Gahar is another character taken from real life. Three or four miles away from Devanandapur, across the Saraswati river, stood Sri Sri Raghunath Goswami’s akhra (a place where Vaishnavs assemble for religious worship). A Muslim couple, who had partially assimilated Hindu customs and beliefs, lived near the akhra and their son—Gahar—was Sarat’s playmate. The only important character for whom no counterpart can be found in real life is the Vaishnavi, Kamal Lata.
And Srikanta himself? Is he and Saratchandra one and the same and do they share a single view of the world? By the novelist’s own admission they have a great deal in common. In a conversation with Kalidas Roy, he said that many of his experiences have been depicted as Srikanta’s.
‘But,’ he added, ‘they do not follow a common course. Fragments of experience, at different times of my life, have been presented as complete experiences … with the aid of the imagination.’
Saratchandra evolves an interesting blend of the subjective and the objective for his treatment of this most famous of his characters. With no other character, in his huge gallery, is his attunement more perfect and yet he is Srikanta’s bitterest critic. Rigorous and ruthless self-analysis goes hand in hand with intimate self-revelation.
The form of the novel reflects this contradiction. It is a fictional autobiography—a story of the growth of an artist’s consciousness. But there is no movement towards a predetermined conclusion. The overall impression is one of structural disruptions and indirect presentation. Though not a travelogue, Srikanta is built around many journeys—physical and spiritual. It has the noise and confusion of a departure, the weariness and monotony of a lengthy journey and the fatigue of a midnight arrival. A sense of ceaseless travel leading nowhere pervades the air. Its prevailing atmosphere is analogous to a nightmarish journey of the soul.
Asked once about what he considered Srikanta to be—a travelogue, an autobiography or a novel—Saratchandra replied, ‘A collection of scattered memories—nothing else.’ (Sarat Samiksha by Shudhwasatwa Basu, 1975.)
The River
One
AS I SIT DOWN TO TELL MY STORY IN THIS FADING AFTERNOON OF my wandering life, I am flooded with memories.
From childhood onwards I have carried the mark of shame branded on me by friends and strangers alike, so that I can no longer view my life as anything other than a prolonged stretch of ignominy. Yet, looking back, it seems to me that the cross I carry is undeserved. It seems to me that only some chosen ones are pulled by invisible strings to the centre of God’s amazingly diverse creation and exposed to all its nuances. He who is thus chosen is not the proverbial good boy who fares well in examinations and succeeds in life. He is a compulsive rover but is not among those who travel in luxury in the company of friends, and write romantic travelogues. He is intelligent but impractical and eccentric. Since his passion for experience overwhelms all norms of accepted conduct he is unloved and ignored by those around him and gradually driven to a state of exile within the very society that reared him. Then, knocked about and defenceless, he disappears one day carrying a burden of guilt that grows heavier with each passing year.
But let me just tell my story—even if that is easier said than done, for though two legs may be all that one needs to go from place to place, a hand that can hold a pen is not the sole requisite for writing a travelogue. And I am singularly unfortunate in this that God has not blessed me with the faintest trace of a romantic imagination. I see with these eyes only what there is to see. Where there are trees and mountains I see trees and mountains. Where there is water I see nothing but water. I may look up at clouds till my head spins but not a strand of those dark tresses that unfailingly appear to the eyes of poets is visible to me. I have stared at the moon till my eyes were glazed but seen no semblance of a beautiful face. It is not, therefore, for me to tell a romantic story. I can only describe the events of my life as they actually happened and that is what I shall do.
But first let me tell you about him who, in my early youth, aroused the wanderlust that must have lain dormant within me. His name is Indranath. I say is though I do not know if he is alive or dead. One morning, many years ago, he walked out of our lives and never returned. How the memory of that day still haunts me!
I met him for the first time at a soccer match played between Hindu and Mussalman boys in our school compound. It was almost evening. I was watching enthralled, when a sudden commotion accompanied by the sounds of slaps and cries of ‘Catch the scoundrel’ and ‘Break his legs’ took me completely by surprise. Within seconds the crowd had dispersed but I stood dazed and stupid till a sharp blow on my head with the butt of an umbrella brought me back to a sense of my surroundings. By then I was already enclosed in a ring of Mussalman boys, armed with umbrellas, that advanced menacingly.
