A Life Apart

by Neel Mukherjee

  Alauddin had thought it would be a child’s task to march into Chitorgarh and grab Padmini. But arriving at this hilltop town he found that just as the cage of ribs enclose and hide the heart, in a similar way Padmini was protected by the bristling swords of the brave Rajputs, Bimala and Miss Gilby translate together. Crossing the tempestuous seas was easy compared with crossing those seven iron gates of Chitorgarh to get to Padmini. The Pathan emperor ordered his troops to set up camp at the base of the hill.

  At night, when Padmini and her husband, Rana Lakshman Singh, are taking the air on the crenellated parapets and terraces of the castle, the night air of the desert biting, the moon a bright, bitten nail in the clear black sky, she suddenly points a finger down to the vast desert outside and exclaims with delight, ‘Rana, Rana, look at those waves! It’s magic, the sea has arrived at our doorstep.’ The Rana replies sadly, ‘Padmini, those are not the waves of the sea but the tents of Alauddin’s army laying siege to our town.’

  The following morning, the Rana sends his messenger to the Emperor. Alauddin’s wishes are simple. ‘I have no bone to pick with the Rana,’ he tells the messenger, ‘I’m here for Padmini. Hand her over and we’ll depart peacefully.’ The messenger replies, ‘Your Majesty doesn’t seem to be very familiar with our Rajput nation. We would rather give our lives than surrender our honour.’ Alauddin interrupts, ‘The mind of the Sultan of Delhi is unswerving – Padmini or war.’ The messenger bows and leaves.

  The army of the Delhi Sultanate continues with its siege of the fortress of Chitorgarh for a year but there is no sign of the Rajputs relenting or asking for a truce. Alauddin’s hopes of starving the besieged Rajputs have, by the turn of the year, turned to ashes. And he still hasn’t set eyes upon this fabled beauty. Meanwhile, his soldiers are getting restless and bored: they murmur against their lot, the desert country they find themselves in, the obstinacy of these Rajput warriors, the lack of comfort and luxury they are used to in Delhi. Alauddin takes note of this growing disenchantment and hits upon another plan to get his way.

  He sends word to Rana Lakshman Singh that he will return to Delhi with his soldiers if he is granted the sight of Padmini in a mirror: just a reflection of her will satisfy him. And while he is inside the fortress, the Rana shall be held personally responsible for the Sultan’s safety. The Rajputs agree readily to this compromise. Alauddin silently congratulates himself on his shrewdness: never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that this race of hardy warriors could be duped so easily.

  The day arrives. The Pathan Sultan bathes in rose water, adorns himself in silks, pearls and emeralds. He departs for Chitorgarh castle accompanied by two hundred of his toughest soldiers, men who laugh at danger and death. Alauddin takes the steep, narrow road up to the fortress while his horsemen hide in the forests at the bottom of the hill. By the time he reaches the fort, another dark, chilly desert night has descended.

  Rana Bhim Singh, the queen’s brother-in-law, leads Alauddin to the white marble palace of Padmini. It is lit with thousands of candles, some of which, flickering and winking through the latticework windows, cast shadows and grids and nets that move and seem alive.

  The Sultan is seated on a gold and velvet couch. After a while he says, ‘Why the delay? Let’s have a vision of the Queen so I can depart for Delhi in peace.’ Rana Bhim Singh removes the covering from a huge Aleppo mirror placed directly in front of the Sultan. In the depths of that glass, dark and flawless as the doe’s eyes, Padmini is reflected like the light of a thousand suns. The Sultan cannot believe this creature is human. Incredulous, he rises out of his cushioned seat and reaches out his hands to touch this shadow in the lonely depths of the mirror. Rana Bhim Singh cries out, ‘Beware, Sultan, don’t touch her reflection.’ From her hidden place, Padmini reaches for a heavy goblet, picks it up and hurls it towards the mirror with all the strength in her body. The glass shatters into hundreds of little bits and her reflection instantly disappears, like the mirage that it was, with the harsh, brittle jangle of breaking glass, leaving only the blind, dull back of the frame. Alauddin is so startled that he steps back three paces. There are only empty shards of glass everywhere, jagged points of cold light. It is as if she was never there, as if the Sultan had dreamed everything.

