by Ruth Vanita
Ever since I heard this immortal message, my heart has become very tender, and many good thoughts have been rising in my spirit. Yesterday, the washerwoman brought the clothes. She had a bad headache. Earlier, I would have expressed verbal sympathy for her, and asked the maid to give her a little oil, but yesterday, I was very upset. I felt as if she was my sister. I made her sit by me, and spent an hour rubbing oil into her head. The heavenly joy I experienced while doing this cannot be put into words. My inner being was captivated by some great power and drawn towards her. My husband’s sister turned up her nose at my behaviour, but I didn’t care one bit.
This morning it was extremely cold. My hands and feet were freezing. The maid came to work and I saw her shivering. I was wrapped in a quilt, sitting in front of the heater, yet I didn’t feel like lifting my face out of the quilt. I felt really sad when I saw the maid. I was ashamed of my selfish attitude. What is the difference between her and me! The same light is in her spirit too. Why this injustice? Is it merely because the delusion of wealth has made a distinction between us? I didn’t dare think beyond this. I got up, brought my woollen shawl and wrapped the maid in it, took her hand, and made her sit near the heater. After this, I put aside my quilt and sat down with her to wash the dishes. That simple soul repeatedly tried to stop me from doing this. My sister-in-law came and looked at me with curiosity, then made a face and left, as if she thought I was indulging in a game. The whole house was thrown into turmoil over this small incident. What thick veils cover our eyes! How much we are insulting God!
THE HUSBAND
The fact is that women by nature cannot follow the path of moderation. They have to go to extremes of one kind or another. Vrinda, who was ready to give her life for her high-caste honour and good breeding, now has become the embodiment of equality and empathy. This is the miraculous result of my simple teaching! Now I too can be proud of my inspirational powers. I have no objection to her sitting with low-caste women or laughing and talking with them. She could read aloud to them too, but I do not at all approve of her totally forgetting herself when dealing with them.
Three days ago, a Chamar came to me, wanting to sue his landlord. No doubt, the landlord had been unjust to him, but it is not the job of lawyers to file free lawsuits. And why should I take on the enmity of a big landlord for the sake of a Chamar? A fine legal career I would have if I functioned like that! Vrinda happened to overhear his laments. That was it—she immediately started insisting that I should take his case. She was determined to argue with me. I tried to make an excuse and wriggle out of the issue, but she would not rest until I had signed a legal contract with him. The result is that for the last three days clients wanting me to take on their cases for free have been lining up to meet me, and I have had to reprove Vrinda several times.
This is why the ancient law-givers thought women unfit to receive religious instruction. Women do not understand that every principle has a different practical application. We all know that God is just, but who forgets his own position in life for the sake of justice? If we tried to act on the idea of the all-pervading spirit, the world would become a kingdom of equality, but just as the philosophy of equality has remained and will remain an abstract principle, so too political principles of equality are unobtainable and will remain so. We will freely praise these two principles and debate them. We will use them to strengthen our own case, but it is impossible to live by them. I didn’t realize that Vrinda would not understand such a simple matter.
Vrinda is increasingly losing her mind. So far, the family members have always eaten fine quality rice; the vegetables for us are cooked in ghee, and we regularly have milk and butter. For the servants it has always been coarse rice, while their vegetables are prepared in oil, and they get peas instead of lentils. This practice is followed even in the homes of the very wealthy. Our servants have never complained of this arrangement. But today I saw that Vrinda had cooked the same food for everyone. I was too stunned to say anything.
Vrinda probably thinks that to discriminate in the matter of food is unjust to the servants. What childish thinking! How lacking in understanding she is! This difference has always existed and always will exist. I am a lover of national unity. The whole educated populace is ready to give its life for nationalism. But no one imagines, even in a dream, that we will give a place of equality to servants and labourers. We want to spread education amongst them and lift them up from poverty. This is the breeze blowing through the world today, but everyone understands what it really means although no one may say it openly. It means that we want to enhance our political importance, our power, and the influence of our national movement, and acquire the right to declare that our voice is not merely that of a handful of educated people but the united voice of the entire race. But who can explain this to Vrinda?
