Chokher Bali: A Grain of Sand and Home and the World, and Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas for Penguin.
Kapalkundala
Part 1
1
At the Estuary
Floating straight obedient to the stream.
—The Comedy of Errors
EARLY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, LATE ONE NIGHT IN THE MONTH OF Magh, a passenger boat was on its way back from Gangasagar. It was customary those days for passenger boats to travel together in groups, to protect themselves from the Portuguese and other pirates. But this boat was unaccompanied, because in the dense fog that had enveloped the horizon in the wee hours, the sailors, losing their orientation, had steered the vessel away from the rest of the fleet. Now they had no idea where they were headed, or in which direction. Many of the passengers were asleep. Only two men remained awake: one was old, the other young. They were engaged in conversation.
‘How far can we travel tonight?’ the old man broke off, to inquire of the sailors.
‘I couldn’t say,’ replied the oarsman, after some hesitation.
Enraged, the old man began to rant at the oarsman.
‘Sir, when matters are in God’s hands, even learned men cannot predict what might transpire,’ the young man intervened. ‘How can this illiterate man say anything for certain? Please don’t agitate yourself.’
‘Not be agitated?’ exclaimed the old man sharply. ‘How is that possible, when rascally robbers have snatched away the paddy from twenty to twenty-five acres of my land? What will my children survive on, all year?’
He had received these tidings after he was already at the estuary, from travellers who arrived there subsequently.
‘I did point out earlier that it was not a good idea for Sir to have come on this pilgrimage, because his household has no other guardian,’ the young man reminded him.
‘Not come on this pilgrimage?’ exclaimed the old man as sharply as before. ‘With three-quarters of my lifespan over already? When should I build my store of virtue for the life to come, if not at this stage?’
‘If I understand the scriptures correctly,’ observed the young man, ‘it’s possible to prepare for the afterlife in one’s own home, just as well as on a pilgrimage.’
‘Then why did you undertake this journey?’ the old man demanded.
‘As I’ve said before, I had a great desire to see the ocean,’ replied the young man. ‘That is why I came here.’
‘Ah! What a vision!’ he mused, in a softer voice. ‘Never to be forgotten in all eternity!’ In Sanskrit, he quoted:
Behold the remote blue shore, densely encircled by tal and tamal!
And there, like a long, dark stain, stretch the salt waters of the deep.
The old man paid no attention to the poetry. He was listening with rapt attention to the conversation of the sailors.
‘O bhai, my brother! What a terrible thing we’ve done!’ one sailor was saying to another. ‘Are we now in the open seas? Or are we approaching some unknown land? I couldn’t say!’
The speaker sounded very frightened. The old man realized that there was cause for anxiety.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked the oarsman, fearfully.
The oarsman made no reply. But the young man stepped out on deck without waiting for an answer. He found that it was almost dawn. The world, all around, was enveloped in dense fog; sky, stars, moon, shore, nothing could be seen. He realized that the sailors had lost their way. Unable to ascertain the direction in which they were going, they were terrified of drowning in the open seas.
The passengers within the boat had remained unaware of all this, because of a screen draped over the front of the cabin, to protect them from the cold. But the young traveller understood their predicament, and explained it to the old man. This caused a huge commotion on board. Some of the female passengers, aroused from slumber by the sound of voices, began to scream as soon as they heard the news.
‘To the shore! To the shore! To the shore!’ cried the old man.
‘If we knew where the shore was, would we be in such grave danger?’ asked the young man, with a faint smile.
At this, the passengers began to scream even more loudly. The young traveller somehow managed to calm them down.
‘There’s no cause for anxiety,’ he assured the sailors. ‘Day has broken. In a few hours, the sun will be up. The boat will certainly not be destroyed in two or three hours. Stop rowing now, and let the boat drift with the current. Later, once the sun comes up, we can discuss what is to be done.’
The sailors accepted his advice and proceeded accordingly.
For a long time, the sailors sat idle. The passengers were half-dead with fright. There was not much of a breeze, so they could not really sense the undulation of the waves. All the same, everyone assumed that death was close at hand. The men began to silently chant Goddess Durga’s name, the women wailed in many voices. Only one woman did not weep: she had sacrificed her child to the waters of the Gangasagar estuary, having failed to lift him out of the water after the holy dip.
