Ashu Babu called out to them. ‘When did you come, Shibnath Babu? Do come here.’
Shibnath and his wife moved over to them. Ashu Babu introduced Shibnath’s wife to the company. Then turning to her he said, ‘I still don’t know your name.
The young woman said, ‘My name is Kamal. But don’t address me formally as apni, Ashu Babu.’
Ashu Babu said, ‘Nor should I, Kamal. These are my friends; your husband knows them too. Please sit down.’
Kamal pointed to Ajit and said, ‘But you haven’t introduced him.’
Ashu Babu said, ‘Of course I will. He’s very close to me. His name is Ajitkumar Ray. He returned from England a few days ago and has come to see us. Kamal, is this the first time you’ve seen the Taj?’
The girl nodded and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Then you’re very lucky. Ajit is luckier still because he hasn’t yet seen this wonderful object at all. He’ll see it now. But it’s getting dark and we mustn’t delay any longer, Ajit.’
Manorama said, ‘But Father, you’re the one who’s causing the delay. Please get up.’
‘It’s not easy for me to get up, my dear. It needs some preparation.’
‘Then do make your preparations, Father.’
‘Yes, yes. Well Kamal, how did you like it?’
Kamal said, ‘It’s really something to wonder at.’
Manorama did not speak to her. Her attitude did not even show that she knew her. She urged her father on, saying, ‘It’s getting dark, Father. Now get up.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Ashu Babu, without making the slightest effort to rise.
Kamal smiled a little and looked at Manorama. She said, ‘He’s not well, and it would be a strain for him to climb up and down. Why don’t you go around while we sit here talking?’
Manorama did not respond to this suggestion, but only went on at her father stubbornly: ‘That won’t do, Father. You must get up now.’
But hardly anyone was inclined to get up. In comparison to the living beauty of this unknown woman, the inarticulate marble building seemed to have faded on the instant.
Abinash awoke from his trance. He said, ‘He must go. Manorama is convinced that unless seen through the eyes of her father, half the charm of the Taj will be lost.’
Kamal raised two innocent eyes and asked, ‘Why?’ She turned to Ashu Babu. ‘Are you an expert on the subject and know all about it?’
Manorama was surprised. This did not sound like the words of an illiterate maid’s daughter.
Ashu Babu was delighted and said, ‘I know nothing at all. I’m not at all an expert—I don’t know the rudiments of aesthetics, nor do I view it from that angle, Kamal. I think of the emperor Shah Jahan. I think how his limitless grief is bound up with every block of stone. I see his unwavering love for his wife, made immortal in this poetry of stone.’
Kamal looked at him and said unaffectedly, ‘I’ve heard that he had many other begums. The emperor loved Mumtaz as he loved so many others—perhaps a little more, but you can’t call it unwavering, Ashu Babu. He didn’t have that kind of devotion.’
Everybody was startled by this alarming, unorthodox remark. Neither Ashu Babu nor the others could find an immediate reply. Kamal said, ‘The emperor was contemplative and poetical. With his power, wealth and patience, he built this immense and beautiful object. Mumtaz was only the accidental cause. He could have built such an edifice around any other occasion. It might have been inspired by religion, or even built to celebrate a conquest costing millions of lives. This is not the gift of single-minded devotion, only of the emperor’s very own realm of delight. Let that be enough for us.’
Ashu Babu seemed hurt. He repeatedly shook his head, saying, ‘No, that’s not enough, Kamal, not enough. If what you say were true, if the emperor didn’t have a single-minded devotion, then this massive memorial has no meaning. Whatever great beauty he may have created, it would find no place in people’s hearts.’
‘If there were no place, it would show the people’s folly. I don’t say that devotion has no value, but it doesn’t deserve the value people have attached to it through the ages. It’s neither healthy nor pleasing to hold with a kind of fixed, inert numbness of the mind that your feelings towards someone you once loved can never change.’
Manorama’s wonder knew no bounds. It was hard to dismiss this woman as a maid’s daughter, but she was upset that a young woman like her had made these remarks before so many men. She had not spoken all this time; but she could restrain herself no longer. In a stern but subdued voice she said, ‘I realize this attitude may seem very natural, to you at any rate, but others may find it neither pleasing nor decent.’
