Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  Ratan came up to Rajlakshmi and said, ‘Ma, the coolies tell me that there is a shop a little further on where the food is clean and well-cooked.’ Rajlakshmi undid a little knot at the end of her sari and taking out a few coins handed them to Ratan with the words: ‘Go and buy some. But be very careful about the milk. Make sure it isn’t stale.’

  Ratan hesitated a little, then said jerkily, ‘Some fruit for you—anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  We were all familiar with Rajlakshmi’s stubborn ways—Ratan most of all. Still he stood his ground, shifted his feet and mumbled, ‘But you haven’t eaten anything for the past two days—’

  ‘Are you deaf, Ratan? Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  Ratan was forced to withdraw. He knew, as well as I did, that Rajlakshmi, despite her denial, had a streak of orthodoxy in her that would never permit her to eat anything on a train journey. Going without food was nothing to Rajlakshmi. She kept many fasts—most of them utterly without meaning. Another thing I had noticed about her was that she rarely ate except the barest minimum of the coarsest of food. Every kind of delicacy was to be found in her kitchen, but none of it ever passed through her lips. If I teased her about this rigorous disciplining of her body she would laugh and exclaim, ‘I discipline my body! That’s a joke. Why, I eat everything!’

  ‘Do you? Then let me put you to the test.’

  ‘Now? Goodness, no! I’d die if I had to eat anything now.’ And she would go about her business, serene in her resolution to save herself from death.

  The habit of self-deprivation had become so much a part of her that it often went unnoticed. But I couldn’t help wondering, from time to time, when it had first started and why. It was obviously before I came into her life for the second time. I’ve often thought how difficult it must have been for her, in the beginning, to deny herself the luxuries she had grown accustomed to—luxuries bought with her money and enjoyed freely by the people around her. Was not this ability to stand firm in the face of temptation to be lauded? And had she not passed the final test only a few hours ago in her solemn resolve to surrender all her possessions for the sake of her love?

  The waiting-room was empty except for the two of us. Ratan had disappeared. I went up to Rajlakshmi where she sat motionless beneath a flickering lamp. I placed a hand on her head and said gently, ‘Why are you sitting here in this dust and litter? Come and sit with me on my bed.’ I pulled her up by the hand giving her no opportunity to refuse, but once together we had nothing to say to one another. I took her hand in mine and stroked it tenderly. I saw her tears fall, one by one. Then, as I put up my hand to wipe them away, she threw herself at my feet, sobbing uncontrollably.

  I allowed her to weep for a while, then I said, ‘I have something to say to you, Lakshmi.’

  ‘What is it,’ she whispered hoarsely.

  I hesitated. It was hard to say what I wanted to. But I did not allow myself to weaken. ‘I’m yours from this moment onwards—to do what you like with. Whatever happens to me—good or bad—is your responsibility.’

  Rajlakshmi smiled through her tears. ‘What use are you to me? You can’t play the tabla or the sarangi. And—’

  ‘And? Can I serve paan and tobacco? Most emphatically not.’

  ‘But the other two?’

  ‘I can try my hand at them.’

  ‘Can you really?’ She sat up in her enthusiasm.

  ‘Well! I hope I can.’

  Rajlakshmi looked at me with a strange expression in her eyes. Then she said, very softly, ‘Somehow I always believed that—even when you went around with a gun in your hand. Then I would remind myself that one who delighted in shooting innocent animals couldn’t possibly have a feeling for music, could never know its divine agony! My conviction of your insensibility helped me to overcome the pain you’ve inflicted on me so often.’

  It was my turn to fall silent. I could have countered her accusations with well-chosen arguments but a strange lassitude overtook me. Something, deep down, told me that she was right—that she had instinctively sensed what I had only rationalized. She had put it clumsily but her words brought home a supreme truth. I understood for the first time, that the pain of awakening that had come to her slumbering consciousness was linked with her growing love for music. Hence her self-denial, her sacrifice. Hence the pristine purity of her soul!