All of a sudden someone hurled himself at the ring and, penetrating it with lightning speed, stood in front of me. He was a boy of about my height with a hawk-like nose, a high forehead, a sprinkling of pock-marks on a dark face and arms that hung down to his knees. He could swing those arms with surprising agility (as I got to know later) and deliver enormous punches on the noses of his adversaries. (His name, I discovered, was Indranath.) ‘Don’t be afraid. Just follow me,’ he hissed in my ear. I pressed my body behind his and within two minutes we were out of the ring.
‘Get away,’ he shouted.
I started running, then stopped short and asked, ‘What about you?’
‘Get away, you fool,’ he thundered.
But, fool or no, I would not escape alone. I stood my ground and said firmly, ‘No.’
Indra said, ‘Then get beaten. See that?’
He pointed with his finger at another gang of advancing boys, then suddenly changing his mind he yelled, ‘Let’s run as fast as we can.’
I was a village boy who had been sent to my aunt’s house in the city to be educated. If I could do anything well it was to run, and now I ran for my life. It was dark by the time we reached the main road and there were lights in the shops. There was no chance now of being overtaken. I was panting and my throat was dry. But Indranath spoke in a normal voice—just as though he hadn’t got into a fight and run over a mile.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Sri—kan—ta.’
‘Srikanta? Oh!’ Indra fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of dry leaves. Cramming some into his mouth he shoved the rest into my hand.
‘I gave the rascals a proper licking,’ he said, his jaws working.
‘What leaves are these?’ I asked timidly.
‘Shiddhi. *’
‘Shiddhi? I don’t touch shiddhi.’
But if I was shocked so was Indranath.
‘You don’t?’ he exclaimed. ‘What sort of an ass are you? Come on—eat them. You’ll have a good trip.’
But unfamiliar with trips, good or otherwise, I shook my head and returned the shiddhi leaves which Indranath promptly put in his own mouth.
‘Have a cigarette, then.’ Indranath took two cigarettes out of his pocket, lit them and put one into my hand; then shaping his own like a funnel, drew upon the other so long and deep that it was reduced to half its length in a single pull. Scared out of my wits, I whispered, ‘If someone sees you ….’
‘Everyone knows,’ Indranath said, then puffing nonchalantly he turned the street corner and disappeared from view.
My first meeting with Indranath is etched in my memory in bold, clear strokes. Yet, to this day, I cannot say if the feelings aroused in me that day by that strange boy who defied social norms with such supreme confidence were of liking or aversion.
A month later. It was a summer night, hot and dark without a breath of wind. We lay on the terrace, restless and unable to sleep though it was well past midnight. Suddenly the sweet strains of a flute floated up from below, from the dense forest that lay to the south-east of the house. Originally a mango and jackfruit orchard, it had been neglected over many years and had turned wild and well-nigh impenetrable. Pishima (my pa
ternal aunt) sat up on her string-cot and asked her eldest son, ‘Who could that be, Nabin? Could it be Indra?’
‘Who else would enter that jungle at this hour? And who can play the flute like that?’ Barda (the eldest brother) answered.
‘Durga! Durga! * Is he coming through Gosain Bagan?’ Pishima glanced at the dense black mass below and shivered. ‘So many people have died of snakebites in that jungle. What is the boy doing there? Why doesn’t his mother keep him at home?’
‘He is taking a short cut,’ Barda smiled. ‘Why should he walk miles on the main road when there is a shorter route. The jungle may be swarming with lions and tigers for all that the dare-devil cares.’
‘Bless the boy,’ Pishima sighed. The strains of the flute—a sweet Ramprasadi ** hymn—came closer, then faded away.
This was Indranath. On our first meeting I had admired his strength and courage. Tonight, I kept wishing, over and over again till I fell asleep, that I could play the flute like him.
