‘That’s a mother’s foolishness. Far from being grateful at God’s taking charge of those he sends out into the world, a mother will weep and beat her breast over a dead child—even in a middle-class home.’
‘God! My God!’
I had been talking all this while with my face to the window. I turned sharply at this low cry and fixed my eyes on my companion’s. The expression in them hit me like a physical blow. I felt ashamed and angry with myself. Why had I told her all this? What had I gained by destroying her illusions? She could have gone through life without this knowledge like others of her kind.
Rajlakshmi wiped her eyes and cried passionately, ‘What are you made of? You talk of people’s misfortunes in that mocking way because you have never known any!’
I did not contradict her, knowing it to be useless. I said softly and humbly, ‘I have not known their happiness either. Look at the faces of those men.’
In an instant Rajlakshmi’s face become a study in light and shadow. That’s exactly what I say!’ she cried joyously. ‘They are hurrying home to their children. How happy they must feel! So what if they are poor? If they have little money, they don’t have expensive tastes either. Anyway, I don’t believe they earn as little as twenty rupees. They must be paid a hundred or a hundred and fifty at the least.’
‘You may be right. I may have got my figures wrong.’
Rajlakshmi sat up in her excitement. My admittance made her greedy. A hundred and fifty rupees was not enough for her petty clerk. ‘Do you think they are solely dependent on their incomes? I’m sure most of them earn a good deal more.’
‘How?’ I sneered. ‘Do they consort with princes who shower money and jewels on them?’
A cloud passed over Rajlakshmi’s face. She averted her eyes and said, ‘The more I see of you the more disillusioned I get. You know I’m bound to you from childhood. And you test your power over me by wounding me whenever you can.’
I took both her hands in mine and tried to tell her what lay in my heart. But the moment passed. The carriage reached its destination and in the bustle of the arrival my words were left unsaid.
The two-thirty local was about to depart as we stepped on to the platform. As we walked along it, an elderly man, carrying a bag full of vegetables in one hand and a clay bird on a stand on the other, came rushing up from the other end and collided violently with Rajlakshmi. The bird flew from his hand and was shattered to splinters on the platform. With a piercing wail the man sank to his knees and began picking up the pieces even as Banku and Pandeji descended on him, angrily cursing him for being a blind, old fool. I managed to ward them off and turning to the old gentleman, said urgently, ‘Your train is leaving. You’d better board it at once.’ Torn between the moving train and the broken bird he scrambled to his feet and, apologizing humbly to Rajlakshmi, ran in the direction of a third-class compartment. But too late! The train picked up speed and snaked away. The man returned and resumed his task of picking up the pieces.
‘What will you do with those bits of clay?’ I asked, smiling.
‘My little daughter, she’s been sick these many months, has been begging me for a clay bird. I paid two whole annas for it—the shopman wouldn’t take a paisa less—but look at my luck! The poor girl will cry her eyes out. I’ll show her the pieces and tell her that the first thing I’ll buy, on getting my salary, will be her clay bird.’
Saying this the man walked away, clutching the pieces to his breast. Banku and Pandeji had already strolled away to the other end of the platform. I turned to Rajlakshmi, who had stood silent all this while. Tears streamed down her cheeks like monsoon showers.
‘What is the matter? Are you badly hurt?’ I asked, alarmed.
Rajlakshmi wiped her eyes and said hoarsely, ‘Yes. I am badly hurt—in a place that you have not the eyes to see or the heart to feel.’
Fourteen
BANKU, IN HIS ENTHUSIASM, HAD RESERVED A FULL COMPARTMENT for our journey to Kashi. In the middle of scolding him for this unnecessary extravagance (the situation was awkward for her, as I well understood) Rajlakshmi’s eyes fell on the elderly gentleman sitting on a bench, patiently waiting for the next train. She nudged me and whispered, ‘Where is he going? Why don’t we take him with us? He can save the ticket money.’
‘He must have bought his ticket already.’
‘But he can travel in greater comfort!’
