Bankimchandra Omnibus: Volume - 1: v. 1

by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay

  Raman Babu stayed no longer. He went away laughing.

  20

  Disappearance of the Demi-Goddess

  IN DUE COURSE, AFTER THIS CONVERSATION, WE BOTH SET OUT FROM Calcutta. After he had taken me past that lake of ill-fortune called Black Lake, my husband set off towards his own home.

  The attendants took me on to Maheshpur. I told the bearers and guards to stay outside the village, and entered the village on foot. When I saw my father’s house before me, I sat down in a secluded place and wept for a long time. Then I entered the house. I saw my father in front of me, and touched his feet. When he saw who I was he was overcome with joy. There is not enough space to speak about all that here.

  I said nothing of where I had been for so long, or how I had come. When my father and mother questioned me, I said, ‘I will tell you later.’ Later I told them the essentials of my story, but I did not tell them everything. I explained that I was finally with my husband, and that I had come with him. And that he, too, would arrive in one or two days. To Kamini I told every detail. Kamini was two years younger than I. She loved pranks very much. She said, ‘Sister! Since the son of the Mitras is so very soft-hearted, why don’t we play a prank on him?’ I said, ‘I, too, would like to do that.’ Then both of us discussed and laid out plans. We instructed everybody carefully. We even instructed our parents a little. Kamini explained to them that I had not yet been publicly accepted. That was to happen here. We would organize that. But when their son-in-law arrived, they were not to tell him that I had come.

  The next day, the son-in-law arrived. My father and mother received him very cordially. He did not hear on anyone’s lips the news that I had arrived. Kamini asked him many questions; he answered mechanically. Standing in concealment, I heard and saw everything. Finally, he asked Kamini, ‘Where is your sister?’

  Kamini let out a great sigh, and said, ‘Do I know where? After the disaster that happened at Black Lake, we have not been able to get any further news.’

  His face fell. He could say nothing more. He must have thought, ‘I have lost Kumudini’, for he dissolved into tears.

  Checking his tears, he asked, ‘Has a woman called Kumudini arrived here?’

  Kamini said, ‘Whether she was Kumudini or not I can’t say, but a woman did arrive in a palanquin the day before yesterday. She went straight on to the temple of the Great Goddess and touched the goddess’s feet. Immediately an amazing thing happened. Suddenly it was dark with clouds and a shower rain came up. The woman took a trident in her hand and went burning up away into the sky.’

  The Lord of my life stopped eating. He washed his hands, clasped them to his head and sat there for a long time; after a long time he said, ‘Can I see the place where Kumudini disappeared?’

  Kamini said, ‘Why not? It’s dark now—let us take a light.’

  With these words, Kamini signed to me—‘You go first. I will bring Upendra Babu after you, with a light.’ I went ahead to the temple and sat on the veranda.

  Thither came Kamini, holding a light (I have said that there was a path from the postern gate) bringing my husband to me. He fell at my feet. He called, ‘Kumudini, Kumudini! If you have come—do not leave me again!’

  After he had said these words again several times, Kamini said, angrily, ‘Come, sister! Come away! This fellow knows Kumudini, he does not know you.’

  Eagerly he asked, ‘Sister! Who is your sister?’

  Kamini said furiously, ‘My sister is Indira! Have you never heard the name?’

  With these words, the mischievous girl put out the light, seized my hand and pulled me away. We ran very fast. Recovering his senses somewhat, my husband ran after us. But it was dark—the path was unknown to him; he stumbled slightly over the threshold. We were close by: we seized him, one on each side, and lifted him up. Kamini said, in a whisper, ‘We are demi-goddesses—we are accompanying you to protect you.’

  With these words, pulling him along, we arrived at my bedroom. A light was burning there. Seeing us, he said, ‘What is this? You are Kamini, and you are Kumudini!’ Kamini, even more angrily, said, ‘Ah, miserable one! Have you earned a living with these wits? Do you wield a spade? This is not Kumudini—this is Indira—Indira—Indira! Your wife! Can you not recognize your wife?’

  Then my husband, silly with joy, went to take me on his lap and took Kamini on his lap instead. She gave him a cuff on his cheek and went away laughing.

  I cannot describe the joy of that day. There was great festivity in the house. That evening there were about a hundred battles of words between Kamini and Upendra Babu. Every time it was my husband who lost.