I wanted to make friends with Indranath but got no opportunity. He didn’t go to school anymore. I was told that the Sanskrit pandit had once been very unjust to him—had wanted to make him wear a dunce-cap, as a matter of fact. Deeply hurt, Indranath had done something unspeakable, then vaulting over the school wall, had gone home never to return. Indranath told me later that what he had done was nothing much. He had merely cut off the small tuft of hair that sprang from the pandit’s otherwise shaven head as he sat dozing in his chair. And although, on his return home, Panditji had found his hair safe and sound in his coat pocket, he had been very angry and had complained to the headmaster. Consequently, Indra abandoned the pen in favour of the oar. From the time he left school he was continually seen on the Ganga, sailing his small dinghy from dawn to dusk, through wind and rain and storm and sun. Sometimes, he would let the current carry him as far out as it would. Drifting aimlessly, he would disappear for a week, even a fortnight. It was on one of these escapades that I renewed my acquaintance with him.
It had been a day of incessant rain—the sky heavily overcast with clouds. Darkness had come on well before the evening was over and the rain still fell in torrents. My cousins and I had had an early supper and now sat with our books on the floor of the living-room trying to do our lessons by the light of an oil lamp. At one end of the veranda Pishemoshai (my paternal aunt’s husband) lay snoring on his canvas cot. At the other, old Ramkamal Bhattacharya sat puffing at his hookah—eyes glazed with his daily dose of opium. The servants congregated on the porch as someone recited Tulsidas in a nasal voice. Inside, the three of us squirmed under the iron discipline that Mejda (the second brother) thought fit to impose on us. Jatinda and I were in Class VI, Chhorda * in Class VII and Mejda, after failing a couple of times, was gravely preparing to appear once again for the Entrance. We were supposed to study from 7.30 to 9 p.m. To prevent us from talking and wasting his valuable time, Mejda had devised certain safeguards for himself. As soon as the study hour commenced, he took up a pair of scissors and began cutting out some twenty to thirty slips of paper. On each slip he wrote out a caption such as: TO SPIT, TO BLOW NOSE, TO DRINK WATER, etc. These slips were then distributed amongst the three of us.
The system worked somewhat like this: Jatinda goes up to Mejda with a TO BLOW NOSE ticket. Mejda signs it and writes From 8.33 to 8.34-5 just below his signature. The moment Jatinda leaves the room, Chhorda presents his TO SPIT ticket. Mejda returns it unsigned. Chhorda sits glumly for thirty seconds, then presents his TO DRINK WATER ticket. This time Mejda signs it and writes From 8.41 to 8.47. Chhorda goes out with a gleam in his eye and Jatinda comes in. He hands his TO BLOW NOSE ticket to Mejda who checks the time, then sticks it in a register he keeps for the purpose. Thanks to this system not a minute of our study hour was wasted and I am convinced that the Goddess Saraswati herself came half way with us when we retired for the night. But Mejda’s examiners were so shortsighted that they never recognized his passion for scholarship and his immense respect for time. Like blundering fools they failed him year after year. But that, unfortunately, is the way the world goes and there is no point regretting it.
That evening was no different from any other. After Chhorda’s return I went up with my TO DRINK WATER ticket. Mejda had just opened his register to apprise himself of the number of times I had expressed a similar desire in the last two days, when I heard a loud roar behind my back followed by a series of frantic screams from my three cousins. I spun around but before I could see anything Mejda had knocked down the lamp and lay writhing and groaning in the dark. Pandemonium broke loose. Pushing my way out of the room I found a rudely awakened Pishemoshai clinging to his two younger sons and screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Beat the rascal. Beat the life out of him.’ Within a few minutes, servants, lights, and people from the neighbourhood filled the yard and the guards at the gate dragged in the escaping thief. But when the lamplight fell on the culprit’s face we were petrified with horror for it was old Ramkamal Bhattacharya—half dead with fear and the thrashing he had received at the hands of the guards. Then, while one dashed water on his face another fanned him vigorously, Pishemoshai asked him, ‘What made you run, Ramkamal Babu?’
Trembling violently the old man quavered, ‘It wasn’t a tiger! It was a bear. A great big bear. It came rushing out of the living-room.’
‘It wasn’t a bear, it was a wolf,’ Chhorda and Jatinda clamoured in unison. ‘It was sitting on the doormat with its tail tucked in.’
It was at this point that Mejda, recovering from his fit, opened his eyes and murmured, ‘The Royal Bengal tiger,’ and passed out again.
