That Swarna’s intellect was far superior to those of her sisters became apparent right from the time she was two or three years old. She had a passion for the written word unmatched by her siblings, even her brothers. The arrival of the malini with her bundle of books, sent her scurrying to her mother’s apartments with clamorous demands to be allowed to see them first. These were mostly collections of tales, poems and romances and some run-of-the-mill novels which women devoured with a voracious appetite. In the abarodh of Jorasanko, as in those of other wealthy houses of Kolkata at the time, cupboards full of such books stood, side by side, with cabinets filled with dolls and toys. Swarnakumari started thumbing through the Jorasanko collection from the time she had barely grasped the alphabet and, by the age of ten, she had read them all. These included historical and social romances such as Manbhanjan, Prabhas Milan, Dooti Sangbad, Kokil Doot, Rukmini Haran and Parijat Haran, and poetic narratives like the Geet Gobinda. But what kindled the girl’s imagination and set it afire were the Arabian Nights and tales from Persia, Hatim Tai, Gul-e-bakawali and Laila Majnu. These books inspired her to write from an early age.
She showed Jyotirindranath, her favourite brother, the stories she wrote and was thrilled with his praise and encouragement. For, as Jyotirindra, who was evolving into a fair writer himself, saw quite clearly, Swarna’s work, though imitative of whatever she was reading at the time, showed signs of promise. It was distinguished, even at that early stage, by a clarity of style and a fluency of expression.
When Swarna was eleven, her father started looking around for a suitable groom. But no one seemed to qualify. He had set his standards very high for this beautiful, brilliant daughter – much higher than he had for her sisters. Then, on a visit to Krishnanagar, he met Janakinath, son of Joychandra Ghoshal, the wealthy zamindar of Joyrampur. Janakinath was twenty-seven, had superb health and looks and was well educated. Furthermore, he was gainfully employed as a government assessor in Birbhum. But he was not content with doing routine work and earning a salary. He was deeply aware of the plight of his enslaved country and dreamed of her liberation. His nationalistic ideas, not fully formed as yet, had found an outlet in rural welfare work and social uplift.
Debendranath liked what he saw. Here was a young man who deserved his Swarna. An astute judge of character, he realized that with such a husband she would be able to continue her education and hone her writing skills. Janakinath would not only allow her to improve herself, he would actively encourage it. The age gap of over sixteen years did not worry him. He believed that love could blossom within the institution of any marriage, however unequal. Dropping his conditions he began preparing for the wedding.
But resistance, fierce and strong, came from Janakinath’s father. The proud, headstrong zamindar of Joyrampur forbade the marriage into a Pirali Brahmo family and threatened to disinherit his only surviving son. But Janakinath was unfazed. The same courage of conviction with which he had turned down Debendranath’s conditions of marriage he now brought to bear on his father’s threat. He cared nothing for the ancestral property, he told him. He was earning enough on which to support a wife and family. He needed neither his father’s nor his father-in-law’s help. Janakinath did not budge from his position even when reports reached him that Joychandra’s rage and frustration were driving him into the most irresponsible actions. He was throwing his wealth and assets away with both hands. Janakinath loved and respected his father but he would not compromise his principles. He decided to wait and watch and be ready for a reconciliation when the time came. It was not long in coming. The birth of Janakinath’s daughter Hiranmayi brought father and son together. Swarna was in Jorasanko at the time, for custom decreed that a girl’s first delivery take place in her father’s house.
One early morning, a few days after the birth, the household at Jorasanko was jolted awake by the startling news that a tall, fair, elderly Brahmin stood outside the gates waiting to see the master of the house. His name was Joychandra Ghoshal and he was the zamindar of Joyrampur. Debendranath had just completed his ablutions and was getting ready for the morning upasana when the message was brought to him.
‘Why didn’t you bring him in you fool!’ he thundered at the servant.
‘Agnya! He would not come in,’ the hapless boy cringed from the uncharacteristic belligerence in his master’s voice. ‘He said he would stand where he was until you came to him.’
Debendra went with quick strides to the gate and, greeting his distinguished visitor with folded hands, begged him to step into the house.
