Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  ‘Are you the man she—?’ Abhaya began in a startled voice.

  ‘If she didn’t know what she meant to me,’ I continued calmly, ignoring Abhaya’s interruption, ‘she would never have sent me away. She would have clung to me for fear of losing me.’

  ‘Maybe she knows you are hers. Hence she has no fears.’

  ‘It isn’t only that. There is something beyond having and losing and I believe that Rajlakshmi has found the key to it. Which is why she doesn’t need me anymore. I have suffered too—in many ways. And it is through my suffering that I’ve stumbled upon an important truth. Sorrow is not the negative emotion we think it is. Sorrow signifies neither absence nor loss. If unaccompanied by fear, it can be sensed and even enjoyed as fully as happiness.’

  ‘I think I understand. You mean that sorrow can become a prop—a purpose for living. It did for Rajlakshmi and Annada Didi. But my case is different. I don’t even have that to fall back upon. All I’ve received from my husband is rejection and humiliation. Do you ask me to live out my life with these as my only support?’

  It was a difficult question. I did not even try to answer it.

  Abhaya went on, ‘My life has nothing in common with theirs. Millions of men and women inhabit this earth. All are not cast in the same mould. People live by different laws and find their fulfilment in different ways. We vary in our instincts, our ideas and our mental abilities. Society must find a way for the successful development of each of its members and not force all to tread a common path. Is not my experience a glaring example? I was compelled to come to my husband for all other means of living were denied me. But was my coming here of any use? Nothing of him belongs to me anymore. Yet living under his protection as his whore was the only option society left open for me. That was to be my final fulfilment, and bearing the burden of that sterility the ultimate goal of my life as a woman. Rohini Babu loves me. You are aware of it and you have seen his suffering. Do you ask me to maim his life and destroy his soul only to buy for myself the label of a virtuous woman?’

  Abhaya wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and continued, ‘Must I deny his love and ruin his happiness only to establish the validity of a ceremony performed so long ago that it has become a lie to both man and wife? Does God, who created love and put it in our hearts, demand such a denial? You may think what you like of me. You may call my children by any name you please. But I would like you to get one thing clear. If we live and if children are born to us they will not need to hang their heads in shame for having come out of my womb. They may inherit nothing from us but their mother will take care to give them a secure foundation on which to plant their feet and hold their heads high. Do you know what that is, Srikanta Babu? It is the conviction that they are the fruits of a meaningful relationship.’

  There was a long silence. Her words hung in the air and breathed around us where we sat. I looked out at the sky and felt it shudder. I was overwhelmed by the strangest of sensations. I felt as if this great inanimate universe had a life and soul of its own that went on unseen, impervious to the thoughts and feelings of men.

  Abhaya broke the silence with a question, ‘What about you, Srikanta Babu? Will you withdraw your friendship and stop visiting us?’

  I hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘God may forgive you for he can see into your hearts,’ I said, at last. ‘Man cannot—unfortunately. Another thing! You forget that the collective identity can only be preserved by adhering to certain norms and principles. It is difficult, even impossible, for society to frame different rules for different people.’

  ‘There is a faith that is large enough and generous enough to accommodate sinners like us. Do you ask us to embrace it?’

  I had no answer.

  ‘You talk of a collective identity,’ she resumed. ‘Yet you cannot protect your own people when they are in trouble. Is that something to be proud of, Srikanta Babu?’

  I sighed. Once again I had no answer.

  ‘Never mind,’ Abhaya went on. ‘If you don’t make room for us we won’t complain. After all Hinduism is only one of many faiths. I take comfort in the thought that there is a place for us in another great religion of the world.’

  ‘Protection is not everything—at least not in every case,’ I said, a little hurt at her jibes at Hinduism.

