Everybody began laughing. Nilima said, ‘Although I don’t speak to Akshay Babu, I’ll go to him just once and ask him to forgive you. You seem to be burning away inside you.’
Harendra said, ‘It’s only we that burn, Boudi: people like you are above such torment. God has created this fire for us; you are beyond its reach.’
Nilima blushed and only said, ‘What else?’
‘Yes, that’s indeed so,’ remarked Bela.
There was silence for a while. Then Ajit spoke. ‘The other day I read a beautiful story on exactly this subject. Didn’t you read it?’ he asked Ashu Babu.
‘No, I don’t remember having done so.’
‘It’s in one of the monthly magazines you get from England. It’s a translation of a French story and it’s written by a woman. I think she’s a doctor. In a little introduction about herself, she says that she’s just crossed her youth and stepped into middle age. There it is—on that shelf.’ He pulled out the magazine and sat down again.
‘What’s the title of the story?’ asked Ashu Babu.
Ajit said, ‘It’s somewhat strange: “Once When I Was a Woman”.’
Bela said, ‘What does that mean? Has she since joined the ranks of men?’
Ajit said, ‘The author seems to be speaking about herself; and maybe because she’s a doctor, her account of the changes in the female body sometimes seems tasteless. For example …’
Nilima hastily said, ‘Please, Ajit Babu, spare us the examples. Let them be.’
Ajit agreed. He said, ‘But the inward picture she has drawn—that is, of the female heart—is striking even if not pleasing.’
Ashu Babu grew curious and said, ‘Ajit, why don’t you read it aloud, skipping over the awkward bits? Let’s hear it. The rain hasn’t yet stopped, nor is it very late.’
Ajit said, ‘I can read it out only if I skip some parts: it’s a long story. You can read it in full later if you like.’
‘Please read it aloud,’ said Bela. ‘At least it’ll help to pass the time.’
Nilima wanted to go away; but as she had no pretext for doing so, she stayed on, somewhat embarrassed. Placing himself before the lamp, Ajit opened the book and said, ‘There’s an introduction which is worth summarizing. The person whose lifestory it is, is cultured, charming and well born. The story does not say whether she is chaste, but it implies that if she ever transgressed, it was in her early youth, a long time ago.
‘Many people had fallen in love with her at that time. One of them solved the problem by suicide, another crossed the seas and went to Canada. But though he went away he did not give up hope. From that far-off place, he wrote so many letters asking her to relent that had they all been preserved, they would have made up a whole ship’s load. He did not expect any reply, nor did he get any. Then they met after fifteen years.
‘The man was astonished. He does not seem to have realized that fifteen years had passed, and that the person he had known as a young woman of twenty-five was now forty. There were many enquiries after each other’s well-being, many complaints and imprecations. But there was no trace of the fire that had earlier sparkled in her eyes, the tempest of frenzied desire that would burst open the gates of his senses. It was all like a far-off dream. Women can be deceived about everything except this. Here the story starts.’ Ajit bent over the pages of the book in order to begin reading.
Ashu Babu interrupted him. ‘No, no, Ajit, not the English text. Your Bengali account brought out the simple theme of the story very well. Go on in the same way.’
‘How can I?’
‘Of course you can. Just go on as you’ve been doing.’
‘My command of language is not as good as Haren Babu’s,’ said Ajit. ‘If the story’s not to your taste, put it down to my want of art.’ He continued with the story, sometimes glancing at the book and sometimes ignoring it.
‘The girl returned home. She had never loved or desired that man. Rather, in her heart of hearts, she had always prayed that God might end his infatuation, that he might be freed from the torment of fruitless love, the longing for an impossible goal. It appeared that God, by that time, had granted her prayer. They did not exchange a single word on the subject. It was clear that, whether he returned to Canada or not, he would no longer make them both miserable by pitiful entreaties for her love. The insoluble problem had been solved. The woman had always denied him; she still did so. But the final “no” came from the other side. The woman had never dreamt there could be such a difference between the two situations. Men’s lustful looks had always vexed and embarrassed her. Why should she complain if she was no longer subject to them, if the passing of her youth had stilled the desire and infatuation of men? Yet when she returned home, the whole world appeared strange to her eyes. It was not a question of love or the passionate union of souls. Those were something else—grand matters. But had she ever known that in the unconscious depths of her heart, she had set up a throne for what was not grand—what was carnal, ill-omened, ugly and momentary? Had she known that the cruel humiliation of a man’s indifference could wound her so deeply?’