Ashu Babu was extremely distressed and said, ‘No, no, my dear!’
Kamal was not offended. She smiled a little and said, ‘People can’t bear it when old, deep-rooted customs are suddenly attacked. You have rightly said that this attitude comes naturally to me. My body and mind are full of youth, there’s life in my mind. The day I find it can’t change even when necessary, I’ll know it’s finished—it’s dead.’
As she raised her face on saying this, it seemed to her that Ajit’s eyes were flashing fire. Who knows whether Manorama noticed this, but in the middle of the conversation she burst out, ‘Father, the day’s about to end. Let me take Ajit Babu around as much as I can.’
Ajit came to his senses and said, ‘Yes, let’s go.’
Ashu Babu was pleased and said, ‘Good idea. We’ll be sitting here. But come back quickly. Perhaps we’ll come again a little earlier tomorrow.’
6
WHEN AJIT AND MANORAMA CAME BACK AFTER SEEING THE TAJ, the sun had set but there was still some light. Everyone sat in a close circle, and their arguments grew more and more heated. They had forgotten about the Taj, about returning home, even about Ajit and Manorama. Akshay was fuming silently: he looked as though he had shouted himself hoarse and was recouping. Ashu Babu was listening intently, stretching his lower body outside the circle and devising a way of resting his torso on his arms. Abinash was leaning forward and looking sharply at Kamal. Clearly the question-and-answer session was now confined to these two.
They looked up at the newly arrived pair. Some nodded briefly, others did not even find time for that. Kamal and Shibnath too looked up towards them. Strangely enough, while the former’s eyes were burning like flame, the latter’s looked tired and dim. He seemed neither to see nor to hear anything. Although in company, Shibnath seemed to have wandered far away.
Ashu Babu only said, ‘Do sit down.’ But he paid no heed where they sat or whether they sat at all.
Abinash seemed to be trying to pick up the broken thread of Akshay’s argument. He said, ‘Let’s forget about the emperor Shah Jahan for the moment. I admit there are good reasons to ponder about him—it’s a complex matter. But when the issue is as clear as this white marble, as limpid as water, as simple and transparent as sunlight, like the life of our own Ashu Babu—well, we all know about it. He wanted for nothing; his friends and relatives spared no effort—yet he couldn’t conceive of bringing somebody in to supplant his dead wife. It was beyond his imagination. Just think how great an ideal this is for the love of man and woman! How high and noble!’
Kamal was about to say something; but she turned round on feeling a soft touch at her back. ‘Let’s drop this discussion now,’ said Shibnath.
‘Why?’ asked Kamal.
By way of answer, Shibnath only said, ‘Oh, just like that,’ and fell silent. Nobody paid much attention to his words; no one could tell what remained unsaid behind his listless, unmindful eyes, and no one cared to find out.
Kamal said, ‘Oh—just like that? Perhaps you’re in a hurry to go home? But you’re carrying your home with you.’ And she smiled.
Ashu Babu was embarrassed. Harendra and Akshay smiled wryly, and Manorama turned her face away; but Shibnath, to whom the words were addressed, showed no change on his marvellously attractive face. He seemed to be made of stone, incapab
le of either seeing or hearing.
Abinash was growing impatient. He said, ‘Answer my question.’
Kamal replied, ‘But my husband has told me not to. Should I disobey him?’ She began to laugh. Abinash too could not but laugh. He said, ‘It wouldn’t be an offence in this case. So many of us are asking you. Please reply.’
Kamal said, ‘I’ve seen Ashu Babu on two occasions only, but I’ve already come to love him in my heart.’ She pointed at Shibnath and went on, ‘Now I can see why he told me not to speak.’
Ashu Babu himself interrupted and said, ‘But you have no reason to hesitate on my score. This old man is harmless, Kamal. You have judged him quite well within a short time. Soon you will realize that there’s no greater mistake on earth than to be afraid of him. Please speak frankly: I really enjoy listening to such things.’
Kamal said, ‘But that’s precisely why he asked me not to speak. And that’s why, in reply to Abinash Babu’s question, I hesitate to say that in matters of love between man and woman, I hold his principle to be neither great nor ideal.’
