Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  She was a little thinner and paler, it was true, but that was not all. There was a look, on her face, of excessive fatigue and strain, as if she had just returned from a nightmarish journey across the world, so weary and exhausting that she could barely support herself. On my remaining silent she repeated her question adding, ‘Tell me. How am I different?’

  ‘I won’t tell you.’

  Rajlakshmi gave her head a little shake and begged like a child, ‘You must tell me. People say I’ve become old and ugly. Is that true?’

  ‘It is,’ I answered solemnly.

  Rajlakshmi laughed. ‘You are the rudest man I’ve ever met. Anyway, what does it matter if I’ve lost my looks? Is our relationship dependent on my youth and beauty that I should die of worry?’

  ‘You needn’t die of worry. For one thing, no one has told you that you have lost your looks. For another—even if someone has, you don’t believe it. You know very well that—’

  ‘You of course know everything about everybody,’ Rajlakshmi said angrily. ‘But tell me truthfully—am I exactly as I was when you first saw me at the hunting party?’

  ‘No. You are far more beautiful.’

  Rajlakshmi turned her face to the window to hide her delight from my admiring gaze. She sat silent, for a while, apparently absorbed in the sights and sounds of the Calcutta streets. Then, turning to me with a worried gaze, she asked, ‘What was it that made you ill? Did you find the climate unsuitable?’

  ‘It is different,’ I answered, ‘but since I’ll have to live in Burma I may as well get used to its air and water.’

  Even while making this statement I anticipated a violent protest from Rajlakshmi—an unconditional turning down of my proposal of going back to an environment that, I had admitted, did not suit my constitution. But nothing like that happened. She answered softly, ‘That is true. Besides, there are many Bengalis in Rangoon. If they have got used to the climate, you will too—in time.’

  The cool indifference with which she made this statement cut me to the quick. All through my convalescence in Abhaya’s house I had fantasized about the moment of reunion with Rajlakshmi. I had wrought the scene with care adding colour and depth as I went along. I had imagined the storm in her breast as I told her how I had nursed a plague patient and then succumbed to the dreaded disease. I had seen the tears pouring down her cheeks. But now a terrible shame and humiliation engulfed me. What a blessing it was, I thought, that one cannot look into another’s heart! I decided that nothing would induce me to tell Rajlakshmi of my near encounter with death.

  As we entered the house she had rented in Bowbazaar, Rajlakshmi pointed to the staircase saying, ‘Go straight up to your room on the second floor and rest for a while. I’m coming in a moment.’ And with that she moved briskly towards the kitchen. It was not difficult to identify my room for it was a replica of the one I had had in Patna. All my books were there. My hookah, with its long pipe, stood in its usual place by the bed and my velvet slippers sat decorously, side by side, on the footstool. My clothes, my writing materials and all my personal possessions, down to the last detail, had been remembered and brought over with meticulous care. As I looked around I noticed something new. A magnificent sunset in oils that I had always admired in Pyari’s bedroom now hung on one wall of mine. I walked over to the armchair at the window and, leaning back, shut my eyes. Tears pricked my eyelids as I felt the waters that had been ebbing away gather themselves, and flow once again from an old strong source.

  Exhausted by the journey, I dozed off after lunch. When I awoke I found the afternoon sun streaming on my feet through an open window and Pyari leaning over me wiping the sweat from my face, neck and chest. She said, ‘This room faces the west and is very hot. I must move you from here. The one next to mine on the first floor would be cooler I think. See how you’re perspiring! The sheet and pillowcase are drenched.’ Then, seating herself very close to me on the bed, she started fanning me vigorously with a palm leaf fan.

  Ratan entered the room. ‘Shall I bring Babu’s tea up here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ answered his mistress, ‘and tell Banku I want to see him.’

  I shut my eyes. After a few minutes the sound of slippers could be heard flapping on the marble steps and Pyari’s voice called out, ‘Is that Banku? Come up here.’

