The Final Question

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  ‘As she really seemed about to leave, I anxiously said, “Kamal, it appears that your mission is to crush all popular customs, all established truths with your contempt. Whoever taught you this didn’t do the world any good.” Kamal replied, “My father taught me all this.” I said, “I’ve heard from you that he was a wise and learned man. Didn’t he teach you that man truly realizes himself by total sacrifice? That the soul truly assumes its own being by freely consenting to suffer?”

  ‘Kamal said, “He would say that only those who conspire to suck others wholly dry teach others the misguided doctrine of total self-sacrifice. Those who don’t understand what suffering means rhapsodize about the glory of suffering. Such suffering doesn’t emanate from the immutable laws of the world; it’s something you willingly call into the home. It’s a child’s toy, a pointless luxury—nothing more.”

  ‘I was stupefied with amazement. I said, “Kamal, did your father teach you only the doctrine of hedonism, only to denigrate what’s noble in this world?”

  ‘Perhaps Kamal hadn’t expected this reproof. She was aggrieved, and said, “You’re talking intolerantly, Ashu Babu. You certainly know that no father can teach his daughter such things. You’re being unjust to my father. He was a virtuous man.”

  ‘I said, “If he really taught you all that you’re saying, it’s difficult to judge him charitably. When you learnt that after Manorama’s mother’s death I couldn’t love any other woman, you said that showed my weakness of spirit, that it had nothing glorious about it. You had belittled this devotion to the memory of a dead wife as futile self-persecution. You found no meaning in self-restraint.”

  ‘Kamal replied, “I don’t even today, Ashu Babu. Such self-restraint clouds the joy of life with its arrogant assertiveness. It’s nothing substantial, only an illusion of the mind; it needs to be held in check. Restraint implies abiding by certain limits. In the audacity of power, you can overstep the limits of restraint itself: then it can’t be held estimable any more. Haven’t you ever felt that overrestraint is a kind of unrestraint, Ashu Babu?”

  ‘Indeed, I had never thought about it. So, what I always had thought sprang to my mind. I said, “You’re simply juggling with words. Your arguments are full of pleas for sensual pleasure. The more man tries to cling to things and indulge in them and devour them, the more he loses out. His hunger for pleasure is not satisfied—rather, his inordinate desire keeps growing forever. That’s why our lawgivers said, ‘Nor is desire ever satisfied by gratifying desires, just as fire burns more fiercely as more and more ghee is poured on it.’ The intensity of desire grows the more it is indulged.”’

  Harendra agitatedly said, ‘Why did you quote the Shastras to her at all? What happened then?’

  Ashu Babu said, ‘She laughed and asked, “Are there such things in the Shastras? But of course there must be. They knew that the desire for knowledge grows as you cultivate knowledge; the thirst for religion intensifies as you practise religion, the desire for piety grows strong with the practice of pious acts—you feel there’s more and more left to be done. This is also like that. They did not regret that there was no satisfaction. They were men of judgement.”’

  Harendra, Ajit, Bela and Nilima all four broke into laughter. Ashu Babu said, ‘This is not something to be laughed at. I was amazed at the girl’s jibes and sneers. I controlled myself and said, “No, that wasn’t their intention. They pointed out that there’s no satisfaction in sensual pleasure, no end to desire.”

  ‘Kamal paused a while and then said, “I don’t know why they pointed out such an unnecessary moral. It’s not like watching a folk theatre in the marketplace, or listening to the neighbour’s gramophone. You can’t suddenly tell yourself in the middle of it, ‘That’s it—I’ve enjoyed myself quite enough: I don’t want any more.’ The essence of pleasure doesn’t lie in external gratification. It starts from the root of life—from there it provides our lives with hope, joy and spirit for all time. Scriptural condemnation lies baffled at its doorstep but can’t ever touch it.”

  ‘“That may be so,” I answered, “but it’s an enemy to man, and man must conquer it.”

  ‘Kamal said, “It won’t grow less powerful if you abuse it as an enemy. It has its rightful place by firm contract with nature. Who’s ever been able to dismiss those rights simply by revolting against them? To take one’s life because of one’s misery doesn’t mean conquering misery. But it’s through this kind of logic that people grope for peace at the gates of evil. They don’t find peace, and they lose their comfort as well.”

