The younger guests had a look of envy in their eyes. One of them remarked, ‘The demon has raided paradise and brought home this angel tied in a chain of gold.’ Another one said, ‘In the olden days kings fought over such damsels. These days export earnings from oilseeds will do the trick. The gods of our kali era lack taste. All the stars presiding over our destiny now seem to belong to the commercial caste.’
Then followed a host of rituals presided over and participated in exclusively by women; these rituals stretched till evening fell. The night that followed was the kaalraatri or the fatal night on which the bridegroom and his bride are required to sleep apart.
The only wedding Kumu had any clear memory of was the one of her elder sister, but she had not seen any new bride come to the house. From her teens she had been in the loving, innocent care of her brother in Kolkata. Her girlish dream world was not moulded by the grossness of a common household. When as a child she was taught to pray for a good husband, her ideal was the great ascetic god, Shiva, the lord of the Himalayas. Her ideal of a devoted wife was none other than her own mother. What serene grace, what patience, how much sorrow, how much prayer and worship, what tireless caring. On the other hand, her father had lapses of behaviour and flaws in his fidelity; even then, his was a character great in generosity, resolute in manliness, totally devoid of any meanness or deceit and with a sense of dignity that gave him the appearance of some classical character. His life was a daily confirmation that honour was above life and real wealth was more than money. Their motto was to preserve their family pride unsullied even if it harmed their petty interests, it was never to propagate the glory of their family fortune.
The day that the broker had brought the proposal and her left eye had twitched signifying a good omen, she had prepared herself with all her devotion and dedication. It had never crossed her mind that anything small or untoward could come in the way. How did the legendary Damayanti know intuitively that she had to choose the king of Vidarbha, Nala, as her husband?
She must have had a definite signal in her mind. Did Kumu not have any such certain indication? She was all ready for a grand reception of her lord and husband. The king did come, but the reality was so different from what her mind had created. Neither his appearance nor his age would have mattered. But where was he—the real king she dreamed of?
And today, when she was being welcomed through the gates of a ritual, into her new home, why was the deep chant of benediction that would have made this new bride sense within herself the blessings of the heavens, missing? Why did not the entire ceremony fulfil itself with the rich paean of praise for the Creator of this universe—who combines in Himself the eternal male and the eternal female—
Jagatah pitarau bande parbati-parameshwarau!
22
WHEN HE HAD FIRST COME TO LIVE IN KOLKATA, MADHUSUDAN HAD bought an old house, which now served as the ladies’ quarters. He had added to the original structure a huge modern building which was now his drawing room and office. The two buildings were joined together but they were, in fact, two different worlds. The floors in the outer building were in marble, covered with English carpets, the walls were papered with designs and all kinds of pictures were hung—engravings, oleographs and oil paintings depicting hounds chasing deer, famous Derby-winning horses, English landscapes or bathing nudes. There were also diverse objects which put together in that room were quite unrelated, irrelevant and ill-placed, such as chinaware displayed along with brassware from Moradabad, Japanese fans alongside Tibetan fly-whisks. The task of acquiring these objets d’art and decorating the room fell on his English assistant. The room was also crowded with chairs and sofas upholstred in silk and velvet. Magnificently bound books were kept in a glass case, never touched except by the room bearer’s duster. The teapoys were loaded with albums of family portraits or pictures of English actresses.
The rooms in the interior of the house, on the other hand, were damp, dank and full of soot-covered cobwebs. The courtyard was always dirty. Washing of clothes and utensils seemed to be unending operations and the water tap was always running, even when there was no such activity. Wet saris hung down from the first floor balconies for drying; and parrots’ droppings littered the veranda downstairs. The walls bore permanent memories of paan stains and various other marks of decay. Behind the step on the west of the courtyard was the kitchen. From there, the smell of cooking and the smoke pervaded through all the rooms upstairs. Outside the kitchen there was a small walled space heaped with burnt coal, oven ash, broken pots, baskets and ladles full of holes. At the other end a couple of cows and their calves were tied up amidst the piled up straw and cowdung. The whole wall was plastered with cowdung cakes. A solitary neem tree stood at one end, devoid of its bark, lost through constant tying up of cows. It was in a poor shape and mercilessly denuded of its leaves. This was the only piece of land in this part of the house. All the rest was outside and landscaped with creepers, flower beds, mowed lawns, gravelled paths and iron seats.