  I could have told her that man’s nature was made up of contradictions. If it wasn’t so, how could I, who couldn’t bear the death of an ant in childhood, who often starved so that stray dogs may eat, shoot down wild animals and birds with an unflinching eye? And Rajlakshmi herself? How could I reconcile her—whose heart and mind stood as clearly revealed before me, tonight, as that moon in the sky—with the opulent, infamous Pyari Baiji of Patna? But I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words. Not only because I wished to spare her pain but because the truth of today could easily be the falsehood of tomorrow. Where a man is being driven, by what Gods and demons—he does not know. How else can one explain the transformation of a man of many appetites into a yogi? What changes the cruel, grasping landlord into a selfless philanthropist? Where, in what dark closet of the human soul, lie those unconscious yearnings that, suddenly awakening into life, assume mastery? No one can tell. I scrutinized my companion’s face in the feeble light and thought, ‘She sees my capacity for inflicting pain to the exclusion of everything else. That I endure it—day in and day out—is unknown to her. In fact, she forgives me my inability to suffer out of the greatness of her love!’

  ‘Yet you willingly sacrificed everything for one you consider so cruel?’ I smiled up at her.

  ‘Not everything,’ she answered. ‘I haven’t sacrificed you.’

  Two

  I WAS SUFFERING FROM MALARIAL FEVER—COMMON IN THE villages of Bengal. That it held me well in its grip was evident even before the train entered Patna. I was carried, half-fainting, out of the station and for a month after that I lay confined to bed with the doctor and Rajlakshmi in attendance. When the fever subsided the doctor advised a change of scene. Preparations to leave Patna commenced. These, I noticed, were somewhat more elaborate than usual.

  One day, I called Ratan to my side and asked, ‘Where are we going, Ratan?’

  He threw a surreptitious glance at the door before answering in a lowered voice that it was to an obscure village in Birbhum called Gangamati which Rajlakshmi had never set eyes on. He himself had visited it briefly in the company of the mukhtiar (an attorney), Kishen Lal, when the land had first been bought. I could see from his face that he disapproved heartily of the plan but did not dare say so for fear of incurring his mistress’ wrath.

  ‘Where in Birbhum is this village?’ I asked with a sinking heart.

  ‘About twenty miles in the interior from Sainthia station. One has to get there in a bullock-cart. The land is bare and pebbly—red in places and burned black in others. Nothing grows there. There’s hardly any water. And the people are so rough and coarse. Why we must leave our beautiful city to live among the lower castes in a strange village—I really don’t understand.’

  But I understood. I sighed and said, ‘The doctor has advised a complete change for me, Ratan. I’ll never recover if we go on living here.’

  ‘But Gangamati is not the only other place in the world. People are falling ill all the time. They don’t all go there.’

  ‘There are diseases and diseases, Ratan,’ I said. ‘Perhaps Gangamati is the only cure for mine.’

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Ratan persisted, ‘but this piece of land, and a caretaker to look after it. Ma has sent him two thousand rupees with instructions to get an earthen house built. Can we live in such a house, Babu?’

  ‘Don’t go there if you don’t want to, Ratan,’ I said softly. ‘No one can force you to.’

  But my words failed to pacify Ratan. He pushed out his lower lip and said, ‘Ma can. I don’t know what power she has over us but even if she were to order her servants to go to hell we wouldn�
��t dare disobey.’ And Ratan left the room, his face like a thunder-cloud.

  It suddenly dawned on me that his words—though uttered in anger—were absolutely true. I was not the only one who was in Rajlakshmi’s power. She held her entire household in the hollow of her hand. ‘By virtue of what?’ I asked myself. Had I been a superstitious man I would have put it down to some tantra or mantra. I thought of the many ways I had tried to escape her. I had left her after a violent quarrel believing, quite honestly, that I’d seen the last of her. I had become a sanyasi. I had even left my country, voluntarily embracing exile so as never to see her again. And all I had done was go round and round in a circle that led me back, unfailingly, to her. I hated myself for my weakness. Yet I succumbed to it over and over again.

  Even as these thoughts passed through my head, I saw Rajlakshmi hurrying past my room with a bowlful of something in her hands.

  I called out to her, ‘Rajlakshmi! Do you practice witchcraft?’