  ‘It appeared that she was only taunting me.’ Ashu Babu fell silent for a while, then said, ‘I don’t know what happened to me, but the words slipped out of my mouth: “Kamal, think just once about your own life.” The words sounded harsh to my own ears as I uttered them: there was really nothing about her life to make insinuations about. Perhaps Kamal herself was surprised, but she was neither angry nor piqued. She said quite placidly, “I think about it every day, Ashu Babu. It’s not that I haven’t suffered misery, but I haven’t accepted it as the ultimate truth of my life. Shibnath gave me whatever he had to give, I took whatever was mine to receive. Those little moments of joy are treasured like jewels in my heart. I have neither turned them to ashes in my soul’s fire nor stood with hands outstretched for alms before a dried-up fountain. When his love for me exhausted itself, I said goodbye to him without grief; I felt no need to darken the sky with smoky lamentation and complaint. That’s why my attitude towards him at the time appeared surprising to you: you wondered how Kamal could forgive such a heinous offence. But more than the offence, what I was conscious of that day was my own impoverishment.”

  ‘There seemed to be tears at the corners of her eyes. Perhaps I was mistaken, but my heart was wrung with pain: how little was the difference between her and me! I said, “Kamal, I too have a store of this wealth—the treasure of seven kings. Why should we be greedy for more?”

  ‘Kamal looked on in silence. I asked, “Can you love anyone else in this life either, Kamal? Will you be able to accept him body and soul?”

  ‘She said in a firm voice, “I have to live in that hope, Ashu Babu. If today the sun sets prematurely behind clouds, should I say that darkness is the only truth? If tomorrow the sky is resplendent with light, should I cover my eyes and say it’s not light but a lie? Shall I keep up this child’s sport to the end of my days?”

  ‘“The night doesn’t come just once, Kamal. Won’t it return when daylight is gone?”

  ‘“Let it come,” she said. “When it comes I shall live through the night with faith in the dawn.”

  ‘I sat still in amazement. Kamal went away.

  ‘A child’s sport! It had seemed to me that the streams of our thought had converged through grief. But now I found it wasn’t so: they were as far apart as heaven and hell. Life means something different to her—it has nothing in common with our view. She doesn’t believe in destiny; past memories don’t block her path. To her the unknown is only what is yet to arrive. That’s why her hopes are as unrestrained as her joys are unconquerable. She isn’t willing to cheat herself because someone else has cheated her.’

  Everyone remained silent.

  Ashu Babu suppressed a sigh and went on, ‘She’s a strange girl. I felt boundless distress and indignation that day; yet I couldn’t but admit to myself that her words weren’t simply a speech learnt from her father. Whatever she has learnt, she has learnt intensely and confidently. How young she is! Yet she seems already to have understood the true nature of her mind.’

  He added, ‘It’s quite true. Life really isn’t child’s play. This great gift of God was not meant to be that. How could I tell her that if one person disappoints another, the emptiness triumphs permanently?’

  Bela slowly said, ‘That’s a lovely thought.’

  Harendra stood up silently and said, ‘It’s quite late, and the rain’s about to stop. I’d better leave.’

  Ajit also stood up but did not
say anything. They made their namaskars and went out.

  Bela went to bed. Nilima had a few small chores left, but today they remained undone. She too withdrew silently, but was preoccupied. Ashu Babu lay waiting for his servant, his eyes covered with his hands.

  It was a huge house. Nilima’s and Bela’s bedrooms were at opposite ends of it. Lamps had been lit in them. As soon as they entered the remote, lonely rooms, all the talk and debate seemed to blur. But extraordinarily enough, as they stood before their mirrors before undressing, both women had the same thought at exactly the same time: ‘Once when I was a woman!’

