Jorasanko

by Aruna Chakravarti

‘I’ll see you still,’ Robi went on in the same dazed voice. ‘Not with these eyes perhaps but with the eyes of the mind. As long as I live. As long as I write. You don’t know, Natun Bouthan, I’ve been broken and moulded anew… I’m not the same Robi. I’ll never be the same again.’

  Next morning, Robi rose while it was still dark and watched the sun rise from his balcony. He stood there for a long, long time. Then he went back to his room, lay prone on his bed, and started writing on a slate. He wrote the first lines of the poem, Nirjhar er swapna bhanga, a path-breaking composition which changed the course of his life.

  At dawn I felt the sun’s hand

  Touch my soul.

  It’s light seeping into my very being.

  I heard the first birdsong

  Enter my cave of dark shadows.

  I know not how,

  I know not how my soul awoke from its long, long sleep.

  My soul awakes,

  Passions and desires

  like a growing storm in a dormant sea,

  swell and foam within me.

  The earth shudders beneath my feet.

  Primeval rocks crash down mountain slopes.

  First light splitting their stone hearts.

  1883–1888

  I

  Jyotirindranath’s work was done. The formalities were concluded and three large rooms of Jnanada’s house in Birji Talao were stacked to the ceiling with furniture, bales of cloth for curtains, rolls of carpeting, boxes of plate and silver, and crates full of artefacts with which to decorate the ship once the reconstruction was done. But the Kelso and Stuart Company was dragging its feet over the work, leaving Jyotirindra fuming with impatience. How much longer would he have to wait? He had sunk a lot of money in the project and needed to get some returns quickly. Fortunately for him, a diversion came his way. Debendranath sent a message to his sons from Almora, commanding them to find a suitable girl and get their youngest brother married as soon as possible. Robi was twenty-two and it was high time he was settled. As was to be expected, Jnanadanandini sprang into action and assumed full responsibility. And, as was also to be expected, she pulled Jyotirindranath vigorously into the project.

  Together, the two considered one proposal after another, each more inappropriate than the last. Finally they, or rather Jnanada, zeroed in on one. She was a girl of seventeen, beautiful and well educated, and a daughter of a princely family from the south of India. ‘Robi will be gaining a kingdom along with a princess,’ she told everyone proudly. ‘She’s the only child and will inherit all her father’s property.’

  Kadambari tried to intervene. ‘You know Babamoshai’s views on marriage,’ she told her husband and sister-in-law. ‘The girl’s family is not even Bengali, leave alone Pirali Brahmin.’

  ‘The Pirali Brahmins are a sad lot these days,’ Jnanada said, laughing. ‘There isn’t a girl worth looking at in the families we know. Don’t think I haven’t made enquiries.’

  ‘Babamoshai will never agree,’ Kadambari murmured.

  ‘He must be made to see sense,’ Jnanada replied in a forceful voice. ‘We are living in a modern age and people are no longer stuck in their old slots. Pirali Brahmins!’ She gave a scornful laugh. ‘What’s important in a marriage is the family with which the alliance is made. Its wealth, power, education and culture. And this family is as good, if not better, than ours.’

  ‘But Babamoshai—’

  ‘Leave him to me. I’ll explain to him that Robi deserves the best and the best is what I’ve procured for him. Babamoshai will understand.’

  Sweeping away Kadambari’s doubts and fears of Debendranath’s disapproval, Jnanada went about the negotiations. The next step was the bride viewing. ‘The matchmaker tells me that the girl is exquisitely beautiful,’ she said, ‘but matchmakers are notorious liars. We must see her for ourselves.’

  ‘You mean we… we should go to their house?’ Kadambari stared at her sister-in-law.

  ‘How else can we see her? You don’t suggest sending a serving woman, do you?’ Then, turning to Jyotirindra, Jnanada said, ‘We’ll all go. You, I and Natun Bou…’

  Before Jyotirindra could respond, Kadambari said suddenly, ‘We should take Robi along with us. Since we are being modern let’s go the whole way. After all, it’s he who is to marry the girl.’

  Jnanada had no objections to that, so the four of them set off to see the bride.