  The shapely brows came together. ‘Do I practice what?’

  ‘Witchcraft. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ She flashed her eyes at me and was about to leave the room when she suddenly stopped and said, ‘Isn’t this the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?’

  I squinted down at it. ‘Yes. I believe it is. It looks quite white, though.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it clean. When will you learn that everything is not as it appears on the surface?’

  Rajlakshmi put down her bowl and, fetching a fresh shirt, handed it to me. As I stripped off the old one I noticed that the inside was sweat-stained and grimy. I don’t know why the fact depressed me but it did.

  Rajlakshmi’s insistence on cleanliness and purity in all things had always seemed an obsession—meaningless and oppressive to others. Today, suddenly, I felt differently. It was not that the old irritation vanished without a trace. It did not. But her insinuation that I judged only by the surface of things set me on another track of thought. I thought of the two lives that had run, in apparent contradiction, for so many years. I thought of the child, Rajlakshmi, and of how she had nurtured her love in silence and in secret and how, when the time came to reveal it, the tempestuous beauty, Pyari, had dived deep down below the slime and rank weeds of her day to day living to come up in triumph—the radiant, myriad-petalled lotus in her hand. But was that Pyari? No! No! No! My whole being protested. That was Rajlakshmi—Rajlakshmi alone.

  I didn’t know the whole of Pyari’s history—or Rajlakshmi’s for that matter. All I knew was that they had nothing in common, that they flowed out in opposite directions from a secret old source. Thus, when the blossom of love was unfolding its tender petals in the calm waters of one, the raging torrent of the other could not touch it. Not a petal was bruised. Not a spot marred its dazzling whiteness.

  The shadows of evening grew longer and dusk was upon me. ‘Pyari is dead,’ I thought. ‘But was Pyari only a beautiful body sullied by time and tide? Shall I judge her by that alone? And Rajlakshmi? She who had burned herself to ashes in the fire of sorrow and degradation and emerged pure gold—shall I turn my face away from her? Shall I judge man by the animal in him that snarls and bites and knows not its Maker or shall I seek out the hidden angel that suffers and surrenders in silence?’

  It was not so long ago that I had given myself up—weak, exhausted and vanquished—to Rajlakshmi. The humiliation of defeat was still upon me. But, now, a strange peace descended on my soul. A voice whispered in my ear, ‘Let Pyari, whom you do not know, lie buried in oblivion. Rajlakshmi was yours and is yours. Put out your arms and draw her to your heart. That it all that lies in your power. Leave the rest to Him who sees and knows and cares.’

  Preparations to leave Patna went on. One afternoon, I saw Pyari engaged in the task of packing enormous quantities of brass and silver utensils in a big trunk.

  ‘Why are you packing so much?’ I called out to her. ‘Are you leaving the house for good?’ Even as I said the words I remembered that she had given the house away to Banku. ‘What if you don’t like the place after a while?’ I asked.

  ‘You needn’t worry about that,’ she answered with a faint smile. ‘You may come away the moment you like. I won’t stop you.’

  I was hurt by her tone and did not care to carry on the conversation. It was not for the first time that Rajlakshmi had deliberately twisted my meaning and insinuated that my commitment to her was of an ephemeral kind. This conviction had become so firmly embedded in her consciousness that nothing I could say or do could shake it. The most innocuous of remarks from me could release a torrent of suspicion and mistrust. I wondered when this would end and how.

  Another week went by before we set off for our destination. I was irritable and depressed on the journey though not as much as Ratan who sat, glum and rebellious, in his corner of the compartment. My heart sank every time I thought of what lay at the end of the journey. It was not that I was apprehensive of the possible absence of comforts and conveniences in Gangamati. Its unfamiliarity daunted me. The thought of the strange new life ahead lay like a heavy burden on my heart. I glanced at Rajlakshmi, gazing quietly out of the window, and suddenly thought that I had never loved her in my life, yet, like a fool, I’d put myself in her power and left no loophole for escape. I had believed, only a day ago, that my only chance of breaking out of the labyrinth of Rajlakshmi’s love lay in my surrender. ‘I am yours, Rajlakshmi, to do what you like with,’ I had said. How easy it had been to say the words. But now my heart burned with painful feelings. Who had known that the reality would be like this?

