This time, Lalita dropped her gaze as soon as she looked at her.
‘We are well aware that Binoybabu thinks of us as family,’ said Sucharita. ‘But that is not solely to our credit, it owes much to his own ability.’
‘That I couldn’t say for sure, ma!’ replied Anandamoyi. ‘After all I have seen him ever since he was little. All these days, my Gora was his only friend. In fact I have noticed that Binoy could not mingle even with the men of his own community. But such has been the effect of his brief acquaintance with all of you that we, too, cannot reach him anymore. I wanted to pick a quarrel with you about this but now I find I must take his side. You people will outdo everyone else.’ With these words Anandamoyi touched Lalita’s chin, then Sucharita’s, and kissed her own fingers in a gesture of affection.
‘Binoybabu, Baba is back,’ said Sucharita compassionately, noticing Binoy’s wretchedness. ‘He is talking to Krishnadayalbabu in the outer room.’
At her words, Binoy hastened from the room. Now Anandamoyi began to speak of the rare friendship between Gora and Binoy. She was not unaware that her two listeners were not indifferent to the subject. To these two boys Anandamoyi had given all her devotion, the holy offering of all her mother-love; no one mattered more to her in all the world. Indeed she had moulded them personally like the shivalinga of a young girl’s prayers, but they had been the sole recipients of all her devotional efforts. Her narration of the story of these two deities raised in her own lap was so vivid, so saturated with affection, that listening to her, Sucharita and Lalita longed for more. They did not lack respect for Gora and Binoy but through the loving eyes of a mother such as Anandamoyi, they seemed to see the young men in a fresh perspective.
After meeting Anandamoyi, Lalita seemed to grow even more incensed at the magistrate. Anandamoyi smiled at her heated remarks.
‘Ma,’ she said, ‘the all-knowing Lord alone understands my anguish at Gora’s imprisonment. But I could not be angry with the saheb. I know Gora after all; he has a total disregard for rules and laws when it comes to his beliefs. If he does not observe the law, the dispensers of justice will of course send him to jail, and why should I blame them? Gora has performed his duty, they have performed theirs; if someone must suffer for this, suffer they will. If you read my Gora’s letter, ma, you will realize that he was not afraid of misery, nor vainly angry with anyone. He had acted with a definite awareness of what the fruits of certain actions might be.’
With these words, she drew Gora’s letter, carefully preserved, from her box, and handed it to Sucharita.
‘Please read it aloud, ma,’ she requested, ‘let me hear it once again.’
When Gora’s extraordinary letter had been read out the three of them remained silent for a while. Anandamoyi wiped the corner of her eye with her aanchal. Those tears contained not only the pain of a mother’s heart but also a mixture of joy and pride. Her Gora was no ordinary person, indeed! Was he the sort to be forgiven and set free by the magistrate! Had he not acknowledged all his guilt and deliberately shouldered the burden of all the sufferings of imprisonment? There was no need to quarrel with anybody about his sufferings. Gora was bearing them unflinchingly, and Anandamoyi, too, could bear the pain.
Lalita gazed at Anandamoyi’s face in surprise. The traditions of a Brahmo family were very firmly entrenched in Lalita’s mind; she had no respect for women who had not received a modern education, whom she knew as ‘daughters of Hindu households.’ In their childhood, when Borodasundari scolded them saying ‘Even daughters of Hindu households don’t do such things,’ Lalita would bow her head with a special sense of shame for the misdeed in question. Today, hearing Anandamoyi’s words, she was repeatedly overwhelmed with amazement. Anandamoyi’s strength was as extraordinary as her calmness and her astonishing soundness of judgement. Compared to this woman, Lalita felt extremely small and humble for her own lack of emotional restraint. Her mind was in turmoil today, hence she had neither glanced at Binoy nor even spoken to him. But gazing at Anandamoyi’s face, graced with affection, tenderness and peace, the heat of rebellion in her heart seemed to subside, easing her relations with everyone around her.
‘Having seen you now, I understand where all Gourbabu’s strength comes from,’ Lalita told Anandamoyi.
‘You don’t really understand,’ Anandamoyi corrected her. ‘Had my Gora been like other ordinary boys, where would I have found the strength? Could I have borne the thought of his misery in this way?’