They waited until morning seemed close at hand. Suddenly, the sailors created a great uproar, calling upon the five pirs of the ocean.
‘What is it? What is it? Tell us, oarsman, what has happened?’ cried the passengers.
‘The sun is up! The sun is up! Land ahoy!’ cried the oarsmen, in a babble of voices.
All the passengers came out on deck, curious to see where they had arrived, and to ascertain the truth about their predicament. They found that the sun was up. The air was now completely clear of the fog’s shadow. The day was well advanced. The boat had not drifted out into the open seas, but had merely reached the river’s mouth. At this point, though, the river was at its widest. On one side, the shore was very close to the boat, indeed—in fact, within about thirty feet of it; but the opposite shore could not be seen at all. In every direction, wherever one looked, stretched a vast expanse of water, sparkling in the playful sunshine, extending to the horizon, where it merged with the sky. The water, seen at close range, had a river’s usual muddy hue, but acquired a bluish gleam where it stretched into the distance. The passengers concluded with certainty that they had reached the high seas; but they counted themselves fortunate that, due to the proximity of the beach, they had no cause for anxiety. They determined their orientation from the position of the sun. The stretch of land facing them was readily identified as the western shore of the sea. Along the beach, not far from the boat, was the mouth of a river, flowing gently into the sea like a stream of gold. To the right of the estuary, countless birds of all varieties could be seen, frolicking on the wide stretch of sand. This river is today known as the Rasulpur.
2
On the Beach
Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted friend!
—King Lear
WHEN THE PASSENGERS’ EXCITED BABBLE HAD SUBSIDED, THE SAILORS proposed that while high tide was still far away, they could cook their meal on the beach facing them. Afterwards, as soon as the tide came in, they could proceed on their homeward journey. The passengers accepted this suggestion. Once the sailors had brought the boat to the shore, the travellers alighted, and busied themselves with their daily ablutions.
Ablutions completed, when they began preparations for cooking, another difficulty presented itself: there was no firewood on board. For fear of tigers, nobody was willing to fetch firewood from the embankment above. Finally, the old man, realizing they would all starve, addressed the young man we have
spoken of earlier:
‘Nabakumar, my son! If you don’t tackle the situation, all of us will die.’
‘Very well, I shall go,’ decided Nabakumar, after a brief hesitation. ‘I need an axe, and someone to accompany me with a da—a chopping blade.’
Nobody was willing to accompany Nabakumar.
‘When it’s time to eat, we’ll see who joins me,’ remarked Nabakumar. Girding his waist, he picked up the axe and set off alone in search of firewood.
Clambering up the embankment, Nabakumar found no trace of human habitation, anywhere within sight. Only forests were to be seen, not graced with rows of giant trees, nor densely wooded, but consisting instead of clusters of small shrubs, covering the land in patches. Unable to spot any firewood worth collecting, Nabakumar had to walk far inland, away from the riverbank, in search of suitable trees. Finally, having located a tree that would suit his purpose, he gathered all the wood he required. He found the load very difficult to carry. As he was not a poor man’s son, Nabakumar was unaccustomed to such chores; having gone in search of firewood without considering the consequences, he now found his load very burdensome. All the same, having once taken on a task, it was not in Nabakumar’s nature to give up easily; so he began to somehow stagger back with his burden of firewood. He would go a little way, then sit and rest awhile, before moving on again, making his way back in this fashion.
Nabakumar’s return was thus delayed. Meanwhile, his companions grew anxious, fearing that Nabakumar had been killed by a tiger. After a reasonable time had elapsed, they were convinced in their hearts that this was indeed what had happened. Yet, no one had the courage to climb the embankment and advance inland in search of him.
While the travellers speculated thus, a tumult broke out in the waters. The sailors realized that the tide had turned. They were well aware that in such places, the waves at high tide buffet the shore so violently, that any boat or other river-craft that happen to be within range are smashed to bits. So, they rapidly untied the boat and began to row away towards the middle of the river. No sooner had the boat moved away, than the stretch of sand before them was inundated with water. The terrified travellers had barely managed to scramble on board; the rice, with all other items placed on the beach, was swept away in the tide. Unfortunately, the sailors, lacking expertise, could not control the boat, which was carried by the torrent, out into the middle of the Rasulpur river.
‘But we’ve left Nabakumar behind!’ cried one of the passengers.
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