  ‘Isn’t it? There is proof of it everywhere if we only had eyes to see. You do agree, don’t you, that an institution based on false values cannot flourish for long. How then do you account for the spread of Islam in the twelve centuries of its history? Do you mean to tell me that the Mussalman community owes its growth and importance to the fact that it lends its support to the vicious and the depraved? And that you Hindus are falling into a decline because of your faithfulness to a lofty rule of moral law? In the few months that I’ve been here I’ve noticed that the Burmese, like the Indians, are turning more and more to Islam. Every village in Burma has a Mussalman community and a mosque …. You were just telling me of the incident at the harbour … didn’t the young man betray the woman’s love only because Hindu society is not large enough to accept the Burmese wife of one of its sons? Would it have been necessary for the older brother to devise such a shameless scheme of desertion if he had been a Mussalman? Instead of breaking up the happy pair he would have drawn them under the shadow of the one true God and, blessing them, would have departed in peace. Which course of action do you recommend as the more ethical, Srikanta Babu?’

  I looked at her with reverence in my eyes. ‘Tell me, Abhaya,’ I said, ‘from where did a simple village girl like you learn to speak as you do. I can say, quite truthfully, that knowledge and breadth of vision like yours is rare even among men. No child of yours need ever be ashamed to call you “mother”.’

  Her wan face lit up. ‘Tell me, Srikanta Babu,’ she urged. ‘Will Hindu society be the purer for rejecting me? Will it not suffer a loss?’ Suddenly she smiled a radiant smile and continued. ‘But I shall not run away, Srikanta Babu. I shall live among you and be part of you however much you dishonour and defame me. If I can rear even one of my children to become a man among men I shall have had my revenge. For I will have proved that man is exalted by his actions alone—not by the accident of his birth.’

  Eleven

  AMONG THE PEOPLE WHO ASSEMBLED PERIODICALLY IN DA Thakur’s hotel for religious singing and discourse was a man called Manohar Chakraborty. He was a wealthy man and was reported to have combined within himself the qualities of devoutness and worldly wisdom to a fine degree. He took quite kindly to me for some reason.

  One morning he drew me aside and treated me to a little lecture. ‘You are a young man, Srikanta Babu. Your life is before you. If you wish to make something of it I can give you a few tips. Fortune has favoured you. Not everyone who comes to Burma fares as well as you have done. You earn well but from what I hear—and I always take care to ascertain my facts—you squander away every paisa you earn. It breaks my heart to think of it. I too was careless and improvident at your age. Then someone took me in hand and gave me the advice I’m about to give you. He was an ordinary man. He earned only fifty rupees a month. But when he died he left behind him a house with an orchard and a pond, acres of paddy fields and two thousand rupees in cash. I myself ….’ He stopped suddenly and changed the flow of his monologue. ‘You too can be a rich man in a couple of years if you take my advice. You may even be able to save enough money to go back to Calcutta and get yourself a wife.’

  From where he had got the impression that I was sighing my soul away for a wife, I could not say. But, since he had assured me that he never uttered a word without full and absolute knowledge, I had to accept the statement and even nod encouragingly.

  ‘Look, Srikanta Babu,’ he continued. ‘Making money is not as easy as it seems. It can only be accomplished by careful planning and ceaseless toil. I won’t advise you not to throw your money away in charities and such like. I know you are not such a fool as to do that. What I’m asking you to do is to follow
a few simple rules that will enable you to keep the money that you have earned with your hard work. If anyone is in distress of any kind, shun him like a leper for, before you know where you are, he’ll touch you for a couple of rupees. If you give him the money you lose it and your peace of mind as well, for two rupees is a tidy sum, after all, and you can’t let it go without a struggle. You’ll try to get it back and bitterness and frustration will inevitably follow. Is it not much better to steer clear of such complications?’

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ I agreed.

  ‘You are an intelligent man,’ he continued, warming to his theme. ‘An educated man. That is why you appreciate my advice. The mechanics and coolies here are such fools—they’ll even borrow money to lend it. No wonder they never have a paisa in their pockets. What can you expect from low caste fellows like that lot. Dolts! Idiots!’

  Recovering from his indignation with an effort he went on. ‘Never lend money without a collateral. If someone comes crying to you that he is in trouble, just turn around and tell him it’s not your fault. And he if touches you for a loan ask him for a mortgage on his house, his lands or his wife’s jewellery—as the case may be. That is always good policy. Never go near any kind of quarrel. Even if you see a man being beaten to death—don’t interfere. Why invite trouble? You may get a few blows for your pains. You may even have to testify before a court of law if there is a police inquiry. It is much better to slip away and lie low for a while. You can offer your condolences and a few words of advice to the bereaved party once the trouble is over. What do you say? Is my reasoning incorrect?’