THE WIFE
Yesterday, my lord and master revealed his true self. That is why I am dejected today. God! There is so much pretence, so much blind selfishness in the world. We are so ready to hurt the poor. I had begun to consider him godlike after hearing his teaching. But today I’ve realized that it is people who know how to straddle two boats at the same time who are called benefactors of the community.
Yesterday, my sister-in-law was sent to her husband’s house.1 Many ladies of our community were invited. They were dressed in fine clothes and jewellery, and were sitting on carpets. I was welcoming them. Then I saw many women sitting near the door, on the ground, where the ladies’ shoes and slippers were kept. Those poor women too had come to witness the farewell ceremony. I thought it wrong for them to sit there. I brought them in and made them sit on the carpet. At this, the ladies started exchanging glances, and in a little while, they all made various excuses and left. Somebody told my husband about this. He came in, enraged, and said, his eyes red with anger, ‘What’s the matter with you? Do you want to blacken our faces? Hasn’t God given you the sense to know who should be seated with whom? You made lowly women sit with ladies from respectable families. What must those ladies be thinking? You have rendered me unable to show my face anywhere. This is really terrible.’
I said, simply, ‘Why should the ladies feel insulted? Everyone has the same one spirit in them. The spirit of one who wears jewellery does not become higher thereby.’
My lord and master bit his lip and said, ‘Be quiet, stop singing this out-of-tune melody. The same old story all the time—the spirit is one, God is one. You don’t know anything, you don’t understand anything, you’ve made a fool of me before the whole city, and you still keep talking nonsense. How much those ladies suffered in spirit, did you think of that?’
I could do nothing but stare at him in wonder.
This morning, when I woke up I saw a strange sight. The leaf plates, bowls and cups used by the guests the night before had been thrown out in the open ground. Dozens of people had fallen on these plates and were licking them. Yes, they were human beings, the same humans who are the very form of God. Lots of dogs were also licking the plates, but the destitute people were beating the dogs and driving them away. They were even worse off than dogs. I bristled all over at the sight of this horror, and tears flowed from my eyes. Oh God! These too are our brothers and sisters, our very souls. And what a terrible, wretched condition they are in! I immediately sent the maid to call them in, and gave them all the sweets and puris which were kept for the guests. The maid was trembling, afraid that my husband would be furious with her. I reassured her, so she relaxed a bit.
The poor destitute people were still eating when my lord and master appeared, his face red, and said, in a very harsh voice, ‘Have you taken opium or what? You are constantly causing some disturbance or the other. I just don’t understand what has happened to you. These sweets were not made for vagrants. They were made with ghee, sugar and refined flour, which, these days, are selling at the price of pearls. The sweet makers were paid their wages in rupees washed in milk. And you’ve fed those sweets to these wretches. Now what shall we feed the gu
ests? Are you bent on destroying my honour?’
I said seriously, ‘You are flying into a rage for nothing. I’ve fed your sweets to them, but I’ll buy as many more for you. I cannot watch some people eating sweets while others lick used plates. The poor are also human. In their being too is that one—’
My husband interrupted, ‘Stop—to hell with your one spirit! You think the spirit cannot be protected unless you protect it? If God wanted every living being to be equally happy, what stopped him from placing everyone in the same position? Why does he allow differences between high and low? Since not even a leaf can move without his orders, how can this great social order get disrupted without his willing it? Since he is all-pervading, why does he put himself into such loathsome conditions? You cannot answer any of these questions so you should act according to the present customs of the world. You will gain nothing but ridicule and condemnation from these senseless ideas.’