But tiger or wolf or bear, whatever it was, where was it? Several people took up lanterns and began looking for the animal. Suddenly Kishori Singh, the chowkidar, bellowed, ‘There! There!’ and leaped on the veranda. A mad scramble followed. Everyone had to be on the veranda and be there first. At one corner of the yard stood a pomegranate bush and it was in the bush that the animal crouched. Within seconds the people in the veranda had pushed their way into the living-room and locked the door, Pishemoshai calling out wildly over and over again, ‘Bring guns, bring spears!’ But even if there were guns and spears in the vicinity, who was going to risk his life trying to cross the yard?
At this juncture Indra made an appearance. He had been walking past the house when he heard the commotion and decided to investigate. Instantly, a hundred voices cried out to him, ‘Tiger! Tiger! Run for your life.’ Nonplussed, Indra dashed into the house, then having heard the story, went out again. He picked up a lantern and started peering into the pomegranate bush. The women of the house, watching from an upstairs window, nearly fainted at the sight and Pishima began sobbing and chanting the 108 names of Durga. The guards stood at a safe distance egging him on and assuring him that they would have joined him if they had had weapons. Indra had a good look and announced, ‘I don’t think it is a tiger.’ Before he could finish his sentence the Royal Bengal tiger emerged, brought his front paws together and began sobbing in a human voice.
‘No, Babu moshai, *’ it pleaded in perfect Bengali, ‘I am not a tiger. I’m Chhinath Bouroopee.’
Indra gave a delighted laugh. Ramkamal Bhattacharya ran out, wooden clog in hand. In his excitement he let out a torrent of abuse in broken Hindustani. ‘Haramzada!’ he screamed crashing the clog on the tiger’s back. ‘Because of your tomfoolery I was beaten to a pulp by these khottas. ** How dare you come here and frighten us like this?’
Chhinath alias Srinath went on sobbing and pleading his case. He lived in Barasat, he said, and earned his living as a Bohurupee. * Every year, around this time, he came up to town to earn a few rupees. Only a day earlier he had come dressed as Narad muni and had sung to the ladies of the house. If the little boys hadn’t panicked and knocked the lamp over he would have announced himself. But in the commotion that followed he had lost his nerve and had hidden himself in the pomegranate bush. Pishemoshai continued to rant and threaten the poor creature cringing at his feet
till Pishima took matters in her own hands. ‘Thank your stars it was not a real tiger,’ she called out to her husband, ‘and let the poor man go. As for your valour and that of your guards—the less said the better. A little boy showed more courage than all of you put together.’
Pishemoshai glared about him with an expression that said, ‘Had I wished, I could have squashed this impertinence but it is beneath my dignity to argue with a woman.’ Completely ignoring his wife he thundered, ‘Cut off the rascal’s tail.’ Delighted at the command the guards pounced on the hapless Srinath and within seconds the long tail of straw and velvet was severed from the tiger’s body.
‘Keep the tail,’ Pishima called out in disgust. ‘It may come in useful someday.’
Indra asked, ‘Do you live in this house, Srikanta?’
‘Yes, where are you off to so late at night?’
‘Late at night? It is barely evening. I’m going out fishing in my dinghy. Want to come?’
‘But it is already dark. Won’t you be scared on the river?’
‘No,’ Indra laughed. ‘It’s wonderful! And the darker it is, the better the fish bite. Do you swim?’
‘Very well.’
‘Then come.’ He caught me by the hand. ‘I find it difficult to pull against the current by myself. I’m looking for someone who isn’t afraid of the river.’
Till that moment the possibility of violating the rules of the house in which I was a guest and of walking out into the night with a total stranger had never presented itself. I should have had doubts but I didn’t. I followed him without a word. Looking back I realize that I could never have resisted Indra’s call. The vision of riding high on the crest of a wave on that dark rainy night was so alluring that when I came to the edge of Gosain Bagan I did not falter for an instant. Like one possessed I walked through that dense jungle to where the Ganga swirled and foamed between steep banks of rock under a leaden sky. An ancient ashwatha tree stood on the bank looking like a massive black knot. About fifty feet below it Indra’s tiny row-boat tossed about like a nutshell in the rushing water. I was not a coward but when Indra pointed to the rope which held the boat and said, ‘Hold it tight and go down carefully. If you slip no one will ever find you again,’ my heart missed a beat. Nevertheless, I asked, ‘What about you?’
Srikanta Page 2