It is necessary to offer a brief history of the cause for Lalita’s present state of anguish. These last few days, her first thought upon leaving her bed every morning was that Binoybabu would not visit them today. Yet all day long, not for an instant did her mind cease to await Binoy’s arrival. Moment to moment, she constantly imagined that perhaps Binoy had come, perhaps instead of coming upstairs he was talking to Poreshbabu in the room downstairs. There was no saying how many times in the day she needlessly went from room to room, on this account. Finally, when she went to bed at the end of the day, she didn’t know how to deal with her own heart. She felt like crying, fit to burst her heart, but at the same time she also felt angry, but with whom, it was hard to say. As if she was angry with herself. ‘What’s the matter!’ she asked herself constantly. ‘How will I live! I see no way out. How long can this continue!’
Lalita knew Binoy was a Hindu. There was no possibility of her marrying him. Yet, unable to control her heart by any means, her spirit drooped in shame and fear. That Binoy was not averse to her was something she sensed; it was because she realized this that she now found it hard to contain herself. Hence, while she anxiously awaited Binoy’s arrival, she also felt inwardly afraid that Binoy might arrive. Wrestling with her own emotions like this, her patience had collapsed this morning. Her heart seemed to be in constant turmoil at Binoy’s failure to arrive, and she felt that if she could only meet him once, her restlessness would disappear. In the morning she dragged Satish to her room. These days, his mashi’s presence had made Satish more or less forget about his friendly interchanges with Binoy.
‘Have you quarreled with Binoybabu then?’ Lalita asked him.
He strongly repudiated this slanderous suggestion.
‘What sort of friend is he!’ taunted Lalita. ‘You keep speaking of Binoybabu, but he doesn’t even spare you a glance.’
‘Ish! As if that’s true!’ exclaimed Satish. ‘Never!’
As the family’s tiniest member, Satish often had to assert himself vociferously in this manner, to establish his prestige. Now, to demonstrate it even more definitely, he rushed to Binoy’s house at once. Upon his return he said:
‘He’s not at home, that’s why he couldn’t visit us.’
‘Why didn’t he visit us these last few days?’ Lalita wanted to know.
‘Because he was away all these days.’
‘Didibhai,’ Lalita now proposed to Sucharita, ‘we ought to visit Gourbabu’s mother once.’
‘But we don’t know them,’ Sucharita protested.
‘Why, wasn’t Gourbabu’s father Baba’s childhood friend, after all?’ Lalita reminded her.
‘Yes, indeed he was,’ Sucharita now recalled. She too became very enthusiastic.
‘Bhai Lalita,’ she said, ‘go speak to Baba about this.’
‘No, I can’t talk to him. You go ask him.’
Ultimately it was Sucharita who went to Poreshbabu.
‘You’re quite right,’ he instantly agreed, when she broached the subject. ‘We should have visited them long ago.’
After their meal, as soon as their visit had been planned, Lalita’s heart rebelled. Petulance and doubt assailed her unaccountably, and began to pull her in a contrary direction.
‘Didi, you go with Baba,’ she told Sucharita. ‘I’m not going.’
‘How is that possible!’ Sucharita expostulated. ‘I can’t go alone without you. Bhai, my angel, please let’s go, don’t make a fuss.’
After a lot of persuasion Lalita accompani
ed her. But she seethed at the humiliation of this defeat, for she had been outdone by Binoy. He could easily abstain from visiting their house, but here she was, rushing to meet him! In her heart she strove to deny outright that it was the hope of glimpsing Binoy there that had made her so enthusiastic about visiting Anandamoyi’s house. Due to that stubborn desire, she neither glanced at Binoy nor returned his namaskar, nor spoke a word to him. Binoy concluded that because Lalita had detected his secret feelings, she was ignoring him like this by way of repudiation. He did not have the self-assurance to imagine that Lalita might actually be in love with him. He came and stood bashfully at the door.
‘Poreshbabu wants to go home now,’ he announced. ‘He has asked me to inform everyone.’ He made sure to remain beyond Lalita’s range of vision.
‘How is that possible!’ Anandamoyi protested. ‘How can he leave us without tasting some sweets! It won’t take long. Wait a little Binoy, let me go and see. Why are you standing outside? Come and join us inside the room.’