  21

  How It Was Then

  NOW MY HUSBAND HEARD FROM ME EVERYTHING THAT HAD BEEN MY FATE after the banditry at Black Lake. He heard, too, about the plot Raman Babu and Subhashini had contrived in order to bring him to Calcutta. He was even a little angry about this. He said, ‘Was it necessary to pull me to and fro so much?’ I explained the necessity to him. He was satisfied. But Kamini was not satisfied. Kamini said, ‘I blame my sister a little that you were not ground like oilseeds. And then, didn’t you make that childish assertion that you would not accept her! See here, fellow, when you men can not live without our lac-dyed lotus feet, why do you boast so much?’ Upendra Babu this time ventured an answer. He said, ‘I could not know you then! What chance was there of recognizing you?’

  Kamini said, ‘Providence has not written in your fate whom you will recognize. Haven’t you heard the play? It says,

  The white cow said, Dark One, who recognizes you!

  I recognize only the fresh grass on the Yamuna’s banks.

  I seek your footprints, I hear your flute.

  The auspicious marks on your feet are there,

  but does a cow know them?’25

  I could no longer restrain my laughter. Upendra Babu, abashed, said to Kamini, ‘Go, sister, don’t pester me! You have recited from the play; now take this paan as a reward and go away.’

  Kamini said, ‘Oh, sister! I can see that this son of the Mitras does have a little sense after all.’

  I said, ‘What sense do you see?’

  Kamini said, ‘He has kept the container of paan and given me just one: is this not sense? Now you do something; make him put his hand to your feet occasionally—then his hand will be generous.’

  ‘Can I make him put his hand to my feet? He is my god of a husband.’

  ‘When did he become your god? If a husband is a god, then for all this time with you he has been a demi-god.’

  ‘He became my god when his demi-goddess disappeared.’

  ‘Aha! It is just as well, Master Mitra, that you could catch the demi-goddess. For if you were caught for your knowledge and work you would be in great trouble.’26

  I said, ‘Kamini, you exaggerate! Are you implying he is a low-caste thief?’

  Kamini said, ‘Is the fault mine? When Master Mitra worked for the commissariat he was committing theft. And as for low caste—when he was supplying provisions to the army, he was acting as a low-caste man, too.’27

  Upendra Babu said, ‘Let her speak—she is only a child. It is said that:’ Tis sweet to hear a child a-babbling.’

  Kamini said, ‘Of course. When you were a-taming your demi-goddess, your wits were a-begging. I will return—Mother is a-calling me.’

  Indeed, our mother was calling.

  When Kamini returned from our mother, she said, ‘Do you know why she was a-calling? You will be a-staying another two days—if you are not a-staying, we will be a-keeping you by force.’

  We looked at each other.

  Kamini said, ‘Why are you a-looking at each other?’

  Upendra Babu said, ‘We are a-thinking.’

  Kamini said, ‘Leave a-thinking till you are home. These two days are for a-eating, a-giving, a-laughing, a-pleasing, a-playing, a-dusting, a-leaning, a-swinging, a-dancing, a-singing—’28

  Upendra Babu said, ‘Kamini, will you dance?’

 
; Kamini said, ‘Go away with you, why me? I have kept what chains I have bought—you dance.’

  Upendra Babu said, ‘You have made me dance ever since I arrived—how much more will you make me dance—now you dance a little!’

  ‘If I do, will you stay?’

  ‘I will.’

  Not in the hope of seeing Kamini dance, but at the request of my parents, Upendra Babu agreed to stay for another day. That day, too, was very joyful. The women of the neighbourhood came in groups, and, after dusk, surrounded my husband. The women gathered in a room in a corner of the great house.