  24

  KAMAL HAD LEFT AGRA TEN OR TWELVE DAYS EARLIER FOR AN unknown destination, but Ashu Babu needed to see her urgently. Everyone was worried, but the black cloud of disquiet hung most thickly over Harendra’s brahmacharya ashram. The celibates Harendra and Ajit were shrivelling up faster in competitive anxiety for her than they would have done had they lost their very Brahma.1

  It was they who finally located her. It was a simple enough matter. An Anglo-Indian whom Kamal had known at the tea garden had recently come down to Tundla on a new job with the railways. He was a widower with a two-year-old daughter. Unable to cope domestically, he had called Kamal over, and she had spent the time helping him settle down. She had returned home that morning. In the afternoon, Ashu Babu sent his car across and waited for her eagerly.

  Bela had been invited to the magistrate’s house. She too was waiting for the car.

  Nilima was at her sewing when she suddenly remarked, ‘The man has no family; there’s no woman in the house other than a little girl. Yet Kamal could spend ten to twelve days in his house so easily!’

  Ashu Babu turned his head with great difficulty and looked at her. He could not understand the import of these words.

  Nilima went on speaking as if to herself: ‘She’s like a fish in a river: you don’t ask whether she’s getting wet. She doesn’t worry about her living, she has no guardian to control her, and no community of her own to frown on her. She’s utterly free.’

  Ashu Babu nodded and said softly, ‘It really is rather like that.’

  ‘She’s brimming with youth and beauty, and her intelligence also seems boundless. Look at that boy Rajen! How little they knew each other, but when no one would shelter him for fear of trouble, she readily brought him to her house. Her sense of duty didn’t wait upon anyone’s opinion. What no one could do, she did effortlessly. When I heard about it, I felt everyone had been dwarfed beside her. And yet women must be careful about so many things!’

  ‘They ought to be careful, Nilima,’ said Ashu Babu.

  Bela said, ‘We too could become so recklessly independent if we chose.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t,’ retorted Nilima. ‘Neither you nor I, because we don’t have the power to wash away the black mark that the world would put on us.’ She paused and said, ‘I too once had such wishes, so I’ve thought about it from many angles. I’m burning from the injustice inflicted by a male-built society—I can’t explain how I’ve been burnt. All that burning got me nowhere, but I hadn’t recognized its true nature before I saw Kamal. “Women’s liberty”, “women’s independence” are words on everybody’s lips these days; but they stay on the lips and don’t go any further. Do you know why? I’ve now found out that liberty can be obtained neither by theoretical arguments, nor by pleading justice and morality, nor by staging a concerted quarrel with men at a meeting. It’s something that no one can give to another—not something to be owed or paid as a due. Looking at Kamal, you can easily understand that it comes of its own accord—through one’s own fulfilment, by the enlargement of one’s own soul. If you break the shell and release the creature inside the egg, it doesn’t win freedom: it dies. There lies our difference from her.’

  She went on to say to Bela, ‘See how she went off somewhere for ten or twelve days. Everyone was deeply worried about her, but nobody dreamt that she might do something to disgrace herself. Tell me, would people have been so confident about us? Who would have granted us such glory? No one, either man or woman.’

  Ashu Babu looked at her for a moment in surprise and said, ‘You know, Nilima, that’s quite true.’

  ‘But if she had had a husband,’ asked Bela, ‘what would she have done?’

  Nilima said, ‘She would have served his wants, cooked his food, kept the house clean and tidy; if she had children she would have looked after them. In fact, if she had no help and was short of money, she wouldn’t have had the time to come and see us.’

  ‘So then?’ said Bela.

  ‘What then?’ returned Nilima. She broke into a laugh and said, ‘Not to work, not to know grief or sorrow or want or complaint, only to wander aimlessly about everywhere—can this be the measure of a woman’s freedom? God Himself has endless things to do, but who thinks He is in bondage? Don’t I myself work hard in this household?’

  Ashu Babu looked at her raptly in utter surprise. He had never heard anything like this from her.

  Nilima continued, ‘Kamal doesn’t know how to sit idle. In such an event she would have immersed herself in household chores, attending to her husband and children. She wouldn’t have felt the strain as long as her family life flowed over her like a stream of joy. But the day she felt that her work for her husband had become burdensome, I warrant no one in her family would be able to hold her back.’