  The horses move at such a slow canter, side by side, that Miss Gilby can hold the parasol in her left hand and the reins with her right with no degree of effort or stress. The morning mists have disappeared and it is another fine and golden autumn day. There is a light breeze, which sets the bamboo groves shivering with their rustling music, a sound Miss Gilby finds so comforting that she is convinced this particular tree is planted by gardeners not for the usual pleasures afforded by garden vegetation – its appeal to the eye, its fragrance, benevolent shade, fruit or flower – for none of those, but for its sound. As far as possible, she tries to direct her horse through these bamboo thickets to listen to their soothing papery rustle. Mr Roy Chowdhury seems to be in complete agreement with her about the music of bamboos: he calls it Nature’s Aeolian harp. Miss Gilby savours the felicitous comparison as the horses move along gently, past flooded rice fields with their eye-hurting green, past fragile mud embankments, past vast, watery fields of jute.

  The conversation starts with talk of Bimala, as usual. ‘How is she coming along, Miss Gilby?’ he asks.

  ‘Wonderfully, just wonderfully, I must say,’ she answers, throwing a smile in his direction. ‘We’re in the middle of learning a song – Long, long ago it’s called. Perhaps you know it, Mr Roy Chowdhury?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Bimala seems to hum nothing but English airs nowadays. Whatever it is she might be doing – folding clothes, cooking, arranging flowers, sitting with me while I eat – there is an English tune on her lips.’ He chuckles gently.

  Miss Gilby’s smile broadens. ‘Well, we are a success then, what do you think?’

  ‘Oh, an extraordinary success. She’s so much more confident now, so much more, more – what’s the word? – outgoing, I think, if that’s not too literal or punning. Did you know that Bimala’s naw jaa refuses to go to sleep nowadays unless Bimala reads out to her from one of her English books?’

  ‘Really?’ Miss Gilby is very surprised.

  ‘Yes, that’s the exact specification – a story from an English book. Bimala reads out every sentence in English – that’s part of the order, too – and then translates it for her. It seems to have become a daily ritual.’

  Miss Gilby laughs with sheer pleasure at this achievement.

  ‘It’s just as well that Bimala has someone to talk to these days: I’ve been occupied with so many things that I’ve hardly had the time to sit and have leisurely conversations with her.’

  ‘I have noticed there are some demands on your time of late. I’ve been wondering about all these meetings and this crowd of gentlemen who are around the house of evenings. Do they have anything to do with what I’ve been reading about in Dawn?’

  He remains quiet for a while, then lets out a sigh before saying, ‘Well, Miss Gilby, it’s a long story and I do not know how acquainted you are with recent political developments. I’m afraid I would just bore you to tears if I launched into it.’

  ‘On the contrary, Mr Roy Chowdhury, I shall be very glad to be enlightened. As it is, I feel somewhat in the dark, left out of great happenings.’

  ‘There are no great happenings. Just a gathering of Bengali men very concerned with the destruction of our industries, our country’s steady downward spiral into poverty. We’re trying to work out ways and means to address the issues and do something about them.’

  ‘Are government policies to blame for some of these ills?’ Miss Gilby wants it straight from the horse’s mouth.

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you or beat around the bush, Miss Gilby. You must know about things such as the abolition of cotton import duties more than twenty years ago, or the imposition of the countervailing excise fifteen years later. It seems that our country has become just a supplier of raw m
aterials to Europe. We grow cotton, or silk, it’s all shipped to England to be made into cloth, and this cloth, grown by us, on our soil, is sold back to us. Who does it benefit? Who makes the money? We have become a huge market for Europe. What is effectively erased is the need for industries in this country. Our production, our manufacturing, our sectors are all being wiped out. But it is our produce that powers British export.’ He pauses for a while. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Gilby.’