Keeping his face averted, Binoy somehow found a place far away from Lalita,.
‘Binoybabu,’ said Lalita in a natural tone, as if there had been nothing unusual in her conduct towards him before this. ‘Are you aware that your friend Satish went to your house this morning to find out whether you’ve completely abandoned him!’
Binoy jumped in amazement, as people do when they suddenly hear a divine prophecy from the heavens. Embarrassed that he had started so visibly, he failed to summon up a reply with his customary skill.
‘Had Satish gone there, then?’ he asked, flushing to the tips of his ears. ‘But I was not in!’
These casual words from Lalita aroused great elation in Binoy’s heart. In an instant, a vast cloud of doubt was lifted from over the whole universe, vanishing like a stifling nightmare. As if this was all he desired in this world. ‘I am saved! I am saved!’ his heart began to chant. Lalita was not angry, she did not mistrust him at all. In no time, all constraints were removed.
‘Binoybabu has suddenly taken us for long-nailed, sharp-toothed, horned, armed demons, or something of the sort,’ laughed Sucharita.
‘In this world, those who keep quiet, unable to complain openly, are the ones who end up as the accused,’ protested Binoy. ‘Didi, such words don’t become you. You have yourself become so remote, and now you imagine that others have grown distant.’
This was the first time Binoy had addressed Sucharita as Didi, his elder sister. It sounded sweet to her ears. From their very first acquaintance, she had developed a sisterly tenderness for Binoy, a feeling that assumed a concrete, affectionate shape as soon as he addressed her as Didi.
The daylight had almost waned when Poreshbabu took his leave, along with his daughters.
‘Ma, I won’t let you do any work today,’ said Binoy to Anandamoyi. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’
He was finding it impossible to contain the turbulence in his heart. Taking Anandamoyi to the room upstairs, with his own hands he spread a mat for her on the floor.
‘Binu, what is it?’ asked Anandamoyi. ‘What is it you want to say?’
‘I have nothing to say,’ he declared. ‘You must speak to me.’ It was to hear Anandamoyi’s opinion of Poreshbabu’s daughters that Binoy’s heart was yearning so restlessly.
‘So, is this why you called me here?’ exclaimed Anandamoyi. ‘I ask you, is there something you want to say?’
‘If I hadn’t called you here, you would have missed watching such a sunset,’ Binoy replied.
That evening, above the Kolkata rooftops, the Agrahayan sunset looked rather pale. There was nothing unusual in the sun’s radiance. In a corner of the sky, the golden glow blended indistinctly with dusty vapours. But even the dullness of this faded dusk had lent a rosy hue to Binoy’s mind today. He began to feel that he was closely encircled in every direction, as if the sky was touching him.
‘They are good girls, both of them,’ remarked Anandamoyi.
Binoy did not let the discussion end there. He kept it alive from diverse perspectives, recalling sundry small incidents from long ago, involving Poreshbabu’s daughters. Many of these were insignificant, but on that lonely, fading Agrahayan evening, owing to Binoy’s eagerness and Anandamoyi’s curiosity, these unknown fragments of minor domestic history were infused with a profound glory. Suddenly, at one point, Anandamoyi sighed.
‘I would be very happy if Sucharita were married to Gora,’ she blurted out.
‘Ma, I’ve often thought of it,’ cried Binoy, jumping up. ‘She is just the companion for Gora!’
‘But would it be possible?’
‘Why not? I don’t think Gora dislikes Sucharita.’
Anandamoyi was not unaware that Gora had been attracted by someone. That the woman in question was Sucharita, she had also gleaned from some of Binoy’s remarks.
‘But would Sucharita marry into a Hindu household?’ Anandamoyi wondered aloud, after remaining silent for a while.
‘Tell me, Ma,’ said Binoy, ‘can’t Gora marry into a Brahmo household? Would you not approve?’
‘I would approve wholeheartedly.’
‘You would?’ Binoy asked again.
‘Yes indeed, Binu! Marriages are born when two hearts meet; who cares what mantras are chanted on the occasion, baba! As long as you take God’s name in some form or other.’
A load seemed to lift from Binoy’s mind. ‘Ma, I feel very surprised to hear such words from you. Where did you acquire such largeness of heart?’