Kumudini’s bedroom was on the second floor in this inner building. There was a huge mahogany bed in it, framed by a mosquito net with silk frills. Towards the foot of the bed hung a picture of a nude woman pretending to hide her shame by pressing both her hands on her breasts. At the head was a portrait in oil of Madhusudan himself, prominently displaying the intricate embroidery of his Kashmiri shawl. On one wall was a mirrored clothes cupboard. There were two ceramic candlestands on either side of the mirror and on a ceramic tray were a box of face powder, a silver comb, several types of perfume and a spray along with a host of other cosmetics all bought by the English assistant. A bouquet was kept in a branched pink flower vase. In another corner there was a writing table with pens, an inkstand made of precious stones, paper-cutters and other writing materials. There were also thickly-cushioned sofas and chairs scattered about. Madhusudan had given special thought to a proper bedroom for the new Maharani. But the result was like a beggar in rags wearing a turban adorned with diamonds and emeralds.
In the night, at the end of a rush of noisy celebrations, Kumu finally reached her room. Motir-ma accompanied her. She was to sleep tonight in this room. A number of women followed them. Their curiosity and craving for fun was insatiable, but Motir-ma got rid of them. As she entered the room she put her arms round Kumu and said, ‘I am going to the next room. Do cry as much as you want to. I can see the tears welling up from your heart.’
Kumu sat down on a chair. Tears could wait, her need of the moment was to take hold of herself. What really was eating into her was the humiliation she felt within herself. Her mind was revolting against all that she had carefully cherished all these years. She was not getting any time to control her wayward mind. ‘Lord give me strength, do not make my life hollow. I am your maid, make me win over myself. That will be thy own triumph,’ she prayed.
A pretty, buxom young widow barged into the room and said, ‘I could manage to slip in only now in this little interval Motir-ma has allowed you. She won’t let anyone come near you, as if all of us are wanting to kidnap you from her custody. I am Shyamasundari, the widow of your husband’s elder brother. All of us thought that he would get married to his books of account in the end. But I must admit that those books do have magical powers. That’s how he could get such a pretty bride at his age. Tell me truthfully, have you really liked my old brother-in-law?’
Kumu was taken by surprise. She didn’t know what to say.
Quickly drawing her own conclusions, Shyamasundari said, ‘I see. Even if you haven’t liked him, there is no way out. Now that you have taken with him the seven steps round the sacred fire, twenty-one steps the other way round will not un-knot it.’
‘What are you trying to say, sister?’
‘Is it an offence to speak out the plain truth? I can read your face. But I shall not blame you. He may be our own man but I am no fool. Let me tell you little sister, you are in tough hands!’
Motir-ma came back. Shyama said, ‘Not to worry. I am off. S
ince you were away, I thought of just looking up our new bride. Truly she is a prize possession to be guarded carefully. I was just thinking, the new wife has got a hold on her husband like half a headache. But if one side of the head brings you fortune, you need to use the rest of your head to keep that luck going. She’ll need to get hold of his whole head, otherwise there’s no point.’
She rushed out of the room but came back immediately with a case of paan and offered one to Kumu asking if she were used to tobacco flakes as well in her paan. She then took a mouthful of tobacco herself and slowly walked out.
Motir-ma also left, for she had to feed some aunt or the other.
Shyamasundari left Kumu with a bad taste in her mouth. What Kumu needed most at this hour was the comfort of dreams which she was weaving around herself, invoking the help of the supreme artist who endows the universe with beauty and colour of many hues. Shyama had torn into that web of dreams. Deeply affected by Shyamasundari’s opinion of her distaste for her new husband, Kumu closed her eyes firmly and tried to tell herself, ‘What a shame! To think that I do not love my husband because of his age! It is such a vulgar throught.’ She remembered the legend of Sati and how Sati had also faced similar taunts about Shiva, her old husband-to be, and how resolutely she had ignored them.