  I heard Banku step cautiously into the room. Pyari continued fanning me as she said, ‘Take up a piece of paper and a pencil and make a list of the things we need. Then take the darwan with you and buy them.’

  This was something new. Except in my illnesses, Pyari had never sat on my bed and ministered to me the way she did now. Even more surprising was the unashamed candour with which she admitted our intimacy before Banku and the servants. The wondrous beauty and boldness of her action filled my heart with emotions I could not describe. I remembered the day she had asked me to leave her house because of what Banku might think or feel.

  After Ratan had brought up the tea and Banku departed with the list, Pyari put a question I hadn’t expected, ‘You say Rohini Babu and Abhaya love each other but whose love is the stronger? Can you tell?’

  ‘Abhaya’s—obviously!’ I laughed. ‘After all, she’s the one who has been haunting you for the past six months.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I know it. Contradict me if you can.’

  ‘You may be right but I believe Rohini Babu’s love to be stronger. He has had to pass a more difficult test than Abhaya.’

  I was surprised at her reasoning. ‘I don’t agree,’ I said. ‘I think Abhaya’s struggle has been more painful and bitter than Rohini Babu’s. He is a man, after all, and our society is far more supportive of the male than of the female. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I forget nothing,’ she said. ‘But let me get this clear. You are saying, are you not, that our society is more lenient with men than with women where extra-marital involvements are in question? That, once the affair is over and the woman abandoned, the man is welcomed back to the fold and the passage is made smooth and easy for him? I agree, but then—only the lowest and the most contemptible of men take advantage of that kind of support. Rohini Babu does not belong to that class. Neither do you. Just think of what life is for a man like Rohini Babu. Since he cannot abandon the woman who has trusted him, he is a ready target for the taunts and jeers of his fellowmen. There is no protection for him, for he cannot confine himself within the four walls of his home the way a woman can. He has to go out into the world to earn a living and support the woman he loves. The burden of protecting his beloved and the mother of his children from the assaults of the outside world also falls on him. And as if all this is not torture enough there is, to add to it, the temptation that he has only to lay down his weary load, leave the woman to her fate and his old comfortable world will take him back with open arms. This temptation gnaws at his vitals like a canker, destroying the love for which he had once defied the world. Can you imagine the strength of the love that can withstand all these pressures?’

  I saw the force of her reasoning. I remembered Rohini’s gentle, self-effacing ways and the stark pain and bewilderment in his eyes after Abhaya left him for her husband.

  ‘But you sent your humblest and sincerest regards to Abhaya and not to Rohini,’ I said laughing.

  ‘I did. And I still give her what is her due. I firmly believe that whatever base metal there may have been in her nature has long since been burned to ashes by her inner fire. If it hadn’t, she would have been just as low and degraded as any other fallen woman.’

  ‘Why low and degraded?’

  ‘The sin of rejecting a husband is a grievous one—’

  ‘If you had seen Abhaya’s husband you wouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Men have been wayward and dissolute through the ages, and oppressive to their women. That cannot condone a woman’s running away from her husband. Women must submit to their sufferings. The world cannot go on otherwise.’

  Her words confused a
nd irritated me for, in them, I saw the reasoning of a passive female who glories in her subordinate status. ‘Then what is this fire you were talking about?’ I asked, a trifle impatiently.

  Rajlakshmi smiled. ‘I have just received a letter from Abhaya, giving me an account of your illness. She had been through hell and had just begun to live, when you stormed into her life bringing the plague with you. Your presence threatened to destroy the delicate web of happiness that she had woven for herself. But did she shrink from you? On the contrary, she gathered you to her bosom as spontaneously and fearlessly as a mother would her child. Her strength and discipline, her belief in duty before self, emerge from what I call the fire in her soul. Why is fire referred to as all consuming? Because it makes no distinction between sorrow and happiness and draws both to itself with equal triumph. Something else that she wrote in her letter impressed me. She is determined, she wrote, to make Rohini Babu a success in all his capacities—as a man, a husband and a father—for it is only through one’s own fulfilment that one can ensure that of others. Frustration breeds its own likeness and multiplies rapidly. It’s very true, isn’t it?’