Akshay spoke. There was a sting in his words. ‘Quite possibly the two of you don’t believe in such principles. But could you tell us what you believe in?’
Kamal looked at him, but did not really seem to be answering him. She said, ‘Ashu Babu had once loved his wife, but she is no more. There’s nothing to give her, nor anything to get from her. She can neither be pleased nor hurt. She isn’t there any longer. The object of love has disappeared; all that remains is the memory that he had once loved her. The person is no more, only the remembrance is left. I don’t understand what great ideal can lie in nurturing that remembrance day and night, in holding the past as a fixed truth outvying the present.’
Ashu Babu was again hurt by Kamal’s words. He replied, ‘But Kamal, this memory is the only resource left to the widows of our country. The husband passes away, but his memory upholds the sanctity of widowhood. Don’t you accept this?’
‘No,’ said Kamal. ‘A grand name doesn’t of itself make a thing great. You should rather say that this is the injunction laid down for widows in this country. People have been cheating them by giving falsehood the glory of a truth. That I won’t deny.’
Abinash said,’ Even if that be so, if people have been cheating them, shouldn’t we grant the honour of sanctity to the brahmacharya1 of widows—well, no, let’s not talk of brahmacharya—but at least to the ascetic lifestyle that accompanies it till death?’
Kamal smiled and said, ‘Abinash Babu, this too shows your fascination with grand words. The word “self-control”, dignified over a long period of time, has been so puffed up that it can be used indiscriminately. As soon as it is uttered, people bow their heads in reverence. They’re afraid to admit that it’s nothing more than a hollow phrase; but I’m not afraid. I’m not that kind of person. I don’t accept something just because many people have repeated it for a long time. I can’t accept a self-sustaining view of sanctity, holding that widows spend their days nursing their husbands’ memories in their bosoms, unless it’s proved true to me.’
Abinash looked dazed and was speechless for a while, but eventually spoke: ‘What are you saying?’
Akshay joined in. ‘Perhaps you don’t even accept that two and two make four, unless it is proved?’
Kamal was not offended, nor did she reply. She merely smiled.
Another person was not offended either, and that was Ashu Babu, although he had been most affected by what Kamal had said.
Akshay spoke again. ‘These ugly notions of yours don’t agree with those of respectable society. They are not current here.’
Smiling as before, Kamal replied, ‘Yes, they certainly aren’t current in respectable society. I know that.’
Everyone was silent for some time. Ashu Babu gently said, ‘Kamal, let me ask you one thing more. I’m not talking about purity and impurity. I’m thinking of those who, because of their nature, can’t do otherwise—myself, for example. I can’t even imagine putting someone else in place of Mani’s dead mother.’
Kamal said, ‘The fact is that you’ve grown old, Ashu Babu.’
Ashu Babu said, ‘I admit I’m old today, but I wasn’t when she died. I couldn’t think of it even then.’
Kamal said, ‘You were old even then—not in body but in mind. Some people are born with aged minds. Under the admonitions of their aged minds, their feeble, distorted youth bows its head in shame forever. The aged mind gleefully says, “Ah! This is good! No worries! No excitement! This is bliss, this is the ultimate truth of human life!” What a glut of superlatives! What cheers and applause for the aged mind! Its ears are filled with the drumbeats of fame; it doesn’t realize that this isn’t the sound of victory. It’s a requiem for the life of pleasure that it has sacrificed.’
Everybody felt the need for a strong reply: their ears smarted at the unabashed paean to frenzied youth from a woman’s lips. Yet no one could find anything to say in reply.
Then Ashu Babu softly said, ‘What do you mean by an aged mind, Kamal? Let’s see whether it applies to me.’
Kamal replied, ‘By an aged mind I mean a mind that cannot look ahead, that is tired and palsied, that gives up all hope of the future and lives on its past as if it has nothing to do, nothing to demand. The present to it is extinct, unnecessary, absent, meaningless; the past is everything. The past is its delight, its grief—its capital to invest. It wants to bank it and live all its life on the interest. Now compare this with your own state, Ashu Babu.’
Ashu Babu smiled and said, ‘I’ll do that sometime.’
