Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  ‘I’ll untie the knot as soon as you reach the dinghy. Don’t worry about me. There are plenty of grasses and roots that I can use as footholds.’

  I gripped the rope with both hands and started inching my way down the slippery rocks. It seemed to take ages but I was in the boat at last. Then Indra released the rope and swung himself down the cliff. I shut my eyes in horror. My heart beat violently. For a minute or two the roar of rushing water filled my ears. Then a light laugh made me look up. It was Indranath. Giving the boat a shove he leapt in. The little dinghy took a sharp spin, then shot off like a comet over the dim expanse.

  Two

  WITHIN SECONDS WE ENTERED A CAVERN OF IMPENETRABLE darkness. The world was wiped out. Only a vast body of water—violent and indomitable—stretched as far as the eye could see. And on its heaving breast a frail bark, carrying two children, tossed about in a weird dance. The night, like a gigantic Kali, swirled her ink-black hair winding Heaven and Earth in its strands and her sharp teeth gleamed out of the frothing peaks in a cruel smile. We were too young then to comprehend the magnificence of the sight but I have never forgotten it. All around us the turbulent waters eddied and whirled, exploding into sprays of jewels or leaping forward with a deafening crash in a mad race towards the sea.

  I was aware that the dinghy was moving in a slanting line across the Ganga. What I couldn’t fathom was towards which point, in the darkness ahead, was Indra steering. Indra broke the silence with the question: ‘Are you scared, Srikanta?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good! If you can swim you have nothing to fear.’

  I suppressed a sigh. What difference did it make? Would I ever be able to swim across this infinite stretch of water against such a strong current? We floated on in silence. After a long time a series of thuds reached our ears—they were muffled at first, then increased in volume.

  ‘What are these sounds, Indra?’

  ‘That’s the surf pounding on the bank. Did you hear that crash? The land is breaking under the weight of the water.’

  ‘Is the tide very strong, then?’

  ‘Terribly strong. That reminds me. It rained last night. We’d better not sail too close to the bank. If the boat gets hit we’ll be ground to pulp. Will you take the oars, Srikanta?’

  Putting them in my hand Indra pointed with his finger. ‘Do you see that dark patch there? That’s a sand-bar. There’s a sort of creek winding through it which we must enter. But be very careful. If the fishermen catch us they’ll crack our skulls with their poles and bury us in the bog.’

  ‘Then let’s not go through the creek,’ I said, very scared.

  Indra laughed. ‘But there’s no other way. We can’t go by the big bank. Our little boat would get buried in the sand. Even a ship won’t be safe tonight.’

  ‘Then let’s forget about the fishing,’ I said lifting the oars. The boat spun violently and went back several yards.

  ‘Coward!’ Indra hissed angrily. ‘Why did you come, then?’

  I was fifteen years old at that time and the word ‘coward’ stung. I dropped the oars into the water and recommenced straining and pulling in the direction he had indicated.

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ Indra smiled. ‘But we must be very careful. I’ll take the boat past the tamarisks and through the corn fields so cleverly that they’ll never guess. And even if they see us they won’t catch us. Listen, Srikanta, if they get too close when they’re chasing us in their dinghies—just jump out and swim underwater as far as you can get. They won’t be able to see you in the dark. We can spend the night at Satwa then swim across in the morning and go back the way we came.’

  ‘Satwa? Isn’t that a great way off?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Indranath answered. ‘Not more than twelve or thirteen miles. When you get tired just keep floating. There’ll be plenty of driftwood on the water. You’ll see!’

  I dared not voice an opinion but my heart sank at the prospect. To swim so many miles across these swollen waters on a night when visibility was practically nil, then spend hours waiting for the dawn in an unknown place was not as easy as Indra made it sound. On the other hand, landing anywhere else was ruled out. On this side of the river the surf rose twenty feet high.

  I plied the oars in silence for a while, then asked, ‘What about the dinghy?’

  ‘The other night I did just as I said. Next morning I went and brought back my dinghy. I told the fishermen that someone had stolen it and brought it here.’

