Sachish took up tutoring pupils privately, and Jagmohan became headmaster of a high school. Harimohan and Purandar embarked on a mission to rescue the children of respectable families from the clutches of the atheist pedagogue.
5
ONE DAY NOT LONG AFTERWARDS SACHISH SUDDENLY APPEARED IN Jagmohan’s upper-floor study. The custom of making obeisance, or pranam, being alien to them, Jagmohan embraced Sachish and offering him a seat on the bed, asked, ‘What news?’
There was indeed some special news.
A widowed girl called Nonibala and her widowed mother had taken refuge in the house of a maternal uncle. She was safe as long as her mother was with her, but the old woman had died not long ago. The girl’s cousins were scoundrels. One of their cronies lured Nonibala out of the house and seduced her. After some days he became prey to jealousy, suspected Noni of betraying him, and started heaping insults on her. All this was going on next door to the house where Sachish was employed as tutor to the children. Sachish wanted to rescue the wretched girl. But he had neither money, nor a place where he could take her; hence the visit to Uncle. By now the girl had become pregnant.
Jagmohan flew into a rage. If he could have laid hands on the seducer he would have instantly crushed the fellow’s head! He wasn’t the sort of person to deliberate calmly on such matters. ‘Very well,’ he declared. ‘My library is empty. I’ll put her up there.’
‘The library!’ Sachish exclaimed in surprise.’But what about the books?’
During the time that Jagmohan had been looking for a job he supported himself by selling off his books. Those that remained could be easily accommodated in his bedroom.
‘Fetch the girl straightaway,’ Jagmohan said.
‘I’ve already brought her,’ Sachish replied. ‘She’s waiting downstairs.’
Jagmohan went down and saw the girl cringing like a little bundle of rags on the floor of the room by the staircase. He swept into the room like a gale and said in his deep voice, Come, my little mother. Why are you squatting in the dust?’
The girl buried her face in a corner of her sari and broke into sobs.
Tears didn’t come easily to Jagmohan’s eyes, but they brimmed over now.
‘Sachish,’ he said, ‘the shame this girl has to bear today belongs equally to you and me. Who has forced such a burden on her?’
Then to her, ‘Ma, your shyness won’t do before me. My schoolmates nicknamed me Jagai the Madcap. I am still the same madcap.’
So saying he unhesitatingly took the girl’s two hands and drew her to her feet. Her sari slipped from her head. Such a young and tender face, free of the slightest taint of disgrace! She was lovely as a raintree blossom, and just as dust on a flower cannot destroy its essential purity, so the beauty of her sacred inner being had remained unbesmirched. Her dark eyes were fearful like those of a wounded gazelle, her lissome frame was constricted by a sense of shame, but her frank sorrow revealed no sign of stigma.
Jagmohan took Nonibala upstairs to his room and said, ‘Ma, look at the state of my room. The broom hasn’t touched it in ages, everything’s topsyturvy, and as for me I eat at no fixed time. Now that you are here, my room will become neat and tidy again, and even Jagai the Madcap will be able to live like a human being.’
Nonibala hadn’t known till this day what human beings could mean to each other. She hadn’t known it even when her mother was alive, for her mother had come to see her not simply as a daughter, but as a widowed daughter, and this defined a relationship that was like a path strewn with the tiny thorns of foreboding. So how could a complete stranger like Jagmohan rend the veil of such judgements and accept her totally?
He engaged an elderly maidservant and did everything to make Nonibala feel at home. Noni had been very apprehensive that Jagmohan wouldn’t accept food from her hands—she was a fallen woman, after all. As things turned out, Jagmohan was unwilling to accept food except from her hands; he even swore that unless she cooked his meals and served them herself, he wouldn’t eat at all.
Jagmohan knew another round of condemnation was imminent. Noni too knew this and had no end of anxiety on this account. It started in a few days. The maidservant had taken Noni to be Jagmohan’s daughter. Then one day she came and after heaping abuse on Noni walked out on her job with a display of great disgust. Noni grew despondent out of solicitude for Jagmohan. He comforted her, saying, ‘Ma, the full moon has risen in my house, it’s time for the flood-tide of calumny to rise. But however muddy the waves, they can’t taint my moonlight.’