I was in a perverse mood. ‘People like him are used to discomfort,’ I said.
‘I don’t care. I want to take him with us,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Why do you want an outsider? Am I not enough for you?’
Nevertheless, I went up to the man with Rajlakshmi’s offer, and needless to say, he accepted.
In the train, Rajlakshmi struck up a lively conversation with her travelling companion. Within a few minutes, he had poured out the whole story of his life into her willing ears. By the time the train reached Bardhaman station where he was to alight, Rajlakshmi had gleaned a mass of information on life in the villages of north-west Bengal. Just before the station came into view she opened her trunk and, taking out a sari of brilliant green silk, held it out to him with the words, ‘Give this to Sarala as a compensation for her broken bird.’
The old man shrank from her gift. ‘No, no. This is too expensive,’ he cried out in alarm. ‘Please don’t put yourself out. I’ll buy her another bird.’
‘It isn’t too expensive and even if it is I’m her mashi (maternal aunt) and I want to give it to her. Tell her from me that she must get well soon and then wear it—to please me.’
Tears stood in the old man’s eyes. ‘You are very kind,’ he said. ‘But I’m a poor labouring man. My daughter will never find an occasion to wear a sari like that.’
He looked at me for support, but I urged him to take it, ‘If Sarala’s mashi wants to give her a present, it is your duty to accept it on her behalf. I only wish I had a mashi like hers.’
The man’s eyes shone with gratitude as he took the sari from Rajlakshmi. But I was not interested in his feelings. A question, one that I had asked myself many times in the last one year, came to me again. What was Rajlakshmi heading for? Where would it all end? Giving away a sari worth ten or twelve rupees, in charity, was nothing much to her. But the direction in which all her sympathies were flowing was too clear to be mistaken. A torrent of mother love, gushing from her breast, raced joyously over rocks and boulders, green meadows and dark forests towards a destination unknown. I was afraid for her. I understood Rajlakshmi. I knew that the passion and yearning of her youth, enshrined in the person of Pyari, was dying a slow death—so that the very name brought her pain and humiliation. Gone were the enchanted days, the intoxicated nights of the singing girl, Pyari Bai. She was dying and in her death pangs was being born a woman consumed with mother love—a thirst so deep that not all the waters of the world could quench it. Banku was not enough for Rajlakshmi anymore. Her love encompassed and suffused all the children of the world.
For a long time after the train had left Bardhaman station Rajlakshmi sat silent with her face turned towards the window. ‘For whom these showers of salt water? Sarala or her father?’ I asked, at last.
‘Eavesdroppers—’ she began furiously.
‘Eavesdroppers have no option but to hear. What else could I do when I was not allowed to speak? Who are you weeping for?’
‘That is none of your business.’
‘It is my business. If your tears are for Sarala’s father I will feel extremely threatened.’
I thought the joke would make her laugh and restore her good humour. Instead she turned away completely and fixed her eyes on the passing scene. I made another attempt. ‘We should have bought something to eat from Bardhaman station.’ On her remaining silent I persisted, ‘You weep buckets for the misery of others but have no thought for the members of your own household. From where did you pick up these foreign ways?’
This time she turned around and, fixing her eyes on my
face, said, ‘I am well aware of the needs of my own household. When the time comes to serve you I shall not be found wanting.’
At the next station, Rajlakshmi sent for Ratan to prepare my hookah and, opening a hamper she had brought from home, filled a huge thala with a variety of sweets and savouries. One glance confirmed that all my favourite foods were there. I ate with relish, then lay back comfortably sucking at my pipe. I heard Rajlakshmi say, ‘Take the rest of the food to your compartment, Ratan, and if you can’t eat it all, give it away.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ I asked, surprised.
‘I’m not hungry. Go, Ratan—what are you waiting for?’
I noticed that Ratan’s face was red and embarrassed. He turned to me and said, ‘I’m very sorry, Babu. I handed the hamper by mistake to a Mussalman coolie. I—’
‘Will you go?’ Rajlakshmi thundered.