  As we approached the mouth of the creek a row of fishing-boats with flickering lights came into view. Wedged between two sandbanks the creek stretched out like a wide canal. We sailed in a curve to the other end where the eroding soil had created innumerable shallow lagoons concealed from each other by forests of tamarisk and casuarina. Guiding the dinghy gently through one of these we entered the creek. From this point the fishing-boats looked like dark clumps in the distance. A hundred yards up the creek and we reached our destination—the fishermen’s mayajal which, while keeping a vigilant eye on the mouth of the creek, they had left unguarded. In the summer, when the creek runs dry, fishermen drive strong poles of bamboo firmly into the ground from one end to another and hang their nets on the outer side. This is called a mayajal. When the rains come and the water rises, shoals of large fish come swimming into the creek then, hitting the fence, leap beyond it and get trapped in the nets. Indra lifted out five or six king-sized rui and katla weighing from ten to twenty seers each and threw them into the dinghy in the twinkling of an eye.

  ‘That’s enough. Let’s go,’ he said picking up the oars. The boat, still rocking with the struggling fish, sped like an arrow over the dark water.

  We sailed in silence for the next two minutes and then, with a violent jerk, the boat swerved and entered the field on the left.

  ‘Why! What’s the matter?’ I called out in alarm.

  ‘Shh!’ Indra pushed the boat a little further and said, ‘The fishermen have seen us. They are coming in their dinghies. Look there!’

  It was true. Ploughing the water with ferocious strokes, four dinghies, like four black ogres, were rapidly advancing up the creek. There was no escape now, for the nets were behind us, the fishermen in front of us and the cornfield would not provide adequate cover.

  ‘What shall we do, Indra?’ A sob stuck in my throat as visions of being hacked to pieces and being buried in quicksand rose before my eyes.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ Indranath said bravely but his voice quivered a little. He continued to push the boat with desperate strokes further and further into the field. The land lay submerged in water—breast high in places, knee deep in others—and over the water the dripping maize rose to a height of fifteen feet. Above our heads the sky was as black as pitch and all around us impenetrable forests of tamarisk and bamboo stretched away as far as the eye could see. The fishermen’s voices came wafting on the air, suspicious and angry. We crept along inch by inch, the oars getting stuck in the slime. Suddenly the boat tilted and I found myself alone.

  ‘Indra,’ I whispered.

  ‘I’m in the water,’ he whispered back. ‘I’m towing the boat. I have a rope tied around my middle.’

  ‘Where are you taking it to?’ I asked.

  ‘To the big river. It is just a little ahead.’ I breathed more easily now and the boat moved painfully on. Suddenly a loud clanging on tins, accompanied by a crackling of bamboo stems, burst in on us.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘Farmers on a machan are shooing away a wild pig.’

  ‘A wild pig? Where is it?’

  ‘How can I say? Can I see in the dark?’

  I sat silent, cursing the impulse that had made me come out on this crazy adventure. Yet I was sitting in the boat while Indra, neck deep in mud and slime, was struggling against the dense foliage. From time to time a violent swaying of the maize stems filled me with horrifying visions of the wild pig crouching among them. I communicated my fears to Indranat
h but he laughed them away: ‘Those are snakes rustling among the leaves,’ he said.

  ‘Snakes!’ I gasped, ‘What kind of snakes?’

  ‘Oh! All kinds. Adders and kraits and cobras. They get flushed out of their holes when it rains and climb up the stems. Don’t you see that there’s not a speck of dry land anywhere?’

  I could see that well enough. What I could not see was how Indra took it all so calmly.

  ‘They don’t bite,’ he continued, ‘they’re dead scared themselves. Two or three huge ones just glided past me. They must be water-snakes. And even if they bite—well, one has to die one day.’

  Indranath said all this in a normal, everyday voice while I sat frozen—in mortal terror that a snake would swing itself down from a maize stalk and fall with a thud into the dinghy.