Any thought about her husband’s looks or his age had never crossed Kumu’s mind. The love which makes marriage between a man and a woman real is an amalgam of looks and virtues, qualities of body and mind. Kumu never thought of them as necessities. She was trying to dismiss the whole matter of personal choice in marriage.
A boy of about seven dressed in an embroidered shirt and zari-bordered dhoti came in and sidled up to her. He lifted his large gentle eyes and asked in a sweet voice, somewhat timidly, ‘Auntie?’ Kumu drew him to her lap and asked, ‘What is your name, little one?’ The boy announced ceremoniously, without omitting the formal Shri, ‘Shri Motilal Ghoshal.’ Everyone else knew him only as Habloo. That was why on proper occasions he felt it necessary to announce his given name in its full glory, for the sake of his self-pride. Kumu was feeling heavy in her heart and clasping this boy to her bosom gave her much relief. She suddenly felt that the little Gopal Krishna in his boyhood—whom she worshipped every morning with flowers, had himself come to her lap. Just when she was praying to him in her hour of grief, he seemed to have answered, ‘Here I am, to console you.’ She pressed the boy’s chubby cheeks and asked, ‘Gopal mine, will you take a flower from me?’
No other name crossed her lips. The sudden transformation of his own name surprised Habloo but Kumu’s tone was so set that he could not think of protesting.
Motir-ma heard the voice of her child and came into the room. ‘So the monkey is here,’ she said, deflating the dignity of the honourable Shri Motilal. Holding the end of the aunt’s sari tight, he looked silently at his mother with plaintive eyes. Kumu put her left arm protectively round him and said, ‘Ah, let him be.’
‘No, my dear. It is quite late, time for bed. It is easy to get hold of him in this house. Perhaps there is no one more easily available.’ She took her boy away. This little incident made Kumudini feel a lot lighter. She felt that her prayer had been answered; life s problems would be solved as easily as this child had done.
23
LATE AT NIGHT MOTIR-MAFOUND KUMU SITTING UP IN HER BED, HERHANDS clasped in her lap; her eyes though closed seemed to have someone in view. The more she found it difficult within herself to accept her husband, the more she tried to dress him in the image of her personal god. She dedicated herself to her god: the husband was only a token. Her god had made it harder for her; this idol was none too transparent. So it was all the more of an acid test of her faith. A piece of shalgram shila—the sacred black stone—is shapeless, but faith by its own strength, projects the image of the Lord of the Heavens within this formlessness. Her resolve was to see the unseen, to find Him and throw herself at His feet. He would then never escape from her.
She sang to herself a bhajan of Mirabai’s which she had learnt from her brother:
‘Merey to Giridhar Gopal dusara na koi’ (There is no one for me but my
Giridhar Gopal.)
She made light of the rude aspect of Madhusudan which she had come across; it was no more than a bubble to be blown away. There was only one eternal truth in everyone—‘no one else’—‘no one but the all-embracing one’.There was one other anguish torturing her which she wanted to believe was only an illusion—the emptiness of her life! Parting for ever with all that she had grown up with and the absence of all that which made up her life till now, seemed to make her life devoid of any meaning. But in her resolute mind she tried to convince herself, that this absense was not emptiness but a kind of fulfilment.
She recalled Mira again:
‘Baap chharrey, Maaye chharrey, chharrey sagaa sahi
Meera prabhu lagan lagi jo na hoye hoyee’
(‘All may abandon you, father, mother, friends and playmates, but not
He who is always within you’.)
He has made me forsake all, only to make room for something He will fill me with. Whatever may follow, let me persevere. This song found a voice within her heart, and unknown to herself tears rolled down her face.
Motir-ma watched and listened without a word and left only when Kumu, after a long obeisance, went to sleep with a deep sigh. But a train of thought started in Motir-ma’s mind which had never occurred to her before.