  Three

  WE REACHED SAINTHIA STATION LATE IN THE AFTERNOON TO BE met by two men with a letter from Kashi Ram, the caretaker. Apologizing for not being there to welcome us (he was busy preparing for our arrival in Gangamati) he informed Rajlakshmi that he had made all the arrangements for a safe and comfortable journey to the village. Four bullock-carts, two open and two covered, were waiting outside the station. The first two would carry the luggage. Of the covered carts, the one that had a thick carpet of straw and palm leaf matting over it was for the mistress. The other was for the servants. He concluded the letter with the advice that we should set off immediately after a meal, preferably before dusk. Assuring Rajlakshmi that the journey was perfectly safe (there were no thieves or bad characters about) he advised her to have a good night’s rest in the cart.

  Rajlakshmi’s lip curled a little as she read the epistle. Then, turning to the man who had brought it, she asked, ‘Is there a pond nearby where I can have a dip?’

  ‘Yes, mistress. There it is behind those trees.’

  Rajlakshmi walked away in the direction indicated, with Ratan accompanying her. I wanted to warn her about bathing in a strange pond which might be infested with malaria for all we knew. But I didn’t, knowing it to be useless. Besides, she might, just possibly, eat something after a bath. Without it not a drop of water would pass through her lips.

  Returning in a few minutes, Rajlakshmi got busy serving my evening meal. Spreading an asan under a tree she got a fresh green banana leaf upon which she arranged, in orderly piles, the food she had brought from home.

  I had barely begun eating when I heard a deep voice behind me call, ‘Narayan! Narayan!’

  I looked back, startled, to see a tall handsome young sanyasi striding purposefully towards us. He was not more than twenty years old. His complexion was like beaten gold. His eyes, nose lips and brow seemed carved out of marble but his saffron robes were torn in places and tied in knots. I stared at this paragon of male beauty in wonder. Rajlakshmi rose and, pulling her veil a little lower over the damp knot of her hair, knelt and touched her forehead to the ground at his feet.

  ‘The servants will give you water to wash,’ she said. ‘I’ll serve your meal in a few minutes.’

  ‘You are welcome to do so,’ the sanyasi said calmly, ‘but I come to you for something else.’

  ‘I know. You want the money to go back home.’ And Rajlakshm
i turned her face away to hide a smile.

  ‘You are quite wrong,’ the sanyasi said solemnly. ‘I heard you were on your way to Gangamati. So am I. I want you to carry a box for me on your luggage cart.’

  ‘That is quite easy. But you—?’

  ‘I can walk. It is only twenty miles away.’

  Rajlakshmi said nothing. She got busy preparing another banana leaf for her guest. We ate in silence for a few minutes and then Rajlakshmi said, ‘What is your name, Sadhuji?’

  ‘Bajrananda Swami.’

  ‘Goodness! What a mouthful! And your real name?’

  ‘I have left that behind me. It is of no consequence to me now—or to anyone else.’

  ‘Very true,’ Rajlakshmi said meekly though she looked as though she would burst out laughing any minute. However, she controlled herself and asked another question, ‘How long is it since you ran away from home?’

  I looked up. Such vulgar curiosity was not worthy of Rajlakshmi, I thought. My eyes fell on her face. There was an expression on it that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I had forgotten what Pyari had looked like. Now suddenly she was there before me—the old Pyari with the dimpled cheeks and gleaming eyes. Even her voice had changed: it was low and husky.

  A morsel of food must have gone down the wrong way, for the sadhu burst into a fit of coughing. ‘The question is discourteous and irrelevant,’ he said severely, between coughs.

  Rajlakshmi was not put out in the least. She nodded and said demurely, ‘Very true. I ask it only because I had a bad experience—once.’ Then, turning to me she said, ‘Why don’t you tell Sadhuji about your camels and mules? Durga! Durga! Someone is remembering you, Sadhuji. Have some water.’