I had never heard him mention Rajani. But I realized that he had started on the road to recovery on the same day that Rajani had visited him.
One day, when the room was empty of other people, I brought up Rajani’s name gingerly, without preamble. I talked of her blindness and its sorrow, her deprivation of the pleasure of visual beauty, of the sight of her loved ones. Sachindra turned his face away; his eyes were full of tears.
Fondness for sure!
Then I said, ‘You are a well-wisher of Rajani and I have come to seek your advice on a matter regarding her. Rajani is already tormented by fate; moreover she has received some grief at my hands, too.’
Sachindra turned towards me and glared at me angrily.
I said, ‘If you would care to listen to the tale patiently, I would like to narrate it to you.’
‘Please,’ he said.
‘I am quite greedy and selfish,’ I confessed. ‘I was impressed by her nature and wished to marry her. She was bound to me by strong ties of gratitude and hence she had accepted.’
‘Sir, why are you telling me all this?’
‘I have come to realize that the hermit that I am, I roam all over the country and how would the blind Rajani go along with me? Now I wish some other gentleman would marry her. I would like to see her marry well. I am telling you all this in case you have someone in mind.’
Sachindra spoke a trifle hurriedly, ‘There’s no dearth of grooms for Rajani.’
I understood who he had in mind.
3
THE NEXT DAY I REAPPEARED AT THE MITRA HOUSE. I TOLD LABANGALATA that I was leaving Calcutta with no chance of returning soon. She had once been my student and I wanted to bless her before I left.
Labangalata met me. I asked her, ‘Have you heard what I said to Sachindra yesterday?’
‘I heard,’ she said. ‘You are beyond compare. Please forgive me; I wasn’t aware of your virtues.’
I was silent. In that pause she asked, ‘Why did you request a meeting with me? I heard you are leaving Calcutta?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Why not? There is nobody to stop me.’
‘If I were to stop you?’
‘What am I to you that you’d do such a thing?’ I asked her.
‘What are you to me? That I do not know. In this world you are nothing to me, but if there is another life—’ She left the sentence hanging.
I waited for some time and then asked, ‘If there is another life, then what?’
Labangalata said, ‘I am a woman—easily swayed. Why do you want to test my strength? All I can say is I shall always wish you well.’
I was a little upset, ‘I do believe that. But I have never really understood one thing; if you truly are my well-wisher, why did you mark me so hideously? This doesn’t go away—it can never be erased.’
Labanga was embarrassed. She thought for some time. She said, ‘You had done something wrong. In my childish way so did I. Each crime should be left in fate’s hands for the proper judgement, who am I to judge? Now I have my regrets. But let us not talk of that. Will you forgive me my crime?’
I hastened to reassure her, ‘That was done long ago, even before you asked. And what is there to forgive—you gave an apt punishment; you were not at fault. I shall never come back and I shall never see you again. But if ever in future you come to hear that Amarnath is not a bad man, will you feel just the tiniest bit of affection for me?’
‘That would mean my fall from grace,’ she pointed out.
‘No, I do not aspire to those affections anymore. But in this heart of yours, like an ocean in magnitude, don’t you have any place for me?
‘No. For the one who once craved my affection outside the bounds of matrimony, I have no place in my heart, even if it was one of the gods himself. In this life I shall never feel even the tiniest bit of affection for you, not even what one feels for a caged, pet bird.’
‘This life’ once again. Anyway, I cannot say that I understood her words. And but she certainly did not understand mine. Yet, I noticed she had tears in her eyes.
I said, ‘Let me finish saying what I came to say. I have some land and assets. They are of no use to me. I wish to donate them before I go.’
‘To whom?
‘To the man who will marry Rajani.’
‘All your material wealth?’ she asked, quite overwhelmed by my offer.
‘Yes. You will keep the documents of that gift in great secret. Do not reveal their existence until the day Rajani is married. After the wedding, hand over the papers to Rajani’s husband.’
With these words, I dropped the papers near her and walked away without waiting for her response. I had everything arranged. I did not go back home. I proceeded to the station and boarded a steam engine and set off for Kashmir.
The business was sold!
4
ABOUT TWO YEARS AFTER THIS INCIDENT, IN THE COURSE OF MY TRAVELS, I decided to visit Bhawaninagar. I heard that someone from the Mitra family was living there. Out of curiosity, I went there to have a look. At the entrance of the once-disputed estate I met Sachindra.
He recognized me and after embracing and welcoming me, he took my hand and seated me. We conversed at length. From him I came to know that he had indeed married Rajani. But he feared that people in Calcutta would look down upon her as an erstwhile flower girl. So they had moved to this house. His father and brother still lived in Calcutta.
Sachindra pleaded with me to take back my own property. But needless to say, I paid no heed to it. Finally, he requested me to meet Rajani. I too wanted that. Sachindra led me indoors.
Rajani appeared, bowed down and touched my feet respectfully. I noticed that she did not fumble around in the natural way of the blind as she bent to touch my feet. She went straight to the right spot. I was a little surprised.
She stood up after saluting me. But her head was bowed. My surprise increased. The blind felt no shyness to meet the eye. The awkwardness of eye contact was absent in their case and hence they never hesitated to meet the eye. I asked something, and in response Rajani looked up once and glanced down again. I saw—for sure—those eyes had life!
So then, was the congenitally blind Rajani now gifted with sight? I was about to ask Sachindra when he asked Rajani to give me a seat. She began to lay out a mat on the floor, but at that spot there was a drop of water. She kept the mat aside and wiped the water first with her sari and then laid out the mat on that spot. I had noticed for a fact that she had stopped short of laying the mat without even touching the drop of water. Hence, she could not have guessed by touch that there was water there. Obviously she had seen it.
I couldn’t keep my emotion in check; I asked, ‘Rajani, are you able to see now?
Rajani bowed her head, smiled slightly and said, ‘Yes.’
I looked at Sachindra in amazement. He said, ‘Surprising, but there is nothing that is impossible with divine grace. In India, there are some incredible cures available to the ancient art of medicine that will never be known to the Western world, however hard they labour. Why just medicine, it goes for every branch of learning. But these secrets are now extinct; some parts of it can still be found, guarded zealously by a few hermits and sages. One such hermit is an occasional visitor in our house and he is fond of me. When he heard that I was going to marry Rajani, he said, “How will the auspicious first sight of bride and groom take place—the girl is blind!” I said in jest, “Why don’t you cure her blindness, then?” He said, “I will—in a month’s time.” He treated her eyes and within a month he granted her sight.’
I was truly astounded and said, ‘I would not have believed this if I had not seen it. This would be unheard of in European medical science.’
We were talking thus when a one-year-old child came into the room, stumbling and fumbling, crawling and walking. He came and fell at Rajani’s feet, tugged at her sari and pulled himself up, and hiding his face between her knees, he gurgled cheerfull
y. Then he stared at me for some time, waved me away and said, ‘Do [Go].’
‘Who is this?’ I asked.
Sachindra said, ‘Our son.’
I asked, ‘What have you named him?’
‘Amarprasad,’ he replied.
I did not stay there any longer.
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First published by Penguin Books India 2005
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Kapalkundala This translation copyright © Radha Chakravarty 2005
Bishabriksha This translation copyright © Mariam Maddern and S.N. Mukherjee 1996, 2005
Indira This translation copyright © Mariam Maddern and S.N. Mukherjee 1996, 2005
Krishnakanta’s Will This translation copyright © S.N. Mukherjee and Mariam Maddern 1996, 2005
Rajani This translation copyright © Penguin Books India 2005
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Bankimchandra Omnibus: Volume - 1: v. 1 Page 55