  I did not count how many women came. So many shapely eyes with bee-black pupils, in rows, playing like saphari fish in a clear lake; so many forelocks coiled like hooded snakes, twining and expanding and swaying like forest creepers in the rainy season, as if black she-snakes, terrified at Krishna’s subdual of the serpent Kaliya were twisting and turning in the waters of the Yamuna—so many ears, ear-hoops, studs, earrings, ear-drops played in so many cloud-like piles of hair, like lightning within clouds—so many kinds of wave-like lips moving, as so many rows of pearl-like teeth between reddened lips, chewed so many packets of scented paan—the love god, caught in the snares of so many hoop-nose-rings freed himself by responding with his arrows: with the flinging up and down of so many ornament-adorned plump arms, that room acquired an unearthly, restless beauty, like a garden full of wind-stirred flowering creepers, resounding with jingles and tinkles like the humming of bees; so much sparkle in necklets, beauty in necklaces, necklaces outshining the moon; the sparkle of anklets as feet moved! So many Benarasi, Baluchari, Mirjapuri, Dhakai, Shantipuri, Simla, Pharasdanga saris29—different kinds of silks—full of colour, striped, fluttering, floating, chequered—with those, some had veils, some were obliquely veiled, some half-veiled—some had only their chignons covered—and some not even that.

  The Lord of my life had brought home money by conquering many platoons of white men—he had deprived many colonels and generals of their wits and brought home a share of the profits—but seeing this platoon of beauties he was terrified. In the place of the cannons’ fire, that of the great cannons of the eyes; instead of the black-toothed coiling clouds of smoke, these black-toothed coiling clouds of lovely hair; instead of the clash of bayonets, this tinkling of ornaments; instead of the music of the war drums, the jingling of anklets on lac-dyed feet! The man who had seen Chilianwala—he was bereft of hope. Seeing me beside the door, he signed to me to save him on this great battlefield—but I, like the Sikh army-leader, betrayed him—I did not help him in this battle.30

  In truth, I knew that much shameless behaviour took place in all these gatherings. So Kamini and I did not attend—we remained outside. We occasionally peeped in from the doorway. If you say, why are you engaged in describing something at which shameless behaviour took place, my answer to that is that I am a Hindu woman, and all these are shameless in my view. But the prevailing view today is that of the English, and if judged from the English viewpoint, there was nothing shameless at all in this behaviour.

  I have said that Kamini and I peeped in. We saw that Yamuna, a lady of the neighbourhood, was sitting in splendour, presiding over the assembly. She was more than forty-five years old; her complexion was softly dark; her eyes were small, but a little heavy-lidded; her lips were thick, but full of colour. Her clothes and ornaments were ostentatious—there was a display of red lac-dye on her feet, red on the black, like hibiscus on the Yamuna itself—on her head, a display of hair reinforced with a hair-piece. Seeing the uncommon width and circumference of her body, my husband ridiculed her by calling her ‘nadirupa mahishi’.31 Mathurans call the Yamuna river Krishna’s ‘Queen in the form of a river’ and it was from taking note of this that my husband made his joke. Now, our Yamuna had never been to Mathura, and did not know of this, and did not know of this meaning of the word mahishi. The only meaning she knew for the word mahishi was ‘female buffalo’, and hearing her body compared to that of this beast she was beside herself in anger. In retaliation, she referred to me insinuatingly, before my husband, as ‘cow’; at this point I put my head round the door and asked, ‘Sister Yamuna! What are you talking about?’

  Yamuna said, ‘A cow, sister.’

  I asked, ‘Why a cow?’

  Kamini said from beside me, ‘Sister Yamuna’s voice has become dry from calling. Give her something to drink.’

  The presider over the assembly was diminished by laughter’s wounds; angry with Kamini, she said, ‘Insignificant girl, why is your stick in everyone’s pot, Kamini?’

  Kamini said, ‘Well, no one else can cook your cow-fodder.’32

  With these words, Kamini fled, and so did I. When we came back again and peeped in, we saw that grandmother Piyari, of the neighbourhood, a Vaidya by caste—sixty-five years old, and a widow for twenty-five of them—had come dressed up like Radha; with cymbals, and ornaments on every limb. When she noticed my husband, she wandered around that forest of kamini flowers saying, ‘Where is Krishna? Where is Krishna?’

  Kamini said, ‘What are you looking for, Grandmother?’

  She said, ‘I am looking for Krishna.’

  Kamini said, ‘Go to the cowherds’ house—this is a Kayastha house.’

  The elderly jokester said, ‘It is in a Kayastha’s house that my Krishna is to be found.’

  Kamini said, ‘Oh, Grandmother, are you available to all castes, then?’