  She sighed. We had nothing to say to one another for a long while. Then, running her fingers through my hair, she asked timidly, ‘Is Abhaya a very learned woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘She seems well educated.’

  ‘That is the secret of her strength. But she has concealed something from me—her yearning to be a mother.’

  ‘Does she have such yearnings? I know nothing of them.’

  ‘What woman doesn’t? Mo one proclaims it before the world.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She blushed and hung her head to hide her flaming cheeks. The red-gold beams of the setting sun were streaming in through the window. They shimmered over her lustrous black hair and flashed from the facets of the diamonds in her ears. ‘Why should I?’ she said, at last, sitting up proudly. ‘Do I not have children already? My daughters are married. My son is about to be married. I shall soon have grandchildren. What more do I want?’

  I didn’t have the heart to contradict her.

  After dinner that night, Rajlakshmi said, ‘Banku’s wedding is a fortnight away. We can go to Kashi and get back well in time. Let’s go. I want my gurudev to meet you.’

  ‘Am I worth the trouble?’

  ‘That’s the beholder’s problem. You don’t have to worry.’

  ‘But what is the point of it? What good will our meeting do him, or me for that matter?’

  ‘It is of no consequence to either of you. But it means a great deal to me. Come for my sake.’

  I had to agree. Owing to a dearth of auspicious days in the coming months there was a glut of weddings in the city. As we drove to the station on the day of our departure we got caught in a wedding procession. We managed to extricate ourselves with difficulty and as soon as we did so, Rajlakshmi said, ‘If you had your way, only the rich would be allowed to marry. How would the world go on?’

  ‘You needn’t worry about the world,’ I answered, the notes of the bagpipes still shrieking in my ears, ‘for there are few in it to take my advice.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. Why should every happiness and comfort be reserved for the affluent? Are the poor not human? Don’t they have desires and aspirations—the same as the rich?’

  ‘They may have desires and aspirations, as you put it, but there’s no need to give in to them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I was silent for a while. Then I said, ‘I hold this view only with regard to the genteel poor. And I think you know my reasons.’

  ‘Your view is lopsided,’ Rajlakshmi said stubbornly.

  But I, too, could be stubborn. ‘You, of all people, know very well it is not. The day Banku’s father married you and your sister for the paltry sum of seventy-two rupees is not so far off that you have forgotten it. The only redeeming feature of the case was that he was interested in the money alone. If it hadn’t been for that, you would have had the added bonus of a string of children. What would you have done then?’

  Rajlakshmi’s eyes flashed rebelliously. ‘God would have looked after them as he does all his creatures. You are an atheist. That is why you ask such a question.’

  ‘This is a practical approach indeed! To believe that God exists only to bail one out of one’s troubles—’

  ‘Even if God turned away from me I wouldn’t have despaired. I would have begged from door to door to feed my children. It would have been a far better fate than living the life of a singing girl.’

  I gave up the argument. I realized that we were treading dangerous ground: a frequently assaulted, exceedingly vulnerable area of Rajlakshmi’s heart!

  The day being a Saturday and the time early afternoon, crowds of office employees were seen heading towards the station to catch the two o’clock or two-thirty trains to their respective villages. As our carriage moved jauntily through the jostling masses I noticed that all the men were carrying something or the other in their hands. One had a couple of large lobsters dangling from a string; another, a bit of mutton tied in a kerchief. Grapes and pomegranates peeped out of bursting bags—delectable luxuries to be enjoyed once in a while. Writ large on the faces of the men was the fact that they were going back to their loved ones for a brief but ecstatic reunion.

  Rajlakshmi tugged at my sleeve and whispered urgently, ‘Why are all these gentlemen rushing to the station? Where are they going? What’s today?’

  ‘Today’s Saturday. They are going home for the weekend.’

  ‘Yes. That must be it. Look, they all have sweets or fruits in their hands—for the children.’

  ‘Yes,’ I murmured.