‘Ajit’s a fine narrator,’ remarked Harendra. ‘He’s read the story with great attention.’
The women looked on silently without comment.
‘Yes,’ said Ashu Babu. ‘How does it go on, Ajit?’
Ajit continued: ‘It suddenly occurred to her that not only this man but many others had loved her for a long time, prayed to her, been eager for a single word from her smiling lips. She had not kept count of the many who had once crossed her path every day at every step. They hadn’t gone away: she still came across them from time to time. But they no longer sought her. Was it her voice that had cracked? Her smile that had changed? It was only the other day that things seemed so different—only ten or fifteen years ago: had she lost everything in that span of time?’
Ashu Babu suddenly exclaimed,’ She had lost nothing, Ajit—except perhaps her youth, her capacity for motherhood.’
Ajit looked at him and said, ‘Exactly. Have you read the story?’
‘No.’
‘Then how did you know this so well?’
In reply Ashu Babu only smiled and said, ‘Go on.’
Ajit went on, ‘On returning home, she lit a lamp and stood before the big mirror in her bedroom. As she changed into her nightclothes she looked at her reflection in the mirror and, for the first time, her vision seemed transformed. Had she not been rejected by her once-ardent admirer, she would not have realized that her most precious treasure as a woman—what you have termed her capacity for motherhood—had grown dim and feeble: it was moving towards inevitable death, not to be recovered in this life. This treasure had worn away fruitlessly, as from an endless flow of water over her inert body. But the message that such a treasure was so short-lived reached her only now, at the end of the day.’
Ashu Babu sighed and said, ‘That’s how things are, Ajit, that’s how they are. Many important things in life are prized only when they’re lost. What happens next?’
Ajit said, ‘There’s a meticulous survey of the body once youth has waned, as she saw it in the mirror: what it was and what it had come to be. But I can neither report nor read out that description.’
Nilima quickly interposed: ‘Yes, yes: leave it out, Ajit Babu. Skip that part and go on.
Ajit said, ‘Towards the end of the analysis, the woman says that just as there is nothing so beautiful on earth as the physical beauty of a woman, there is nothing so ugly as its deformity.’
‘But that’s going too far, Ajit,’ said Ashu Babu.
Nilima shook her head in protest and said, ‘No, not at all. It’s true.’
Ashu Babu countered, ‘But this woman hadn’t reached the age of deformity, Nilima.’
‘She can be said to have,’ replied Nilima. ‘It isn’t a matter of a woman’s longevity as measured in years. It’s something much more ephemeral: whoever else might forget it, no woman can.’
Ajit was pleased.
He nodded and said, ‘The heroine herself makes the same reply. She says, “The only reality of the remaining years of my life will be the wait for the end. There is no consolation, no joy, no hope in this, but it will spare me the ignominy of derision. The relics of my decayed treasure might yet steal the heart of some wretched male; but that fascination will be as much an agony to him as a sham to me. I cannot deck up a beauty which has outlived its purpose and pass it off as current: I cannot deceive myself in that way, nor can I deceive someone else.”’
No one said anything. Only Nilima exclaimed, ‘Beautifully put! I like those words enormously, Ajit Babu.’
Like the others, Harendra too had been listening attentively. He was not pleased by this remark. He said, ‘Boudi, your enthusiasm is excessive; you’re saying this without sufficient thought. The silk-cotton flower on a high branch seems beautiful at first sight, but it holds a low place among flowers. Is a woman’s body so worthless that it has no other purpose than this?’
Nilima replied, ‘The writer doesn’t say it has no other purpose. She sensed that these wretched men might have other needs.’ She smiled a little and continued, ‘You were talking of excessive enthusiasm, Thakurpo. Akshay Babu isn’t here today. Had he been here, you’d have learnt from him what form that excess is taking these days.’