An aunt on Jagmohan’s father’s side walked over from Harimohan’s part of the house and said, ‘How disgusting, Jagai! Get rid of this sin.’
‘You people are religious,’ Jagmohan said, ‘so you can say such a thing. But if I get rid of the sin, what is to be the fate of the poor sinner?’
A distant cousin of his grandmother came and advised, ‘Send the girl to hospital. Harimohan is willing to bear all expenses.’
‘But she is a mother,’ Jagmohan replied. ‘Can I send a mother to hospital for no reason, just because money is available for the purpose? What sort of logic does Harimohan follow?’
‘Who do you call a mother?’ said the cousin, raising her eyebrows.
‘A person who nurtures life in her womb, who risks her own life to give birth to her child. The heartless creature who fathered the child I’ll never call a father. That fellow only puts the girl in trouble but doesn’t face any trouble himself.’
Harimohan was overcome with disgust, as if his entire body had been soaked in filth. How could one bear the thought that on the other side of the boundary wall of a respectable home, on property that had come down from one’s revered ancestors, a fallen woman lived so brazenly?
Harimohan readily believed that Sachish was intimately involved in this heinous sin and was indulged in it by his atheist uncle. Wherever he went he spread this tale with great outrage.
Jagmohan didn’t do anything to stem the tide of obloquy.
‘The religious scriptures of us atheists decree the hellfire of calumny as the prize for good deeds,’ he pronounced.
The more varied and colourful the rumours that spread, the more Jagmohan and Sachish gave themselves up to satiric merriment. To joke with one’s nephew over something so sordid was unheard-of by Harimohan or respectable citizens like him.
Purandar hadn’t stepped into Jagmohan’s part of the house since it was partitioned. But he now swore that his prime task in life was to drive the girl out of the neighbourhood.
Jagmohan, when he went to school, secured all entrances to his house and, whenever during the day he could take some time off, didn’t fail to come and check if everything was safe.
One day around noon Purandar placed a ladder against the parapet of the roof on his father’s half of the house and descended into Jagmohan’s portion. Nonibala had finished her midday meal and dozed off, leaving the door of her room open.
Purandar entered the room and, seeing her, roared in anger and surprise, ‘So! You are here!’
Startled out of sleep, Noni’s face turned pale at the sight of Purandar. She didn’t have the strength to flee or to say anything. Quivering with rage, Purandar called her name, ‘Noni!’
Just at that moment Jagmohan entered the room from behind and screamed, ‘Get out! Get out of my house!’
Purandar puffed up like an enraged cat.
‘If you don’t leave at once I’ll call the police,’ Jagmohan threatened;
Purandar shot a fiery glance at Noni and left. Noni fainted.
Jagmohan understood now. When he asked Sachish he found that Sachish knew it was Purandar who had ruined the girl’s life, but had kept the information from Jagmohan lest he became angry and created an uproar. Sachish knew that Noni wouldn’t be safe from Purandar’s persecution anywhere else in Calcutta; if there was any place where Purandar wouldn’t dare intrude it was his uncle’s house.
Seized with fear, Noni trembled like a bamboo shoot for several days, then gave birth
to a stillborn child.
Purandar had literally kicked Noni out one midnight, and had then, for a long time, looked for her in vain. On discovering her in his uncle’s house he burned from top to toe with jealousy. He assumed that Sachish had enticed her away to keep her for his own enjoyment and had put her up in Jagmohan’s house in order to add insult to injury. On no account could this be tolerated.
Harimohan came to know of all this. In fact Purandar felt no embarrassment about letting his father find out. Harimohan looked upon his son’s misdeeds with something like affectionate indulgence. He considered it highly unnatural and immoral of Sachish to snatch the girl from Purandar. It became his firm resolve that Purandar should avenge the insufferable insult and injustice by retrieving what was rightfully his. He put up money to hire the services of a woman who would pose as Noni’s mother and plead with Jagmohan to give back her daughter. But Jagmohan drove the imposter away with such a terrible look on his face that she didn’t dare go back.
Noni grew emaciated day by day, till she seemed about to fade away into her shadow. The Christmas holiday had come. Jagmohan didn’t leave her alone in the house even for a moment.