‘From Gora,’ smiled Anandamoyi.
‘But Gora says the exact opposite!’
‘What if he does? All that I know is imbibed from Gora. How real an entity is man, and how false are the causes that prompt men to partisanship, fighting and killing! That’s something the Almighty made me realize the day He gave me Gora. Who is a Brahmo, baba, and who is a Hindu, for that matter? The human heart has no caste or creed; it is the site where the Lord brings everyone together and unites with them Himself. Can we afford to spurn Him and depend solely on mantras and opinions to bring about unity?’
Binoy touched Anandamoyi’s feet respectfully.
‘Ma, your words are music to my ears,’ he declared. ‘My day has proved worthwhile, indeed.’
~37~
Sucharita’s mashi Harimohini posed a serious problem for Poreshbabu’s family. Before describing it, an abridged version of Harimohini’s self-introductory remarks to Sucharita is offered below:
I was two years older than your mother. The two of us received boundless affection in our parental home. For at that time, only the two of us, both girls, had been born into the family, and there was no other infant in the house. Our kakas pampered us so much, we never felt any hardship.
At the age of eight I was married off into the famous Roychoudhury family of Palsa, as distinguished in lineage as in wealth. But I was not destined to be happy. At the time of my marriage, my father had fallen out with my father-in-law over the wedding expenses and other related matters. For a long time, my in-laws could not forgive my father’s family for that offence. ‘We’ll get our boy married again,’ they would all say. ‘Let’s see the girl’s plight then.’ It was the sight of my misery that made my father vow never to marry his daughters into a rich family. That was why he had married your mother into a poor household.
Many families lived together in my marital home. At the age of eight or nine, I had to cook for almost fifty or sixty people. After serving everyone else, I had to survive on plain rice, or sometimes with rice and dal. Sometimes I would get to eat at two in the afternoon, sometimes at the very end of the day. As soon as I had eaten, I had to go and cook the evening meal. I could dine only at eleven or twelve at night. There was no clearly designated place for me to sleep. In the private quarters of the antahpur, I would sleep next to anyone, wherever and whenever it suited their convenience! Sometimes I had to place a pinri to sleep on the wooden seat.
The general neglect I faced from everyone in the house could
not but affect my husband’s attitude. For a long time he kept me at arm’s length. When I was seventeen, my daughter Manorama was born. Having given birth to a girl-child, I was subjected to even greater humiliation by my in-laws. Amidst all the neglect and shame that I suffered, it was this girl who became my sole consolation, my only joy. Because Manorama had not received much affection from her father or anyone else, she became the object of my heartfelt love.
Three years later, when I produced a boy, my status began to change. Then I became worthy of being considered the mistress of the household. My mother-in-law was no more, and my father-in-law had also left us just a couple of years after Manorama was born. Immediately after his demise, we were involved in property disputes with my deors, my husband’s younger brothers. Ultimately, having squandered much of our property on legal expenses, we broke off from the rest of the family. When Manorama was of marriageable age, fearing that she might be taken far away, that I should never see her again, I married her off into Simulé village, five or six krosh away from Palsa. The boy looked just like the god Kartika, as fair as he was handsome. And they had the means of subsistence as well.
I had suffered great degradation and hardship once, but before misfortune struck, providence had temporarily granted me happiness in equal measure. In his last days, my husband showed me great care and respect, never taking a step without first consulting me. How could I enjoy such an excess of good fortune without paying a price? My son and husband died of cholera, four days apart. Ishwar the Almighty kept me alive just to demonstrate that human beings can tolerate even the sort of pain that is unimaginable.
Gradually, I began to discover my son-in-law’s true nature. Who would have imagined that such a venomous serpent could lie hidden within such a beautiful flower? That he had fallen into bad company and become an addict was something even my daughter never told me. My jamai, this son-in-law, would come to me at odd times and ask for money, citing all sorts of needs. I had no need to save for anyone else in the world, so when my jamai asked my indulgence, I rather liked it. Sometimes my daughter would dissuade me. She would scold me, saying: ‘You are spoiling him by giving him money like this; when money comes his way, there’s no saying when and how he squanders it.’ I would imagine that Manorama was forbidding me to give him money because her in-laws would lose respect if her husband accepted money from me in this fashion.
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