‘I’ve come to see my granddaughter.’ Joychandra’s face was grave and his voice cold.
‘Certainly. Certainly,’ Debendranath answered politely. ‘But you can’t do that unless you come in.’ He added smiling, ‘Our granddaughter is only eight days old. She can’t come to us.’
Joychandra burst out laughing. ‘Well said.’ He wagged his large, bald head. ‘If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain, mustn’t he?’
Joychandra was so charmed by his beautiful daughter-in-law and granddaughter that his anger and resentment vanished. The notorious ‘Ghoshal temper’, shared by father and son alike, was swift to rise and swifter to subside. Handing Swarna a casket he told her with tears in his eyes, ‘All your mother-in-law’s jewels are in this, Bouma. She left them for you.’ Then, touching a velvet purse full of guineas to the tiny hand that lay outside the quilt like a curled pink flower, he placed it on the bed. ‘If only she were alive,’ he murmured. ‘What a happy day it would have been for her!’
After Hiranmayi’s birth, Janakinath decided to send his wife and daughter to Satyendra and Jnanadanandini. He was keen to see Swarna continue her education and that, he felt, would be best achieved in her brother’s house. In the few years that the two young men had become brothers-in-law they had become good friends as well and had recognized, in one another, a kindred spirit. They shared a number of ideas and a burning zeal for reform. Their country needed to be liberated, religious and caste divisions erased. Above all, women had to be brought out of the abarodh, educated and encouraged to think of themselves as equal to men. Swarna’s sister-in-law, Janakinath felt, would be a good mentor for her. Her husband’s support had given Jnanadanandini access to the latest books by reformist thinkers and she was an avid reader. Naturally open to new ideas, she had a propensity for seizing the initiative and making something of it. Swarnakumari liked her and admired her. Jnanada would be a good influence on her.
Janakinath was right. Under Jnanada’s guidance, Swarnakumari set foot in a new world – the world of literature. She wrote prolifically, sparing little time even for her infant daughter who was brought up almost entirely by servants. She did not emulate Jnanada either, except in sartorial style, even though they had a great deal in common. A certain high-handedness, in both, was tempered with prudence and practical caution. They read extensively but were under no pressure to submit to any existing body of thought. Poised on the brink of a new, fast-moving world, they took what they wanted from life and discarded the rest, easily and gracefully. In this as well as everything else they chose to do, they enjoyed the unequivocal support and unmitigated loyalty of their husbands. This initial, spontaneous bonding grew over the years and brought the two families together in a tight unit separate from those of their siblings. Between them they developed a mannered and modish culture which responded to change in a positive manner but never let them forget their pride in their illustrious lineage. Whenever the families were together, the evenings were spent in serious discussions of art, literature, politics and music. And, gradually, the two women drew their common favourite Jyotirindranath within their circle.
Meanwhile, back in Jorasanko, Debendranath and Sarada were getting increasingly disturbed by the behaviour of their fourth son. Birendra had always been quiet and withdrawn but, over the years, he had stopped communicating altogether. He spoke to no one, not even his wife. What was worse, he had started rejecting
food. He ate so little that his frame, always tall and lean, was reduced to a shadow. His eyes burned in their skeletal hollows with a frightening intensity.
Birendra’s mind had started deteriorating, slowly, from the time he had said that he wanted to marry Kala Bou and not Prafullamayi. His mother and sisters had laughed it off as a joke and ignored his growing eccentricities, deeming them to be of little importance. But no one could ignore his strange conduct at the wedding. He sat on his plank, staring straight ahead, jaws set, eyes inflamed, and had to be requested several times by the Acharya, before he agreed to take Prafullamayi’s hand and put the ring on her finger. He didn’t smile even briefly during the ceremony, not even when the games and jokes of the stree achaar were going on. And he didn’t glance, even once, at his pretty bride.