After Ratan had left and the train had started moving, Rajlakshmi came up to where I lay, and running her fingers through my hair, said, ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing against Mussalmans. I don’t really believe their touch to be polluting. I wouldn’t have served you the same food, if I did.’
‘Why did you refuse to eat it, then?’
‘It is different for women.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Men are free to do what they like, eat as they will and go wherever they wish. For them it is enough to be happy. Can men suffer the tribulations that women do as a matter of course? Look at yourself. You were getting peevish because you were hungry.’
‘There is nothing great in enduring affliction for its own sake. Neither for you nor for us.’
‘For women, suffering is a part of living. We are a race of slaves.’
‘Who told you that? Your gurudev?’
Rajlakshmi brought her face close to mine and whispered, ‘Everything I’ve learned in my life, I’ve learned from you. You are my first and greatest guru.’
‘Then you’ve learned the opposite of what I’ve tried to teach you. I have always believed that women are equal to men.’
Rajlakshmi’s eyes shone, ‘I know that. If only all men were like you, the world would be such a wonderful place. No woman would mind being a slave.’
‘Do you feel no sense of humiliation when you think of yourself as a slave?’
‘No,’ Rajlakshmi answered gravely.
‘Really!’ I said, exasperated. ‘The women of our country have been so conditioned by their subordinate status that they have become insensitive to humiliation. As a result they sink lower and lower everyday.’
Rajlakshmi sat up. Her eyes flashed. ‘That is not true. Women don’t sink of their own volition. It is men who have kept them low and, in the process, have sunk even lower themselves!’
The passion in her voice startled me. I was confused at first. Her words were enigmatic but slowly took on meaning.
‘You were laughing at the old gentleman,’ she continued. ‘Do you know how much I have learned from my conversation with him?’
On my confessing that I did not, Rajlakshmi said, ‘You must want to know first! A man as self-centred as you—one who runs away from the real world for fear of endangering his own privacy and comfort—can know nothing of others: Yet it is people like you who think they know everything. You hold forth endlessly about how women are being oppressed. Why don’t you forget about women for a change and worry about yourselves? Why don’t you raise your-selves to a higher level first?’
‘I don’t know where this argument is leading us, Rajlakshmi. Let’s stop for a while. I’m extremely sleepy.’
Rajlakshmi was silent for a few minutes. Suddenly she murmured—quite out of context, ‘Greed! Insatiable greed has become the curse of our society. High or low—no one is exempt from it. And that is at the root of all our social evils today. I understand that clearly.’
‘That is quite true. But what made you come to this conclusion?’
‘Experience. Who has been a greater victim of greed than I? Who ever heard of a mother selling her daughter in the olden days? People were natural then. They followed their fundamental instincts and did not run after money. Today I have all the wealth in the world! But what has it brought me? Even the beggar in the street is happier than I.’
I took her hands in mine and asked gently, ‘Are you truly that unhappy?’
She sighed and said, ‘Only my Maker can answer your question.’
‘Tell me, Rajlakshmi. What do you want from life? What will enable you to pass the rest of your days in contentment?’
‘I’ve thought about that a great deal,’ she said promptly. ‘I want to be stripped of all my wealth. If I am left destitute—only then ….’
I read between the lines easily enough.
‘Since when have you been thinking of such a thing?’ I asked softly.
‘Ever since I heard of Abhaya.’
‘Abhaya has barely started her life with Rohini Babu. She may face a lot of unhappiness in the future.’
‘But she’ll never be as unhappy as I am. I’m convinced of it.’
I thought for a while, then I said, ‘I can sacrifice everything I have for your sake, Lakshmi. But I can’t compromise my honour.’
‘Have I asked you to do so? And if you can’t compromise your honour—which is the only thing worth compromising—why talk of sacrifice?’
‘A man who loses his honour is as good as dead. Barring that—I can give up everything for your sake.’