  ‘That’s perhaps true,’ Ashu Babu responded softly. A familiar car horn could be heard nearby. Bela looked out of the window and said, ‘Yes, it’s our car.’ A servant soon came in with a lamp and announced Kamal’s arrival.

  Ashu Babu had been waiting for this moment these last few days, but now his face turned pale and grave at the news. He had sat up straight in his armchair; he now fell back.

  Kamal entered and made her namaskars. She sat down on a chair next to Ashu Babu and said, ‘I heard you were worried about me. Who could have known that all of you love me so much? In that case I’d have told you before going off.’ She drew his plump, slack hand tenderly between her own.

  Ashu Babu’s face was averted. It remained so: he made no reply.

  At first Kamal thought he was offended because she had gone away before he had fully recovered and not enquired after him for so long. Taking his plump fingers between her own, slender as champak buds, and drawing close to his ear, she whispered, ‘I confess I’ve done wrong. I’m sorry.’ But when he said nothing in reply even to this, she was very surprised, and afraid as well.

  Bela was ready to start. She stood up and said deferentially, ‘If I’d known you were coming I wouldn’t have accepted Malini’s invitation. But now if I don’t go they’ll be very disappointed.’

  ‘Who’s Malini?’ asked Kamal.

  ‘She’s the wife of the local magistrate,’ explained Nilima. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember her name.’ She said to Bela, ‘You must go, otherwise their musical evening will be spoilt.’

  ‘No, no, it won’t be spoilt, but they’ll be very hurt. I hear they’ve invited a few others as well. So let me say goodbye for now. We’ll sit and talk some other day. Namaskar.’ She left rather too briskly.

  Nilima said, ‘It’s better that she’s been invited out today; otherwise it would have been awkward to talk frankly. Well, Kamal, how did I address you earlier—formally or informally, as apni or tumi?’

  ‘Tumi,’ said Kamal. ‘But I haven’t been so long in exile that you should forget that.’

  ‘No, I hadn’t forgotten, but I felt a little uncertain. It’s natural. We’ve been looking for you for the last seven or eight days. For me it wasn’t simply a search. It was like a vigil or meditation.’

  But the arid solemnity of a religious vigil was not apparent on her face. Kamal took her words lightly, as stemming from natural affection, and said, ‘What have I done to deserve such good fortune? I’ve been abandoned by everyone, Didi. No respectable person wants to have anything to do with me.’ The use of‘Didi’ was new. Nilima’s eyes moistened, but she ke
pt silent.

  Ashu Babu could not hold his peace any more. He turned his face and said, ‘Respectable society can answer this charge if it feels the need; but I know that if anyone ever truly wanted contact with you in this life, it’s Nilima. Perhaps you’ve never drawn so much love from anyone else.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kamal.

  Nilima hastily stood up—not because she had to go anywhere, but because she was always uncomfortable at discussions of this type, with personal implications. Even people close to her had often misunderstood this reaction, yet it came naturally to her. She quickly changed the subject and said, ‘I have two pieces of news for you, Kamal.’

  Kamal understood her state of mind. She smiled and said, ‘Very well, let’s have them.’

  Nilima pointed to Ashu Babu and said, ‘He’s hiding his face from you out of shame. So I’ve taken on the task of telling you: Manorama and Shibnath are going to marry. They’ve both written asking for the consent and blessings of her father and his future father-in-law.’

  Kamal’s face turned pale at the news, but she immediately checked herself and said, ‘Why should he be ashamed of this?’

  ‘Because she’s his daughter,’ answered Nilima. ‘Ever since he received her letter, he’s been repeating just one thing: so many people died in Agra, why wasn’t God kind to him? As far as he can tell, he’s never done anything wrong; he’d sincerely believed that God felt kindly towards him. This sense of injury has become his greatest misery. He couldn’t discuss the matter with anyone except me; he called you day and night in his thoughts. Maybe he thinks you alone can suggest a way out.’

  From the corner of her eye, Kamal saw that a few tears had trickled out from Ashu Babu’s closed eyes. She reached out her hand and wiped them away. Then she too sat silently.