One evening he was reading a novel by Scott and retelling the story to Noni in Bengali. Just then Purandar stormed into the room with another youth. When Jagmohan rose with threats to call the police, the youth insisted, ‘I am Noni’s brother, I have come to take her home.’
Without another word Jagmohan grabbed Purandar by the neck, marched him to the stairs and with one shove sent him clattering on his way. To the youth he thundered, ‘Have you no shame? When Noni needs protection you are nowhere around, and when people try to ruin her you join them saying you are her brother!’
The young man backed away quickly, but from a distance he shouted back that he would seek police assistance to rescue his sister. He was indeed Noni’s brother; Purandar had asked him along in order to make out that it was Sachish who had brought about Noni’s ruin.
Noni prayed silently, ‘O Mother Earth, swallow me up.’
Jagmohan called Sachish and said, ‘Let me take Noni to some town upcountry. I’ll find some sort of a job. The persecution has reached such a pitch that the poor girl won’t survive here much longer.’
‘When my elder brother is involved the persecution will follow wherever you go,’ Sachish replied.
‘Then what is to be done?’
‘There is a way out. I’ll marry Noni.’
‘Marry?’
‘Yes, according to Civil Law.’
Jagmohan hugged Sachish to his chest. Tears streamed from his eyes. In all his life, he had never shed such tears.
6
SINCE THE PARTITION OF THE HOUSE HARIMOHAN HADN’T VISITED Jagmohan even once. One day he turned up suddenly, all dishevelled and distraught. ‘Dada,’ he said, ‘what’s this disaster I’ve been hearing about?’ ‘Disaster was imminent, but a way has been found to avert it.’ ‘Dada, Sachish is like a son to you—how can you let him marry that fallen woman?’
‘I have brought up Sachish like a son, and my efforts have borne fruit today. He has done something to gladden our hearts.’
‘Dada, I’ ll surrender to you—I’ll give up half my income to you—please don’t wreak such terrible vengeance on me.’
Jagmohan stood up from the cot on which he was sitting.
‘Indeed! You have come to pacify the dog with the leavings on your plate! I’m not a pious man like you, I’m an atheist, remember that. I don’t seek revenge in anger, nor do I accept charity.’
Next, Harimohan turned up at Sachish’s lodgings. He drew him aside and said, ‘What’s that I hear? Couldn’t you find some other way to ruin your life? How can you dishonour the family like this?’
‘I wasn’t keen on marriage,’ Sachish replied, ‘but I’m trying to erase the stain of dishonour from our family.’
‘Haven’t you any moral sense?’ Harimohan said. ‘That girl is virtually your Dada’s wife, yet you. . .’
‘Virtually his wife?’ Sachish interrupted in protest. ‘Don’t you dare say such a thing.’
After that Harimohan hurled at Sachish whatever abuse came to his mind. Sachish made no reply.
Harimohan found himself in dire straits because Purandar was shamelessly telling everybody that he would commit suicide if Sachish married Noni. ‘That would end the bother,’ Purandar’s wife said, ‘but you don’t have the guts to do it.’ Harimohan didn’t quite believe Purandar’s threat, but neither could he stop worrying about it.
Sachish had avoided Noni’s company all these days. He hadn’t ever seen her alone, and it was doubtful if he had exchanged even a couple of words with her. When the final arrangements for the marriage had been made Jagmohan told Sachish, ‘Before the wedding you ought to have a word with Noni in private. You need to know each other’s true feelings.’
Sachish agreed.
Jagmohan set a date. ‘Ma,’ he said to Noni when the day arrived. ‘You must dress up now to my liking.’
Noni lowered her eyes bashfully.
‘No, Ma, don’t be shy. It’s my fond wish to see you fully decked out today. Please satisfy my whim.’
He then handed her a set of clothes he had bought himself—a gilt-embroidered Benares sari, blouse and veil.
Noni reverently bent down to take the dust of his feet. He hastily drew back his feet and said, ‘In all these days I’ve failed to rid you of your reverence for me. I may be older in years, but you, Ma , are greater than I because you are a mother.’