I cannot describe my mental state. I remained speechless. Oh selfishness! Oh the darkness of delusion! We turn even Brahm, the one spirit, into a farce. At that precise moment, my devotion to my husband and my worshipful attitude towards him vanished from my heart.
This house now feels like a prison to me, but I have not given up hope. I believe that sooner or later the light of Brahm will surely shine here and destroy this darkness.
Two Graves
THAT YOUTH, THAT INTOXICATION, THAT EXCITEMENT—ALL ARE gone. The gathering has dispersed, and the lamp that irradiated it is extinguished. That image of love now sleeps in the lap of the grave. But its imprint remains in the heart and its immortal memory lives before the eyes. Rarely is such fidelity, such love, such fulfilment of vows found among courtesans, and even more rarely such a marriage, such self-surrender and such devotion among wealthy men. Every evening, without fail, Kunwar Ranvir Singh went to Zuhra’s grave, decorated it with flowers and watered it with tears. Fifteen years passed but he never missed a day. The worship of love was his life’s only aspiration, a love wherein he had obtained whatever he envisioned and the memory of which still delighted him today. Sulochana, the blessing left behind by Zuhra and the focus of all Kunwar Sahib’s hopes, accompanied him in this worship.
Kunwar Sahib had married twice, but neither of his two wives bore a child. Kunwar Sahib did not marry again. Then, one day, he met Zuhra in a gathering. The disappointed husband and the unfulfilled young woman came together like two companions separated for aeons who had met once more. That springtime of life was filled with music and fragrance, but alas, it came to an end in the brief span of five years. The sweet dream disappeared in an awakening full of despair. That goddess of service and faith went away for ever, leaving the three-year-old Sulochana in his lap.
People were amazed by the devotion with which Kunwar Sahib fulfilled the vows of love. Many thought him mad. He went to sleep when Sulochana did, woke when she did, educated her, and took her out himself, with the single-mindedness of a widow raising her fatherless child.
When she was admitted to the university, he drove her there each morning and picked her up each evening. He wanted to wash from her brow the stain that providence had placed there with cruel hands. Wealth could not erase that stain but perhaps the pursuit of knowledge could.
2
One evening, Kunwar Sahib was decorating Zuhra’s tomb with flowers while Sulochana stood a short distance away, throwing a ball for her dog, when suddenly she saw one of her college professors, Dr Ramendra, approaching. Overcome with shyness, she turned away as if she had not seen him. She was afraid that Ramendra might ask about the tomb.
She had been at the university for a year, and in this period she had encountered many forms of love. Some were sportive, some amusing, some base, some desirous, some abandoned, but nowhere had she found that sensitivity which is the root of love. Ramendra was the only man who could make her heart beat faster by looking at her, but what helplessness, what defeat, what pain lay concealed in his eyes.
Ramendra looked at Kunwar Sahib and asked Sulochana, ‘What is your father doing at this grave?’
Sulochana blushed to her ears and said, ‘It’s an old habit of his.’
Ramendra: ‘Is this the tomb of some mahatma?’
Sulochana wanted to brush aside this question. Ramendra knew that Sulochana was the daughter of Kunwar Sahib’s serving woman, but he didn’t know that this was that woman’s grave and that Kunwar Sahib was such a devotee of long-lost love. But he had not lowered his voice when he asked the question. Kunwar Sahib was putting on his shoes. He heard the question. He quickly put on his shoes, came up, and said, ‘In the world’s eyes, she was not a mahatma, but in my eyes, she was, and is. This is the tomb of my love.’
Sulochana wished she could run away, but Kunwar Sahib derived heartfelt pleasure from praising Zuhra. Observing Ramendra’s incomprehension, he continued, ‘Here sleeps that goddess who made my life heaven. Sulochana is the blessing that she left me.’
Ramendra looked at the grave in surprise, and said, ‘Really?’