  But what was Indranath? Was he a man, a god or a demon? If he was a man, what was he made of? If he had a human heart why did it know no fear? On the day of our first meeting he had risked his life for me—a complete stranger. That night, even as he confronted a terrible death, over and over again, the smile never left his lips. Many years have passed since. I have travelled far and wide and seen many kinds of men. Yet I can solemnly swear that, to this day, I have not seen one like Indranath.

  But to get back to my story. After sometime the sound of rushing water reached my ears. I realized that we were approaching the edge of the forest beyond which the river churned and foamed with its deadly currents. Indra came up and sat in the dinghy, his face relaxed and smiling.

  ‘We’ve reached the river,’ he announced. ‘We are safe.’

  Even as he said these words a terrible shudder passed over the dinghy as the current sucked it out of the lagoon and flung it across the water in a magnificent arc. The wind rushed into my face—the blood into my head. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again the dinghy was shooting like a meteor over the breast of the Ganga and the moon, rising behind massed clouds, was pouring out a stream of opalescent light that, on touching the river, turned it into a sheet of silver.

  Three

  ‘I AM DREADFULLY SLEEPY, INDRA. CAN’T WE GO HOME?’

  ‘Of course you’re sleepy,’ Indra smiled as tenderly as a woman, ‘but we can’t go home just yet. I have a lot of work tonight, Srikanta. Why don’t you lie down on that plank and sleep for a while?’

  I obeyed him but sleep wouldn’t come. Gazing up at the sky I watched the moon weaving in and out of the clouds while the roar of the water filled my ears. I’ve often wondered about that night. I was not old enough to spend hours watching the play of moonbeams on clouds, yet that is just what I did. Perhaps, after the fearful events of the night, my soul sought a tranquil and beautiful world in which I could rest myself. Time slid slowly by. Then, all of a sudden, the moon dipped behind the clouds and swimming across in a curve, rose again in the eastern sky. I lifted my head. The dinghy had changed direction. I wanted to ask where we were going but a strange lassitude crept over my senses. My head fell back and I passed into a kind of trance.

  Crash! The dinghy’s keel scraped against a sandy shore. I sat up. What place was this? Before I could ask, Indra said: ‘You wait in the boat, Srikanta. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t be scared. There are fishermen’s huts a little way up the bank.’

  My courage had been put to the test over and over again that night. I could not fail. I was young then and youth knows no logic but its own. I have often thought that behind the contradictions that characterized the love of the young Radha and Krishna of Vrindavan, some youthful logic was at work. The wise try to explain this logic, the pious to moralize—but comprehension eludes one and all. Only those who, spurning analysis and comment, submerge themselves body and soul in bhakti, are rewarded with a bliss that is akin to madness. Joyous with song and ecstatic with prayer, they drink at the fount of a divine passion which, to this day, is shrouded in mystery. Some such logic, incomprehensible even to me, prompted my answer. With a sinking heart and quivering lip I said: ‘Why should I be scared? Go wherever you like.’

  Indranath walked away, then, as if remembering something, rushed back to the dinghy.

  ‘Listen, Srikanta,’ he said urgently, ‘if people come to you asking for fish don’t give them any. Even if one of them looks exactly like me. Tell him to pick what he wants with his own hands, but don’t you go near him. Not on your life. Understand?’

  ‘Why, Indranath?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Indra ran in the direction of the fishermen’s huts.

  All the hair on my body stood on end. I knew what he meant and the knowledge made the blood freeze in my veins. Many terrors had beset me that night but they paled in comparison with this one. As I sat in the dinghy the air around me grew thick with muffled whispers. I dared not look up for there were figures in white peeping slyly from behind the trees. Would Indranath never come? The voices swelled—grew louder. There was a swimming in my brain, a dark mist swirled in front of my eyes. Shutting them tight I grabbed my poité (the sacred thread worn by Brahmins) and began winding it feverishly around my thumb.