  ‘How excited the children will be!’ Rajlakshmi’s imagination had taken wing. ‘How they’ll jump and dance around their fathers and call out to their mothers,’ and Rajlakshmi’s cheeks glowed at the thought.

  ‘That they will,’ I agreed.

  My companion’s bright eyes devoured the pedestrians from the window of the carriage for a while longer, then, with a sigh, she turned to me and asked, ‘How much do they earn?’

  ‘Twenty or twenty-five rupees,’ I said, carelessly. ‘Most of them are clerks.’

  ‘But they have wives, mothers and children to support.’

  ‘One or two widowed sisters,’ I added to her list. ‘Guests. Expenses on weddings or funerals. The mess bill in Calcutta. Doctors and medicines. In short, everything is paid for out of those twenty rupees.’

  Rajlakshmi’s eyes grew enormous and the colour drained from her cheeks. ‘You can’t be sure of that,’ she said. ‘They may own property in the village. I’m certain they do.’

  I hesitated a little before disenchanting her. I knew what I was about to tell her would hurt her terribly. ‘I’ve lived among them and I know that nine out of ten have nothing beyond their income. And if they lose their jobs they starve with their children or beg.’

  Rajlakshmi covered her ears with her hands and wailed, ‘Don’t tell me anymore. I won’t listen to another word.’ Her face was flushed and tears trembled in her eyes.

  I turned away and resumed my contemplation of the moving scene. There was a long silence. I knew that Rajlakshmi was fighting a mute battle with herself and I let her fight it alone. Then there was a tug at my sleeve. Curiosity had won.

  ‘Tell me about the children,’ she whispered. But don’t exaggerate their misery—I beg of you.’

  The nature of her request and the humility with which she made it, amused me but I kept a solemn face and said gravely, ‘The question of exaggerating does not arise for the simple reason that even the bare truth would pain you beyond endurance. I wouldn’t have revealed it, had you not stated a while ago that you wouldn’t mind begging from door to door to feed your children. The concept that God looks after those he sends into the world is a fine one indeed and not to be convinced by it is to be an atheist! Anyhow, I’ll tell you what I know, and leave it to your own logic and reason to work out t
he extent of God’s commitment to those he sends into the world, and that of the unfortunate parents who give them birth.’

  I glanced at her anxious face and continued, ‘A newborn child is the mother’s responsibility. She keeps it alive by suckling it at her breast. My faith in God’s abilities is boundless and my conviction of his mercy—supreme. Yet, I confess I have not, to his day, seen Him offering to take on this responsibility.’

  ‘What nonsense you talk,’ Rajlakshmi said, half-laughing, half-angry.

  ‘Wait,’ I held up a hand. ‘Do you know how quickly a woman’s milk dries up in families like theirs?’ I pointed a careless finger at the crowd. ‘Do you know why? If you wish to know, go have a look at what a young mother gets to eat in a middle-class home.’ Rajlakshmi’s eyes raked mine as a I went on, ‘You know how expensive milk is? And how difficult to procure—particularly in a village.’

  ‘I do. Unless you have a cow of your own there’s no way you can get hold of milk. I’ve seen it myself.’

  ‘Then what does a baby eat once the mother’s milk is gone? Water from a slimy, green pond and some barley powder from a tin. And even if a few drops are left for him he cannot enjoy them for long. Within three or four months his successor sibling takes possession of the maternal womb and works actively towards his deprivation. You understand me?’

  Rajlakshmi blushed crimson and said sharply, ‘Yes, yes. Go on.’

  ‘What happens next is that the malnutritioned child falls prey to two dreaded diseases—dysentery and malaria which attack him by turns. When this happens it becomes the father’s duty to provide quantities of raw quinine and barley powder, which the mother mixes in pure, unadulterated pond water and pours down the hapless infant’s throat up to the time—needless to say—that her own labour pains overtake her. Then, upon her falls the task of crying bitterly for the old one with the new one in her lap.’

  ‘Crying! Why crying?’ Rajlakshmi asked, white to the lips.