  She is silent, sensing that he hasn’t quite finished. If she hadn’t read about it beforehand, she would have been very shocked.

  ‘Do you know British traders are buying increasing quantities of foodgrains and agricultural raw materials for export? This is forcing up prices and causing periodic famines.’ There is another long pause. They take a turn at a narrow mud track running past a field of unidentifiable vegetation, thick, lush, and somewhat menacing. The track leads to the village: Miss Gilby can see the straggle of huts, the minarets of the small mosque and the market square, which is nothing now, now that there are no traders or farmers selling their wares here, but just a clearing, empty, deserted.

  ‘What is the solution, Mr Roy Chowdhury? Am I wrong in thinking that the changes you want, the establishment and flourishing of science-industries in Bengal – and all this I gather from my very recent and, I’m sure, very rudimentary and incomplete reading – this beginning of technical education, the revival of traditional and indigenous crafts, all of this huge venture, is impossible without some radical political changes?’ She’s not going to bring herself to utter the momentous word.

  ‘You’re right, Miss Gilby.’ He pauses again. Something in the air between them tells Miss Gilby that he is going to say the unsayable.

  He does. ‘All this could really be a preparation for the larger agitation for an independent India.’

  There, it is out in the open now, Miss Gilby thinks, relieved and concerned at the same time. There is a loose group of five or six men walking towards them. One of them is carrying a large basket on his head and another, two ploughshares. There is an enormous coil, like a rolled up garden hose, of what Miss Gilby used to think was water-lily stem in another man’s hands. She now knows it is an edible aquatic plant called shaapla, which bears beautiful pink flowers. The men look scantily dressed to Miss Gilby. This is one thing about India she has never come to terms with, this sparsity of attire of its people, the general and constant sense of dirtiness of the little they wear, as if those were the only articles of clothing they had and washing them would mean having to go unclad for the duration of washing and drying. The men’s clothes look threadbare and soiled even from this distance. They are probably poor farmers.

  Mr Roy Chowdhury obviously knows them for he gets off his horse with an ‘Excuse me, Miss Gilby, these are some of my tenants. Do you mind if I have a word or two with them? You can carry on ahead if you wish.’

  He dismounts as Miss Gilby says, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll just wait, shall I?’

  The men greet Mr Roy Chowdhury with long salaams. He, in turn, takes each man’s hand in his, individually, and lowers his head briefly. Miss Gilby is struck again by the respect with which Mr Roy Chowdhury treats everyone, his unshakeable sense of the dignity of every human being. The men cannot stop staring at her. She gives them a general smile, trots off a few paces ahead and waits while Mr Roy Chowdhury and the men exchange words, which sound to her agitated, concerned. At one point when she turns to look in their direction, she sees one of the men in what she can only term a supplicant’s position – arms outstretched and held up, palms open, much in the way Muslims pray to their Allah. Mr Roy Chowdhury speaks with both his hands clasped and held against his heart. From this distance, she cannot hear very much but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference even if she could for the local dialect is all but incomprehensible babble to her.

  After several minutes, Mr Roy Chowdhury joins her, his arms now laden with the bundle of shaapla stems; half a dozen or so of those stems end in delicate flowers. His brows are furrowed, his eyes shaded.

  ‘Not very good news, I’m afraid, Miss Gilby. The salt factory I started last year is making heavy losses. It seems unfeasible now to keep it running for much longer. These men say that because locally produced salt costs more than British salt, they’re finding it difficult to sell it to customers. They are suffering losses too. They want me to shut down the factory and let them sell foreign-manufactured products.’

  ‘Did you agree?’

  ‘I never asked them to sell swadeshi products only. For the very brief period they did, their losses were so heavy that I immediately reverted. These men are very poor, they have to make a living somehow.’

  There is a long silence. Mr Roy Chowdhury sighs again and attempts to introduce a lighter tone into the conversation. The effort is obvious. ‘Miss Gilby, I shouldn’t be heaping my petty concerns and burdens on you. I do apologize.’