  ‘Oh! no. This is excellent advice.’

  ‘Of course it is excellent advice. Now for the last bit. Keep at a safe distance from the sick and afflicted for they are always in need of help—financial and otherwise. To be frank I never go near such people. It is imprudent to lend a sick man money for who can prophesy the future? He may not live to repay the loan. As for nursing the sick—dear God! if I were to catch the infection and fall ill in this alien land! No, I must not even think such dreadful thoughts. Sheetala Ma have mercy on me! What am I but the dust of your feet?’ and he bit his tongue and tweaked his ears in excessive humility. Observing my silence he hesitated a little before adding, ‘Europeans never visit the sick. If they are very concerned, they send a card. Isn’t that far more sensible? White men never get involved in one another’s problems. That is the secret of their success.’

  The office hour being at hand I was compelled to take a break from the moral instruction my mentor doled out so unstintingly. In any case, I didn’t feel young and unformed enough to be moulded by the wise man’s guidance to any great extent. A man like him is not a rarity in rural Bengal. Neither is his advice. Thus I was not unfamiliar with the type. What I was unprepared for was the speed and thoroughness with which Providence dispelled his delusions of practical wisdom and exposed him for what he really was—a spineless, contemptible, self-centred old fool. But that was a fortnight later.

  I had not been to see Abhaya since the day I had surprised her in Rohini Babu’s house. I had thought of her a good deal and had tried to reconcile her point of view with my own pre-conditioned one with all the arguments I could muster. I respected the independence of her thinking, her veracity and candour and her deep, passionate love for Rohini. All these attracted me immensely and I longed to renew our friendship, but the bigotry of generations of Hindu chauvinists was in my blood and it would not let me rest. I couldn’t, despite my best efforts, conquer the nagging feeling that Annada Didi would not have acted as Abhaya had done. Even if the choice were between a lifetime of humiliation as a servant in some strange household and one of queenly dignity in that of a man who was not her husband she would have chosen the former without the slightest hesitation. I asked myself, over and over again, if Annada Didi’s perception of physical purity and her concept of duty—derived, I had no doubt, from her unconditional surrender to God’s will—could be truly reduced to nothing by Abhaya’s intelligent reasoning. I remembered something the latter had said—the finer nuances of which had eluded me at the time.

  ‘Srikanta Babu,’ she had said, ‘the human race has been attracted to suffering from time immemorial for there is, inbuilt in the nature of man, an irresistible urge for self-chastisement. Man obsessively views himself as good or bad in proportion to the sorrow that has been his portion. This is perhaps owing to the knowledge that through the centuries of his history, man has acquired nothing without tremendous sacrifice. That knowledge has been subverted today into the erroneous conviction that the opposite is equally true. That sacrifice and sorrow bring acquisition and ascent in their wake. When a man voluntarily suppresses his natural instincts and embraces a life of deprivation, he does it in the belief that a great deal more than what he is giving up is being stored for him in some other place. His fellowmen share his conviction. When a sanyasi immerses himself in ice-cold water on a bitter winter night or stands on his head in the scorching summer sun he invariably attracts a crowd. Why? Because people are overwhelmed not only by the sight of the privations the man is undergoing but by their own visions of the luxury and comfort that awaits him in the next world. Woven into the fabric of their awe and admiration is a strand of envy and another of self-pity. Convinced that this man, alone, is doing with his body what God meant him to do whereas they are wasting theirs on earthly functions—they go back home saddened and frustrated. Srikanta Babu, the belief that self-deprivation brings happiness in its wake is the biggest lie that man has concocted for himself. It is neither true of this life nor of the next.’

  ‘But a widow’s brahmacharya—’ I began.

  Abhaya stopped me with a gesture. ‘Speak of it as the conduct regulated for widows. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brahma. This is another of the lies perpetrated through the ages—that abstinence and sacrifice lead widows straight to Brahma. What is good for widows should be good for everyone. Why isn’t it so?’

  ‘Oh! All right,’ I laughed. ‘Let’s not call it brahmacharya. What’s in a name?’