Rajlakshmi drew her hand away from mine. ‘Please do not take the trouble. I’d like to ask you one question though. Is honour the sole prerogative of the male? Haven’t you heard of women who have thrown away their honour as easily as they would a filthy rag for the sake of the men they love?’ I was about to say something when she stopped me with a gesture. ‘Enough has been said on the subject. No more! You are not what I believed you to be. Let us put an end to this conversation.’ And she rose and moved away to her own seat.
We stepped off the train the next morning and took up our residence in Pyari’s enormous mansion in Kashi. I noticed that, barring a couple of rooms on the top floor, the entire building was crammed with widows of varying ages.
‘They are my tenants,’ Rajlakshmi informed me, laughing.
‘What is so amusing? Don’t they pay their rents?’
‘On the contrary. I pay to keep them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I pay so that they may live to pay me in the future. Don’t you understand simple logic? Besides, many among them are my kinswomen.’
‘Really?’ I asked puzzled.
Rajlakshmi gave me a wry smile. ‘The fact that I met my death here in Kashi is common knowledge. It is only fair that those who helped my mother arrange my funeral should be rewarded. Besides, they are so free with their services that they need to be restrained. I have undertaken to do so.’
I stood as if turned into stone. It wasn’t as if I was hearing anything new. Yet the laughing remark shook me as never before.
‘We’ve come to Kashi quite uselessly as it turns out,’ Rajlakshmi informed me that night. ‘Gurudev is away on a pilgrimage.’
‘That doesn’t disturb me in the least. You’ll go back to Calcutta, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it necessary for me to accompany you? If not I’d like to move on to Prayag.’
‘I’ll come too. I haven’t bathed in the Ganga at Prayag for many years.’
I was in a quandary. I had planned to stay with an uncle. Besides I had many friends and relatives in Prayag. Pyari read my thoughts like a book. ‘You are afraid of someone seeing us together, are you not?’
‘The trouble is,’ I said, acutely embarrassed, ‘that even if a relationship is innocent people are liable to misunderstand. One has no option but to be wary of public disapproval.’
Pyari gave a forced little laugh. ‘Quite true,’ she said. ‘Last year around this time, I spent twenty days and nights with you in my a
rms. How fortunate that no one saw us then! Don’t you have any friends in Ara?’
‘Why do you taunt me with what is over and done with?’ I exclaimed, stung. ‘I have never denied that I’m an inferior being—far lower than you in courage and character.’
‘Taunt you?’ Rajlakshmi flew into a passion. ‘Are you suggesting that I rushed to your side to provide myself with the means to taunt you? There’s a limit to human endurance. Don’t cross it.’
‘You saved me from sure death. But I was not worth the trouble. I am petty, worthless. There can be no comparison between you and me.’
‘If I saved your life,’ Rajlakshmi said arrogantly, ‘I did it in my own interest. Not in yours. But I have never thought of you as petty and worthless. It would be easier for me if I could.’ And Rajlakshmi walked away without waiting for an answer.
Next morning, as Rajlakshmi handed me my tea, I asked, smiling, ‘Are we on talking terms?’
‘Why not? Do you wish to say something?’
‘Let’s leave for Prayag tomorrow morning.’
‘Go—by all means.’
‘You come too.’
‘You are very gracious!’
‘Don’t you wish to come?’
‘Not at present. If I do, someday, I’ll let you know.’ And she went about her own business.
At noon, as I sat down to my midday meal, I said to Rajlakshmi, ‘Do you really believe you can turn away from me? Why this effort in futility?’
‘When you are before me I can’t. No one can,’ Rajlakshmi answered. Then after a pause, she continued, ‘I’ve been thinking. We must put an end to this struggle. It is a struggle for both of us. I admit that the mistake was mine. I’ve been stupid and shameless. Heaven knows what my son thinks of me! And the servants! I’ve made a spectacle of myself in my old age. Really and truly! You go on to Allahabad as you planned. But look me up before you leave for Burma—if you can.’
And saying this she went out of the room. My appetite vanished in an instant. I knew, from her face, that this was no lovers’ quarrel. She was a woman with her mind made up.
Srikanta Page 24