  Now, there had once been some talk about Piyari being connected with the oilmen’s caste. At these words, she flared up angrily and started to shout taunts and abuses at Kamini. In order to stop her I pointed out Yamuna and said, ‘Why are you angry? Your Krishna has jumped into that Yamuna. Come, let us stand by the verge and weep.’

  Yamuna was as knowledgeable about the meaning of the word ‘verge’ as she was about the meaning of the word for ‘queen, she-buffalo’. She thought that I was referring to someone called Verge and casting aspersions on her stainless chastity (stainless by reason of her figure). She said angrily, ‘Who is this Verge then?’

  As a result, I, too, felt the urge to make a little joke. I said, ‘He on whose body Yamuna dashes billows day and night, he is called Verge in Brindavan.’33

  There was more destructive dashing of billows—Yamuna understood nothing of this and said angrily, ‘I do not know your Billows, I do not know your Verges and I do not know your Brindavan. I suppose you learnt all these funny names from the bandits.’

  There was a girl called Rangamayi in the gathering, of my own age. She said, ‘Why are you so angry, Sister Yamuna! The sand-banks on the sides of the river are called verges. Are there sand-banks on each side of you?’

  Yamuna’s sister-in-law, Chanchala, was sitting behind in a veil; from within that veil she said in a soft, sweet voice, ‘If there were sand-banks, I would survive. I would be able to see some light. Now, only the dark water of the dark river murmurs.’

  Kamini said, ‘Why are you dropping our Sister Yamuna on the sandbanks like this!’

  Chanchala said, ‘Perish the thought! Goddess! Why would we drop the lady in the middle of a sand-bank? We will clasp her brother’s feet and tell him to put her on a cremation ground in the fields.’

  Rangamayi said, ‘What is the difference between the two?’

  Chanchala said, ‘On the cremation ground she would benefit the jackals and dogs—on the sand-banks cows and buffalo graze—what use would she be to them?’ As she said the word ‘buffalo’ she lifted her veil a little and cast a smiling, sidelong look towards her sister-in-law.

  Yamuna said, ‘No, I don’t want to hear that word another hundred times. Let those who like buffaloes say “buffalo, buffalo, buffalo” a hundred times.’

  Piyari had not been listening much—she asked, ‘What is this talk of buffaloes?’

  Kamini said, ‘We were talking of countries in which the oilmen use buffaloes to turn the grinding block.’

  With these words, Kamini fled. It was not a good thing to keep brin
ging up the subject of oilmen—but it was impossible to see Kamini as bad. Piyari became dark with anger, said nothing more, and went to sit near Upendra Babu. Then I called Kamini and said, ‘Kamini! Come and see! Now Piyari has found Krishna.’

  Kamini said, from a distance, ‘It is about time.’

  Then we heard a clamour. I heard my husband’s voice—he was reprimanding someone in Hindi. I went to see. I saw that a bearded Moghul had entered the room; U. Babu was scolding him and ordering him to go away; the Moghul was not going. Then Kamini called from the door, ‘Master Mitra! Is there no strength in your body?’

  Master Mitra said, ‘Of course there is.’

  Kamini said, ‘Then push the Moghul fellow away by the neck.’

  At these words, the Moghul fled away breathlessly. As he fled, I caught hold of his beard—a false beard came away. The Moghul said, ‘Oh help! How can you set up house with a fool like this?’ With these words he fled. I threw the beard to Yamuna, as a gift. Upendra Babu asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

  Kamini said, ‘The matter? Put on a beard, go on four legs and start grazing in the pasture.’

  Upendra Babu said, ‘Why, was the Moghul a fake?’

  Kamini said, ‘Who could say such a thing! Could Anangamohini be a false Moghul! He was a genuine import from Delhi!’

  There was a burst of laughter. I was approaching, a little subdued, when Brajasundari, a woman of the neighbourhood, in a worn-out sari, with a little boy on her hip, started to weep words of sorrow to Upendra Babu. ‘I am very poor; I get nothing to eat; I cannot raise my son.’ Upendra Babu gave her something. We were one on each side of the door. As she was passing through the door, Kamini said to her, ‘Sister beggar! Don’t you know that if you get something by begging from an important man you must give a bribe to the doorkeepers?’

  Brajasundari said, ‘Who are the doorkeepers?’

  ‘The two of us.’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘What did you get?’