  Before Miss Gilby has a chance to protest, he continues, ‘You know, my late brother, Hrishikesh – he was the husband of Bimala’s naw jaa – he used to be part of this secret society called Sanjibani Sabha in the ’70s, when he was a teenager. The members tried to set up a match factory and a handloom. When I was a little boy, he used to tell me stories of how the matches refused to ignite and how the handloom produced just one towel, one towel only, before it had to be shut down. I used to find it funny. I still do, but in a different way.’

  Miss Gilby is trying to think of an appropriate response when he points to the shaapla stems and says, ‘Shall we ask Bimala to get the cook to prepare this for lunch? Have you ever had this before? It’s usually added to a dal.’

  They have reached the gardens of ‘Dighi Bari’. Miss Gilby understands that conversation on politics is terminated for the day. Bimala is supervising the malee at the flowerbeds and greets them with a radiant smile.

  ‘The Magpie’,

  Wellesley Lane,

  Velloor,

  North Arcot,

  25th September 1904

  Dear Maud,

  Where have you come across what you call ‘dark mutterings’ about the division of Bengal? Why are you concerning yourself with such matters? What exactly you hear – and I cannot, with any confidence, assert what it is you have gathered by way of gossip and unsubstantiated rumour – I do not know for you do not tell me. Instead you ask a lot of questions about an imminent partition of Bengal. I understand that His Excellency Lord Curzon, during his short tour of Bengal earlier on in the year, might have given out to be understood that ambitious schemes for a larger readjustment of Bengal were being considered. The Indian newspapers have been full of this, beating it up into a froth of meaningless frenzy so that their narrow partisan interests are served at the expense of the Government.

  What I have gathered – and this might not be very much more than what you have gleaned from your own readings in Indian newspapers yourself – from conversations with people who might be involved with that burdensome and prickly project is already public, for the troublemakers in the Indian National Congress and various loose but no less seditious factions within Bengal have not ceased to trouble Her Majesty’s Government of India with petitions, letters, conferences, a veritable barrage of sound and fury, opposing the partition plan. The Bengalees, always a thorn in the side of the Government, like the Mahrattas, like to think themselves a nation, and dream of a future when the English will have been turned out, and a Bengalee Babu installed in the Government House, Calcutta. They will, of course, bitterly resent any disruption that will be likely to interfere with the realization of this dream. If we are weak enough to yield to their clamour now, we shall not be able to dismember or reduce Bengal again; the result will be a cementing and solidifying, on the eastern flank of India, a force already formidable, and certain to be a source of increasing trouble in the future.

  The diminution of the power of Bengalee political agitation will assist to remove a serious cause for anxiety: it is the growing power of a popula
tion with great intellectual gifts and a talent for making itself heard, a population which, though it is very far from representing the more manly characteristics of the many races of India, is not unlikely to influence public opinion at Home most mischievously. I notice even now that Bengalees, with their genius for intrigue, have already found their own advantage and are indulging their instinct in stirring up strife, so everything has to be done as arcana imperii. From a political point of view alone, putting aside the enormous administrative difficulties – which are better left to men who understand them best because they are complex, intricate and too difficult for women’s gentle and delicate minds to comprehend – that an undivided Bengal continues to present, partition is most necessary.

  The Bengalee race, and most predominantly, its power-hungry and overeducated Hindoo population – for it is the Hindoo population that constitutes the political voice of the Presidency, the Mohammedans having remained inactive so far – is given to conspiracies and endless schemes to consolidate its power and dominance over that Presidency. Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways: that is the current wisdom among us and almost wholly justifies any scheme for division. It is uniformly accepted and acknowledged, although no one will put it down on paper, that one of our main objects is to split up and thereby weaken a solid body of opponents to our rule.

  What the exact lines of division are going to be, which areas and districts will constitute the new Province of East Bengal, these are unknown to me for they are still in a state of flux and subject to endless discussions, but I gather that the district of Bograh, along with Rungpoor and Pubna – all your neck of the woods, as it were – are going to be transferred to the new Province. Simla might change all that. There seems to be a great air of secrecy and furtiveness about the whole business.