Ajit had sat silent through this long argument, only gazing steadily at Kamal. Suddenly something happened to him. He could not control himself any more, and blurted out, ‘I want to ask you something. Look, Mrs…’
Kamal looked straight at him and said, ‘Why Mrs? Why not simply “Kamal”?’
Ajit blushed. ‘No, no, how can that be? It seems somewhat …’
‘No “somewhat” about it,’ said Kamal. ‘My parents gave me the name for people to call me by. I don’t take offence if they do.’ She suddenly looked at Manorama and said, ‘You’re Manorama. If I called you by that name, would you be offended?’
Manorama nodded and said, ‘Yes, I would.’
Nobody had expected this reply from her. Ashu Babu wilted with embarrassment.
Only Kamal was not embarrassed. She said, ‘A name is nothing in itself. It’s only a word by which one person addresses another. But many people can’t break old habits; they want to embellish this word in various ways. Don’t you see how kings add a number of meaningless words before and after their names before they let people utter them? Otherwise it hurts their dignity.’
She suddenly laughed and, pointing to Shibnath, said, ‘He, for example, can never say “Kamal”. He calls me “Shibani”.2 Ajit Babu, I’d rather you called me “Shibani” than “Mrs Shibnath”. It’s a short word, and everyone will understand it. At least I will.’
Yet for some reason Ajit couldn’t speak even after such clear orders. His question remained suspended on his lips.
The light had faded by now; hazy moonlight was spreading across the misty late-autumn sky. Drawing her father’s attention to it, Manorama said, ‘Father, it’s getting chilly. Please get up now.’
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Ashu Babu.
Abinash said, ‘Shibani’s a pretty name. Shibnath is a man of talent: he has chosen a lovely name and matched it marvellously with his own.’
Ashu Babu was elated. He said, ‘It’s not Shibnath that has done this, my dear Abinash—it’s He up there.’ He looked at the sky and said, ‘That ancient matchmaker seems to have forgone food and sleep to match them in all respects. May they live long.’
Akshay suddenly sat up, shook his head two or three times, dilated his small eyes to their utmost extent and said, ‘Well, can I ask you a question?’
‘What is it?’ asked Kamal.
Akshay said, ‘I’m asking you this
as you have no inhibitions. Though the name Shibani is a fine one, are you really married to Shibnath Babu?’ Ashu Babu’s face darkened. He said, ‘What’s all this, Akshay Babu?’
Abinash said, ‘Have you gone mad?’
Harendra said, ‘Brute!’
Akshay said, ‘You know I don’t suffer from false delicacy.’
‘Neither false nor true,’ said Harendra. ‘But we do.’
Kamal, however, began to laugh as if it were all a great joke. ‘Why are you losing your temper, Harendra Babu?’ she said. ‘Akshay Babu, here’s my answer. It’s not that there was no marriage ceremony. We went through something like a rite. Those who came to see it laughed and said it was no marriage at all, only a cheat. When I asked my husband he said we’d been married in the Shaivite manner. I said that was better in a way. Why should I worry if I were married to Shiva in the Shaivite way?’
Abinash was sorry to hear this. He said, ‘But you see, the Shaivite rite of marriage is no longer accepted in our society. If he were ever to deny the marriage, you’d have nothing to prove that it took place, Kamal.’
Kamal looked at Shibnath and said, ‘Well—would you do such a thing?’
Shibnath made no reply. He sat looking grave and thoughtful. Kamal jokingly beat her head and said, ‘A curse on my luck! If he were to deny it, would I ever go to seek justice from others? Shouldn’t I first find some rope to hang myself with?’
‘You might,’ said Abinash. ‘But isn’t it a sin to take your own life?’
‘Nonsense,’ said Kamal. ‘But it won’t happen that way. Even my Creator won’t imagine that I could ever commit suicide.’
‘Spoken like a true human being, Kamal!’ applauded Ashu Babu.
Kamal addressed him plaintively: ‘See how wrong Abinash Babu is.’ Then, pointing to Shibnath, ‘Could it be that he’d deny it and I’d force him by the neck to admit it? That the truth would sink out of sight and I would tie him down by a ritual I don’t myself believe in? Would I do such a thing?’ Her eyes seemed to blaze as she spoke these words.
The Final Question Page 8