Then kissing the top of her head he said, ‘I have an invitation to Bhabatosh’s—I may be a little late.’
Noni took his hand. ‘Baba,’ she said, ‘give me your blessing today.’
‘Ma, I can see very clearly that you’ll turn this old atheist, in his dotage, into a believer. I don’t care a straw about blessings, but when I see that face of yours I must confess I do feel like blessing you.’
He took her chin to raise her face and gazed silently at it; tears streamed from her eyes.
That evening messengers hastened to Bhabatosh’s to call Jagmohan home. When he came he saw Noni lying in bed in the clothes he had given her, clutching a note in her hand. Sachish was at the head of the bed. Jagmohan opened the note and read:
Baba,
I can’t go on. Please forgive me. All these days I have tried heart and soul for your sake, but I can’t forget him even now. A million obeisances on your blessed feet.
The sinner Nonibala
Sachish
1
ON HIS DEATHBED JAGMOHAN SAID TO SACHISH, ‘IF YOU FANCY A SRADDHA have one for your father, but not for your uncle.’
This is how he died. When the plague first came to Calcutta people were more fearful of the uniformed government employees who carted victims off to quarantine than of the disease itself. Harimohan reckoned that the tanners in the neighbourhood would be among the first to catch the disease; and then his family would surely die with those wretches. Before escaping to safety, he approached his brother with an offer. ‘Dada,’ he said, ‘I’ve found a house in Kalna, on the bank of Ganges, If you . . .’
‘Splendid!’ Jagmohan said. ‘But how can I abandon these people?’
‘Who?’
‘The tanners.’
Harimohan made a wry face and left. He went to Sachish’s lodgings and said, ‘Come with us.’
‘I have work to do,’ Sachish said.
‘What, playing undertaker to those tanners?’
‘Well, yes, if necessary.
‘Necessary indeed! It seems you might consider it necessary to consign your ancestors to hell, you wicked atheist.’
Harimohan saw ominous signs of apocalypse, and returned home filled with despair. That day, to bring himself luck, he filled a quire of paper with the holy name of Durga in a minuscule hand.
Harimohan left Calcutta. The plague reached the neighbourhood. Victims were reluctant to call in a doctor lest he force them to move into hospital. Ja
gmohan visited the plague hospitals.
Saying on his return, ‘Should the sick be treated like criminals?’ he converted his house into a hospital. Sachish and a handful of us were volunteer nurses; a doctor also joined our team.
Our first patient was a Muslim; he died. The second was Jagmohan himself; he didn’t survive either. ‘The creed I have lived by all my life has given me its parting gift,’ he said to Sachish. ‘I have no regrets.’
Sachish, who had never made obeisance to Uncle when he was alive, bent down and for the first and last time reverently touched his feet.
When Harimohan next met Sachish he said, ‘This is how atheists meet their end.’
‘Exactly!’ said Sachish with pride.
2
JUST AS THE LIGHT OF A LAMP PUT OUT BY A PUFF OF BREATH VANISHES instantly, after Jagmohan’s death Sachish disappeared—we didn’t know where.
It’s impossible for us to Imagine how much Sachish loved Uncle. Uncle was Sachish’s father, friend, and even—in a sense—his son. For he was so absent-minded about himself and so ignorant of wordly affairs, that one of Sachish’s prime responsibilities was to keep him out of trouble. Thus it was through Uncle that Sachish acquired what was his own and gave away what he had to contribute of his own.
It is also futile to try to imagine how Sachish was affected by the void left by Uncle’s death, Sachish struggled in intolerable anguish to establish that the void could never in fact be so empty, that no emptiness was so absolute that it left no room for truth. For if it wasn’t the case that what was ‘No’ in one sense was also ‘Yes’ in another, then through the tiny hole of that ‘No’ the entire universe would vanish into nothingness.
Sachish roamed the countryside for two years, and I had no contact with him. Our group continued with its activities with increased vigour. We became the scourge of those who had any kind of religious belief, and deliberately undertook charitable work of the sort that would not win the approval of our more respectable contemporaries. Sachish had been the flower in our midst; when he stepped aside only our naked thorns were displayed.
Tagore Omnibus, Volume 1 Page 47