It ran like this! ‘When we got married we were but little children, unburdened with a mind of our own. Just as a little boy swallows a raw fruit without a thought, the husband’s family and household absorbed us without any problem. We did not have to make any effort or wait up, counting days. If they said this was the day of your phulsajjya—flower bed of the nuptial night, so it was. Because it was all a play. But this girl here will have her honeymoon tomorrow night, and what a trial it will be for her! The groom is a stranger to her; it takes time to grow close to one another. How can he touch this girl? How will she bear the humiliation? Our elder brother-in-law took all this time to win wealth, can he not wait a little longer to win a heart? He had to woo Lakshmi the goddess of wealth hard enough, should he not have to beg some more for the favour of this Lakshmi?’
By herself, she was incapable of so much thinking, but somehow she felt for Kumu, heart and soul, as soon as she met her. The sight of Bipradas at the railway station was a prelude to this affection. He looked like the figure of Bhishma straight from the epic Mahabharata. Powerful like a hero, a serene face like that of an ascetic tinged with the humility of sadness. She thought, if no one took it amiss she would have liked to touch his feet in reverence. She still cherished that image. Then, when she saw Kumu, she knew she had met a sister worthy of her brother.
There is a kind of distinction which is not ordered by society, but is inborn. Such distinction is likely to hurt a woman mortally; but not the man. Motir-ma had not known this paradox because she married so young; but she realized it now through Kumu. She felt ill as she imagined the horrible picture of a lusty monster crouching inside a dark cavern, licking his chops while Kumudini prayed frantically at the entrance. She said to herself, ‘To hell with her god! Isn’t he the one who pushed her into this peril? How can he be the one to save her now? What a great pity!’
24
NEXT MORNING KUMU HAD A BRIEF TELEGRAM FROM HER BROTHER.’ GOD bless you, it said. She kept it inside her blouse, close to her heart. The telegram had her brother’s touch. But why did it not say anything about his own health? Maybe he was unwell. All these years, never having left his side, she was used to being posted with his news from minute to minute, and now it was all blacked out from her.
Tonight was the phulsajjya, the bridal night—the night of consummation. The house was full of people. The women of the family had been pawing her the whole day. A day when she needed most to be by herself.
Next to her bedroom was the bathroom, fitted with taps as well as showers. She qu
ietly slipped in there, with a framed picture of her divine couple—Radha and Krishna. She put the picture on the marble bathing seat and prayed, ‘I belong to you, Lord, you take me today. He is none but you, only you! Let your dual image come true in my own life.’
Meanwhile, at Noornagar, the doctors diagnosed that Bipradas’s influenza had turned to pneumonia. So Nabagopal alone came to Kolkata to arrange for the customary gifts for this special night. He did it with great éclat. If Bipradas were himself present, he might not have done it on such a grand scale.
All of Kumu’s four elder sisters had been invited to attend Kumu’s wedding, but the rumour that the Ghoshals were not high class Brahmins had reached them. So, their families would not let them attend the wedding. The third sister had fought with her husband and reached Kolkata the day after the wedding, but Nabagopal had told her that their prestige would go down if she went to the groom’s house. The events of the wedding night were still fresh in his mind.
So he sent only a few young girls who were distantly related to the family, with an old maidservant, to represent them at the reception. Kumu understood that there was no truce as yet; and that perhaps there never would be any.
She was all dressed up for the occasion. The pleasantries and repartee were over. It was time to start feeding the invited guests. Madhusudan had already warned that he had a lot of work the next day and that the feast would have to end early enough. At the stroke of nine, the gong rang loudly. Not a minute more; no one had the courage to exceed the time set by him. The party broke up. Kumu’s heart trembled like a dove’s at the shadow of an eagle. Her hands were in a cold sweat and her face went pale. She came out of her room and held the hand of Motir-ma, pleading with her to take her away somewhere else. ‘Let me be by myself for ten minutes.’ Motir-ma took her to her own bedroom and shut the door. She stood outside with tears in her eyes, bemoaning the fate of the bride.
Tagore Omnibus, Volume 1 Page 59