Harendra answered, ‘I shan’t perish just because you’re abusing me, Boudi.’
Ashu Babu also smiled at this and said, ‘In fact, Haren, I too feel that the author has hinted at the real purpose served by a woman’s physical beauty.’
‘But can that be right?’
‘It’s difficult to think it isn’t if we look at the world.’
Harendra grew excited. He said, ‘Whatever you may think by looking at the world, I find it hard to accept when I look at humankind. Human needs far exceed those of animals: that’s why human problems are so various and so complex. Their glory lies in that: you can’t sort them out by passing them through a sieve, Ashu Babu.’
‘That’s also true. Let’s hear the rest of the story, Ajit.’
Harendra was offended. He interrupted to say, ‘You can’t do that, Ashu Babu. I shan’t let you avoid answering by making a trifle of the matter. Either agree that what I’m saying is true, or else point out my mistake. You’ve read a lot and experienced a lot: you’re a very learned man. I can’t let Boudi win the day by slipping through the gaps in your loose argument. You must say something.’
Ashu Babu smilingly said, ‘You’re a brahmachari. If you fail to judge beauty, you have nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘No, I won’t accept such a reply.’
Ashu Babu remained silent for a while and then said gently, ‘It embarrasses me to argue more fiercely and prove you wrong. In fact, Haren, it’s better that the deep significance of women’s beauty should remain undefined.’ Pausing a little, he continued, ‘As I was listening to Ajit’s story, I remembered a sad tale from a long time back. In my youth I had an English friend who loved a Polish woman. She was truly beautiful; she earned her living by giving piano lessons to girls. Besides being beautiful, she had many gifts: we all wished them well. We were sure there would be no obstacle to their marriage.’
‘So what was the problem?’ asked Ajit.
Ashu Babu said, ‘Only over the matter of age. One day her mother arrived from their country. In the course of conversation it came out that the bride was over forty-five.’
Everybody was startled by this. Ajit asked, ‘Did the girl hide her age from all of you?’
Ashu Babu said, ‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t have concealed it had she been asked. She wasn’t that kind of person. But it never occurred to anyone to ask her. Such was her physique, the beauty of her face and the sweetness of her voice, that no one had ever thought she could even be thirty.’
Bela exclaimed, ‘Strange! Did none of you have eyes in your head?’
‘Of course we did. It simply goes to show that all wonders of the world can’t be made out by the eye.’
‘And how old was the groom?’
‘Of my age—at that time, I suppose, twenty-eight or twenty-nine.’
‘So what happened?’
‘It’s quickly told,’ said Ashu Babu. ‘In a moment, the young man’s heart seemed to harden against that middle-aged woman. It all happened long ago; yet it pains me whenever I think of it. There was much weeping, much grief; much to-ing and fro-ing, much imploring; but he couldn’t overcome his revulsion. He simply couldn’t think of marrying her any more.’
Everyone remained silent for a while. Nilima asked, ‘But if the situation were reversed, I suppose it wouldn’t be thought an impossibility?’
‘Probably not.’
‘But isn’t there a single surviving marriage of that kind in their country? Aren’t there any such men there?’
Ashu Babu smiled and said, ‘There are indeed. The writer of Ajit’s story perhaps had such men in mind when she used the adjective “wretched”. But it’s getting quite late, Ajit. How does the story end?’
Ajit looked up with a start. He said, ‘I was thinking more about your story. In spite of their deep love, why couldn’t the boy accept her? How could such a great truth turn false in an instant? The woman must have pondered over that one point all her life: “Once when I was a woman”! The woman past her prime could never have pondered till then how womanhood ends effectively without the woman being aware of it.’
‘But how does your story end?’
Ajit said calmly, ‘No more of it today. The end of youth had not yet quite ended: the story concludes with this pitiful delusion of the heroine about herself and others. I’d rather tell it some other day.’
Nilima shook her head and said, ‘No, no, let it remain unfinished.’