He started doing other strange things. He removed all his personal possessions from the apartment set aside for the new couple, and kept them in the attic. And, from the night of the floral-bed ceremony onwards, he picked up his pillow, the corner of which Prafulla had embroidered with the words Pati Param Guru within a circlet of flowers, and went to the roof where he slept, like one dead, through storm, wind and rain. But sometimes he couldn’t sleep. He tossed this way and that for hours, a wild rage and frenzy gripping him, increasingly, every minute. Then, unable to bear it any longer, he jumped up and rushed to his bedroom. Shaking Prafulla awake, he fell on her, tore off her clothes and mauled her tender body, pressing a heavy hand on her mouth to stifle her cries of pain and shock. Then, as swiftly as he had come, he was gone again, leaving behind a dazed and shattered girl.
Prafulla’s mother had hinted to her, before the marriage, that men did strange things to their wives and hurt them, sometimes, but it was all part of a marital relationship. Husbands took their pleasure and it was the duty of wives to submit gracefully and not breathe a word about it to anyone. Prafulla obeyed these instructions and didn’t tell anyone, not even her sister. But, over the years, as Birendra’s age and ardour increased, the girl’s bruised, swollen lips and the blue-black marks on her neck and breasts told their own tale.
Strange to say, they affected Sarada in an adverse way. She who had loved Prafulla more than all her other daughters-inlaw now turned against her. Though she maintained, in public, that her fourth son was as normal as anyone else, in her heart of hearts she had shared her husband’s misgivings. After these had been put to rest by Dr Price Ridley’s suggestion that what Birendra needed was a woman, she naturally assumed that marriage would solve the problem. But nothing of the sort had happened. He seemed to be growing worse. And she blamed his wife for it. What was the use of having a face like a flower and a skin like satin if a woman couldn’t hold her husband’s attention and win his love? She gave long lectures and reams of advice to her daughter-in-law, quite forgetting that the girl had barely entered her teens whereas her son was a full grown male.
Things might have remained the same if Prafulla hadn’t run out of her bedroom, one night, her head split open and her face and neck covered with blood. Kadambari discovered her at dawn, cowering in the gallery outside her apartment, her clothes torn, her hair blowing wildly about her face.
‘Why! W-what happened?’ she exclaimed horrified. ‘Did you fall off the bed, Nau Didi?’
‘No.’ Prafulla raised her head. Her eyes, half hidden by strands of blood-clotted hair, blazed like live coals. ‘That man is not human. He’s a monster. I shan’t live with him. I’ll send for my father and make him take me away.’
‘Shh…’ Kadambari put her arms around the older girl. ‘Let’s get away from here,’ she whispered, ‘before people come rushing in and flood you with questions. Come to my room. We can talk there.’
‘Yes.’ Prafulla’s voice shook with outrage. ‘Natun Thakurpo must hear of this. He’s the only one who’ll do something. The others, including my sister and brother-in-law, wear blinkers. They know how I’m treated but pretend not to notice.’
Kadambari helped her to her feet and tried to lead her to her room but Prafulla was bigger and heavier than her. Meanwhile, Jyotirindra had heard the commotion outside his door and come running out. He saw his sister-in-law swaying and tottering in his wife’s arms, and rushed forward to support her. The moment he touched her, he realized that her body was burning with fever.
Bringing her in, Jyotirindra and Kadambari laid her on the bed. Between them they cleaned her wound, applied a tincture of iodine – a bottle of which Jyotirindra kept in his room – and bandaged it. Then, placing a wet cloth on her brow, he asked, ‘What happened, Nau Bouthan? How did you hurt yourself?’
Prafulla burst into tears. Overcome with shame and humiliation, she couldn’t speak for a while. Then, aided by her brother-in-law’s gentle coaxing, the story poured out of her slowly. Her husband, she said, hated her. He never spoke to her and looked at her only with anger in his eyes. He hadn’t slept in their bedroom, after the night of the floral bed, but came to her, like a thief, and mauled and molested her whenever the whim took him. Everyone knew about it, including her mother-inlaw, but she had told her that it was a woman’s duty to put up with everything her husband did, for was not her husband a woman’s supreme lord and master? Prafulla had obeyed her instructions all these years but, of late, her husband had become more violent and his behaviour more savage. Last night she could bear it no longer and had pushed him away and tried to escape. But her resistance had enraged him so much, he had dragged her by the hair to the wall and banged her head against it till it cracked open. Sobs convulsed the girl’s fevered body as she told her tale and it shook like a leaf in a storm.