Kunwar Sahib, experiencing the joy of that love in his heart, said, ‘That was an entirely different life, Professor Sahib! I have never witnessed such devotion elsewhere. If you have the time, come with me. I will recount to you those memories of youth …’
Sulochana: ‘Father, that’s not something to be talked about.’
Kunwar: ‘I don’t consider Ramendra Babu a stranger.’
Ramendra thought this other-worldly form of love a jewel of the human psyche. He went with Kunwar Sahib to his house, and listened for several hours to those loving recollections steeped in grief.
Today, he finally asked for that boon which he had not had the courage to request for a year and which had agitated him for a long time.
3
After the wedding, Ramendra encountered new experiences. Women more or less stopped visiting his house. But the visits of his male friends increased precipitately. They came morning, noon and night. Sulochana was kept busy entertaining them. For a month or two, Ramendra did not notice this, but when several months passed and the women continued their boycott, he said to Sulochana, ‘These days, the men come over on their own.’
Sulochana said in a subdued tone, ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that.’
Ramendra: ‘Their wives are not avoiding you, are they?’
Sulochana: ‘Perhaps they are.’
Ramendra: ‘But these are very independent thinkers. Their wives too are educated. Why are they behaving this way?’
Sulochana said in a low voice, ‘I don’t understand it.’
Ramendra said, uncertainly, ‘Perhaps we should move away. In a new place, no one will know us.’
Sulochana replied sharply, ‘Why should we move to a new place? We haven’t harmed anyone nor do we ask anyone for anything. Those who want to come over can do so, and those who don’t want to need not. Why should we go into hiding?’
Gradually, Ramendra began to perceive even stranger things, which were much more disgusting and insulting than the women’s conduct. Ramendra now realized that the gentlemen who came over and sat for hours, discussing social and political questions, actually came not to engage in an intellectual exchange but to worship beauty. Their eyes were always searching for Sulochana and their ears were tuned to her alone. Their aim was to enjoy the sweetness of her form. Here, they felt none of that embarrassment which would prevent them from staring at the daughters and daughters-in-law of respectable men. Perhaps they thought there were no restrictions here.
Sometimes, when a gentleman came over in Ramendra’s absence, he would try to convey to Sulochana, with contemptible signs, double entendres and deep sighs, that he too was a suitor for her mercy, and if Ramendra had full authority over her, others too had a right to a few crumbs. At such times, Sulochana felt as if she had to swallow poison in silence.
Ramendra and Sulochana used to go to the club together. There were always a number of liberal gentlemen gathered there. Before Ramendra began to suspect their intention
s, he used to insist on taking Sulochana along with him. As soon as Sulochana arrived, a wave of excitement ran through the club. Men would encircle the table at which she sat. Sometimes, Sulochana would sing, and that would galvanize everyone.
There were not many ladies at the club. At most, half a dozen ever came, but they stayed far away from Sulochana, and tried to communicate to her by their body language and glances that she should entertain the men but not approach respectable women.
When this bitter truth dawned on Ramendra, he stopped going to the club, greatly reduced his visits to friends’ homes, and also began to discourage them from visiting him. He did not want anyone to disturb his solitude. Finally, he altogether stopped going out. It seemed to him that a web of deception and hypocrisy was spread all around him. No one could be trusted, and decent behaviour could not be expected of anyone. He thought, ‘Why mingle with such mean, hypocritical people who seek to cut your throat in the name of friendship?’
He was by temperament a sociable person, very fond of mixing with people. This solitude, without outings, amusements, or visits with friends, was no less than rigorous imprisonment to him. Although he always tried, with words and actions, to keep Sulochana happy, her apprehensive eyes soon perceived that this situation was becoming increasingly intolerable to him as days went by. She thought, ‘He is suffering because of me. I have become a thorn in his life!’
One day, she said to Ramendra, ‘Why don’t you go to the club these days? You haven’t left the house in weeks.’
Ramendra said, in a depressed voice, ‘I don’t feel like going anywhere. One’s own home is best.’