Ashu Babu agreed with her. He said with pain, ‘In fact, this is the most miserable time in the lonely life of women. Perhaps that’s why men everywhere grow sly, intolerant, carping, even cruel towards such women—elderly, unmarried—and try to avoid them, Nilima.’
Nilima smiled and said, ‘Don’t say this of all women, Ashu Babu; you should say “unfortunate women like you, with neither husband nor son”.’
Ashu Babu did not reply, but he took the hint. He said, ‘Yet women blessed with a husband and children grow so fulfilled in affection, love, grace and sweetness that they never even notice when and how such a great crisis in their lives has passed by.’
Nilima said, ‘I don’t envy such fortunate women, Ashu Babu; I’ve never felt any urge to do so. But can you tell me the way out for women like myself, whose misfortunes have made them give up all hope for the future?’
Ashu Babu remained speechless for a while. Then he said, ‘I can only echo the words of the great: I can do nothing more. They advise you to sacrifice yourself for others. There’s no want of misery in the world, nor of instances of self-dedication. I too know all this; but I don’t know whether women can find true, untrammelled, sustaining happiness in this way, Nilima.’
Harendra asked, ‘Did you always have this doubt?’
Ashu Babu seemed to shrink a little inwardly. Pausing a while, he said, ‘Haren, I don’t really remember. It was only two or three days after Manorama had left: my heart was heavy, my body inert. I was lying in this chair when suddenly Kamal arrived. I affectionately made her sit near me. She tried not to touch my wound, but she could not avoid doing so. The subject came up, and she lost control of herself. You know what disdain she has for everything ancient. It seems to be her passion to demolish all such things. I can’t sincerely agree with her: my lifelong predilections grow rigid with alarm, yet I can’t find words to express myself and end up admitting defeat. That day, too, I remember talking about women’s dedication to others; but Kamal didn’t agree. She said, “I know more about women than you do. That tendency doesn’t arise from their fulfilment but from their sense of void: it comes about by emptying the heart. It isn’t a habit, it’s a lack. I don’t have the slightest faith in the self-dedication that comes fro
m deficiency.”
‘I didn’t know what to answer; yet I said, “Kamal, if you knew about the inner spirit of Hindu civilization, I could perhaps have made you understand that our greatest achievement lies in attaining salvation through the doctrine of sacrifice and renunciation. It’s by following this path that so many widows have realized the highest purpose of their lives.”
‘Kamal smiled and said, “Did you see anyone realizing it so? Name one such person.” I hadn’t imagined she would ask such a question. I’d rather thought she’d accept what I said. I felt everything getting confused …’
Nilima said, ‘Well, why didn’t you name me? Perhaps you didn’t think of me?’
This was a cruel jest. Harendra and Ajit both hung their heads, and Bela turned away her face.
Ashu Babu was nonplussed, but he did not show it. He said, ‘No, I really didn’t think of you—just as things near you escape your eyes. It would really have been a fitting reply to have mentioned your name; but since it didn’t occur to me, Kamal said, “You mocked me about my education, but doesn’t the same apply equally to you in full measure? You stuff women’s heads from infancy with an idea about what constitutes their fulfilment; they proudly recite what they’ve learnt by rote and think it to be the truth. You deceive yourselves, and they too perish in the futile conceit of self-complacency.”
‘She continued in the same breath: “You ought to remember the women who burnt themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres. The vanity of both parties, those who burnt themselves and those who incited them, mounted to the skies at the thought that nowhere on earth was there such an example of ideal widowhood.”
‘I couldn’t think of a reply, but she didn’t wait for one. She went on: “There’s no reply to this. What can you say?” She paused and then, looking at my face, said, “In almost every country, there’s an ancient and widespread spiritual fascination with the word ‘self-sacrifice’. It intoxicates us. The wonderful immateriality of the next world totally eclipses the narrow, trivial materiality of this one. It leaves no room for man or woman to consider whether life affords anything better. The conditioned mind seems to take you by the ear and make you accept it as a self-evident truth—much like that business of sati. But no more of all this today. I must go.”
The Final Question Page 27