‘Why didn’t you come to us?’ Jyotirindra cried out, horrified. ‘Why did you sit all night out in the damp wind?’
Prafulla shook her head weakly. Tears gushed from her eyes and, flowing down her face and neck, drenched the pillow.
That afternoon Jyotirindra sought his father out and apprised him of what had happened. Debendranath’s face turned dark with anxiety and he cringed as his son went into the details. ‘This can’t go on, Babamoshai,’ Jyotirindra ended. ‘Nau Dada is sick. He needs treatment.’
‘Yes,’ Debendranath nodded, ‘I’ve thought so for some time now. I’ve even consulted Dr Mahendralal Sarkar. After hearing the symptoms he said that Biru was suffering from some sort of paranoia in which the patient has delusions of persecution. He suggested a stint in the Dhulenda Lunatic Asylum of Alipur.’
‘An asylum!’ Jyotirindra exclaimed, taken aback. He hadn’t expected anything so drastic. He was very soft-hearted and couldn’t bear the thought of his brother being subjected to the torture that, he had heard, formed part and parcel of the treatment at lunatic asylums. ‘Can’t Dr Sarkar treat him at home?’ he asked anxiously.
‘I’m afraid not. He doesn’t have the required equipment.’ Saying which, he dismissed his son with a curt, ‘You may leave now… and there’s no need to tell your mother anything just yet. I’ll tell her, myself, when the time comes.’
The conversation with his son left Debendranath struggling with a number of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He sat where he was for a long time, taking puffs from his albola and tapping his teeth thoughtfully with its stem. He realized the gravity of the situation and felt sorry for his daughter-in-law. ‘I’ve taken many wrong decisions in my life,’ he said to himself, ‘and the biggest of them was getting Biru married. I had a hunch that all wasn’t well with him. But Dr Price Ridley misled me. And the boy’s mother was too insistent. I mustn’t make the same mistake with Som…’ Somendranath was, to the apparent eye, a normal, handsome lad and was also doing reasonably well in his studies. But there was a look in his eyes which puzzled his father. A look that disturbed him. Though he couldn’t say why.
Dismissing thoughts of Som, Debendranath turned to the problem at hand. Biru would have to go to the asylum of course. There was no other option left. Not after what happened last night. But the conservative in him was filled with distaste at the thought of Prafullamayi op
ening her heart to her brotherin-law and sharing the intimate details of her conjugal life with him. He had never cared much for his fourth daughter-in-law. She was vain and haughty, quite unlike her sister who was the epitome of womanly modesty and humility. ‘The girl has no shame,’ he thought disgustedly. ‘Why couldn’t she talk to her mother-in-law about what was happening instead of Jyoti? It is the women of the house who sort out such matters. Only when, if at all, they fail do they bring them to the knowledge of the males.’
He also felt quite incensed with Jyoti. The boy had disappointed him sorely. Debendranath had hoped that he would pursue his studies single-mindedly and pass the ICS examination like his second son. But he was wasting his time dabbling in too many things. He had plenty of talent but no consistency. It was time he was given some serious responsibility. Debendranath decided to make him secretary of the Adi Brahmo Samaj and also send him on a tour of the estates. Suddenly, Debendra’s age was on him. He felt old and weary. It was time, he thought, that someone took on his duties. His eldest son was a brilliant scholar but vague and whimsical. His second was too busy and his third, though hard working and committed, was autocratic and arrogant. None of them would make good landlords. Jyoti was ideal for the job. He was intelligent and capable and had pleasant manners. People liked him.
Birendra spent six months in the asylum and came back having made, what seemed to be, a complete recovery. He looked fitter and healthier and was far more open in his interactions with the members of his family. He seemed genuinely happy to hear that his wife was pregnant and that he was soon to be a father. Prafulla was going through a gruelling pregnancy and had lost much of her health and looks. In fact, she was a shadow of her former self. Birendra seemed visibly affected by the change and was very gentle and solicitous with her.
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