  ‘You are quite wrong, Srikanta Babu,’ she answered, fixing her dark, compelling gaze on mine. ‘Everything is in a name. What in the world is more powerful than the word? Give the biggest lie the label of truth and it will become sacrosanct. Men, women and children will adapt their thoughts, feelings and perceptions to it and tread the groove of falsehood for centuries to come. A widow’s renunciation of the pleasures of the world gets her nowhere, Srikanta Babu. All it gives her is a halo she can well do without. There is no trick so low down in the world as the one that has been played on poor, foolish, trusting, unresisting women by their male protectors. To push them on to a path of self-obliteration—what can be more cruel? What a waste of human quality, Srikanta Babu! What utter, colossal waste!’

  I had no arguments with which to counter her analysis. I recalled that Doctor Babu had called her a ‘forward’ woman on the strength of his slight acquaintance. Neither of us had dreamed of the dimensions the word ‘forward’ could attain in connection with Abhaya. The girl had a way of baring her innermost thoughts and emotions before the glaring light of public opinion without the slightest hesitation. Another thing I noticed about Abhaya was that there was no gap between her words and her actions. She waged a ceaseless battle against her enemies, within and without, and strove to live by the light of her own convictions. It was this quality that often made me tongue-tied in her presence. Later, back in my own room, I found all the forceful arguments I could have used against hers. The thought of Abhaya invariably created a duality within me. The more I told myself that Abhaya was right in leaving her husband, that there was nothing else that she could have done—the more my heart and soul turned against her. I would reason with myself. I would exhort myself to respect her thoughts and actions. But, somehow, I never managed to—quite. A nagging feeling of doubt and frustration invariably dogged me, preventing me as forcefully from renewing our friendship as from forgetting her existence
.

  While things were in this state, plague burst over the city of Rangoon. All the efforts of the authorities to prevent its insidious progress across the Bay had come to naught. Normal life was paralysed under the pressure of a two-way exodus. Some people abandoned the centre of the town for the suburbs while others, from the latter, rushed to the former. To see a rat, alive or dead, was to run—such a state of panic had ensued.

  It was a Saturday morning. I remember that well. I was walking through a congested area of central Rangoon at a quick pace when I caught sight of Manohar Chakraborty waving frantically from the upper window of a decrepit house. I waved back but did not slow my steps for I was in a hurry to get to the main road.

  ‘Do come up, Srikanta Babu,’ he called in a piteous voice. ‘I’m in great trouble.’

  I retraced my steps unwillingly, grumbling to myself that it was just my luck to be caught by the old bore. Outwardly, however, I smiled a false smile and said, ‘You haven’t been to the hotel for some days now, Chakraborty moshai. Do you live here?’

  ‘No, I moved in a fortnight ago. I was suffering from dysentery—which is why I haven’t been to see you—and then the plague broke out in the neighbourhood. Naturally, I left as quickly as I could.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I echoed.

  ‘It’s all very well, moshai,’ he went on fretfully. ‘You understand and I understand. But my combined hand is threatening to leave. Why don’t you call the rascal and give him a good scolding?’

  Here I think I owe it to my readers to explain the term combined hand, for, living in India as they do, they have no idea of what that is. Combined hands are men who combine cooking and serving food with every other kind of menial chore. They are generally found among Brahmins from northern India who, though rabidly caste-conscious in their native village, display a remarkable flexibility in Burma. For an extra rupee or two the purest of pure Dwivedi and Chaturvedi cooks will undertake to clean dirty utensils, wipe floors, prepare hookahs and polish the shoes of their low-caste masters, for if there is one thing they cannot resist, it is the lure of filthy lucre. For them money is the most potent of purifying agents. Unlike our foolish fellows from Bengal and Orissa whose Brahminhood resists practical assaults, with the fiercest determination the Brahmin from the north simply puts a price tag on every dent in his. Anyhow, who was I to reprimand Manohar Chakraborty’s servant? And why should he take it from me? This combined hand was evidently new—a concession, no doubt, to the difficulties wrought by the prolonged dysentery—for, as far as my own knowledge went, Manohar Chakraborty had been his own hand, combined or otherwise, for as many years as he had been in Burma.