  After aeons, as it seemed, human voices and footsteps reached out to me as if from a vast distance—Indranath’s voice talking in Hindustani to two fishermen. But was it really Indranath? I remembered something I had been told as a child—that spirits may take on the semblance of mortal beings but can leave no shadows. I opened my eyes, warily, to apply this supreme test. Yes, there they were—three shadows, dim but unmistakable, gliding towards the dinghy. Nearly fainting with relief I watched the two men come up, lift the fish with practised hands and drop them into a net. Then, pressing something into Indra’s hand (whose faint tinkle suggested money) they walked away as rapidly as they had come.

  We set sail once more, this time along the bank. I sat silent, my breast heaving with many emotions among which disgust and a sort of self-pity were uppermost. So Indra stole the fish to make money! And he did not hesitate to involve me in the crime. For stealing of, or for, money was a crime. Village boys like us stole fruit from people’s orchards and fish from their ponds as a matter of course. That, though wrong, was not stealing as I saw it. Until the moment of that little clink in the dark, the fish-stealing had been a wonderful adventure. Now it lay heavy on my heart.

  Indra broke the silence. ‘You weren’t scared even a little bit, were you, Srikanta?’

  ‘No,’ I answered shortly.

  ‘No one but you could have sat alone in the dark,’ Indra said enthusiastically. ‘I don’t have another friend like you, Srikanta. I do love you. Whenever I come out in my dinghy I’ll call for you. Shall I?’

  I sat in sullen silence. Indranath did not seem to notice. Suddenly the clouds parted and moonbeams rained down on my companion’s face. In that face I saw something—I can’t say what—that wiped out all my grosser feelings. I turned to him asking eagerly, ‘Have you ever seen them, Indra?’

  ‘Seen whom?’

  ‘Those—people—who ask for fish.’

  ‘No I haven’t seen them. I’ve only heard of them.’

  ‘Can you come here alone?’

  ‘I always come alone.’

  ‘Don’t you feel scared?’

  ‘No, I chant “Ram Ram” as I go along. Then they dare not come near me. There’s tremendous power in Ram’s name. You can chant “Ram Ram” and walk right past a snake. But not if you’re scared. They always know if you’re only pretending. They can see right through you.’

  The sandbank gave way to a pebbly shore. The tide was much lower on this side of the river. ‘Do you see that jungle there?’ Indranath lifted an oar and pointed with it. ‘We’ll be going through it. I’ll stop the boat there and leave you for a few minutes. You don’t mind, do you, Srikanta?’

  I could not say that I did mind—not now that Indranath had complimented me on my courage. The old fears returned despite his assurances of the power that Ram’s name invests on its chanter. I was in no mood to test their truth—not if it meant sitting alone in the di
nghy under some ancient banyan tree in the middle of the forest. There was one saving grace, however. There was no fish left in the dinghy. So the fish-lovers would probably leave me alone. But there would be others, I thought—those who love nothing better than a drink of warm blood and a bite of a boy’s tasty flesh.

  As the dinghy approached the forest the wild tamarisks and tussocks stared as if in horror at the foolhardiness of two children of men. Some even shook their heads in warning. Had I been alone I would have heeded them but my helmsman rowed rapidly past the waving branches towards an inlet that had enlarged itself into a sort of lake with only one opening northwards.

  ‘There’s no bank here. Where will you moor the boat, Indra?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a little bank further up beyond that banyan tree.’

  An unpleasant odour hanging on the air grew sickeningly strong with every gust of wind. I covered my nose with the edge of my dhoti. I said uneasily, ‘There’s something rotting here, Indra.’

  ‘Corpses!’ he announced. ‘There’s a lot of cholera about. The poorer villagers can’t afford to burn their dead. They just touch the bodies with a flaming tussock and throw them in the water.’

  ‘Where, Indranath?’

  ‘Right from that end to this. This is a burning-ghat. Aré aré, don’t look so scared. Those are only jackals fighting amongst themselves. Come and sit by me.’

  I shut my eyes and crept up to where he sat. He put an arm around my shoulders and said, ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Srikanta. I come to this ghat quite often all by myself. If you take Ram’s name thrice no one can come near you.’