  As the carriage clattered down the avenue of palms that led to the elegant villa the bride’s father had rented in the most fashionable quarter of the city, all four looked around in delight. It was as grand as the governor’s house, a sparkling white mansion set in a sea of emerald velvet lawns. Roses of every size and hue blazed from the flower beds and rioted over the walls. As they descended from the carriage, the sound of a piano recital came floating over the air. Someone was playing a slow, sweet tune full of romance and nostalgia. Rabindranath cocked an ear. It sounded familiar. Ah! He recognized it. It was the Blue Danube waltz. He had heard the Scott girls play it often.

  And now a uniformed bearer was coming towards them. He saluted smartly and led the party, through a spacious hall, to a luxurious drawing room which, Kadambari was surprised to see, was full of women. Most of them were quite young. Resplendent in rich silks and jewels they twittered and chattered like a flock of brightly plumaged birds. The prettiest of them, a girl of sixteen or seventeen, rose from the piano which she had been playing and came forward to receive the guests. She bid them welcome in fluent English, included the men in her flashing smile, and signalled to the servants to bring refreshments.

  ‘She doesn’t have a mother,’ Jnanada whispered to Kadambari. ‘That is why she has to play hostess. Do you see how beautiful and sophisticated she is?’

  Kadambari nodded. There was no doubt that the girl was poised and pretty and had all the nuances of English etiquette at her fingertips. Everyone was charmed, including the would-be groom. On Jnanada’s prodding, he even entered into a conversation with her. He asked her what books she liked, what her hobbies were and if she had seen much of Kolkata. She was completely at ease, answered all his questions and asked some of her own.

  At which point the master of the house walked into the room. He was a small, plump, middle-aged man with sandalwood markings on a balding forehead and a round, florid face. Apologizing for his delay, he said, ‘My wife has been looking after you, I hope.’

  Jnanada and Jyotirindra exchanged glances. Wife? Where was the wife? The matchmaker had said that the girl didn’t have a mother. They looked around in amazement. All the women in the room were young; not a day over twenty. But their confusion was cleared in a moment. Their host put a hand on the pretty girl’s shoulder and announced, ‘She’s my wife.’

  ‘And… and… your daughter?’ Jnanadanandini, for all her self-assurance and aplomb, could not keep the astonishment out of her voice.

  ‘That,’ the gentleman said, pointing to a pale, reedy girl weighed down by jewels and cowering in a corner, ‘is my daughter.’

  The party from Jorasanko stared into the girl’s frightened, anxious eyes. A stunned silence followed. Then Jnanada rose to take leave of her host and hostess.

  ‘But you have eaten nothing!’ the girl’s father exclaimed.

  ‘Oh yes we have.’ Jnanada forced a smile. ‘Your wife has been most gracious.’

  ‘When can I have your decision?’

  ‘In a day or two.’

  Jnanada led the way out and the rest followed meekly like a group of schoolchildren. Once in the carriage, they first stared at one another then burst out laughing.

  ‘What were you thinking of, Robi?’ Jyotirindra slapped his brother on the back. ‘Marrying your mother-in-law?’

  Everyone, barring Jnanada, was quite relieved at the fiasco. After all the laughing and teasing were over, Jyotirindra said decisively, ‘There’s no point running here and there, Mejo Bouthan. Babamoshai will never agree to an alliance with a family that doesn’t match ours in caste. We mu
st start looking all over again.’

  ‘Why don’t we go to Jessore?’ Kadambari suggested. ‘There are plenty of Pirali Brahmins there. We’ll be sure to find a suitable girl.’

  Jyotirindra jumped at the idea but Jnanada hung back for a few minutes before giving it a grudging approval. ‘Jessore is a long way off,’ she said doubtfully, ‘and the girls will be rustic and uneducated. But we could try it, I suppose.’

  ‘The girls of Jessore are beautiful,’ Jyotirindra said, glancing at Jnanada from the corner of his eye. ‘And they adapt easily to city ways. I think Natun Bou’s suggestion is a good one.’

  ‘We’ll go then.’ Jnanada made up her mind, suddenly, as was her nature. ‘All four of us. And we’ll take the children. I’ll write to my father tonight and ask him to get the matchmakers prepare a list of marriageable girls, not only in Narendrapur but in Chengutia, Dakshindihi, Phooltala and the other villages.’

  Having taken the decision, Jnanada gradually warmed to the idea. Her memories of the village in which she had spent the first seven years of her life had faded, for she had never gone back, not even when her brother, fifteen years younger than her, was born. Now they came slowly back. She remembered a yard surrounded by a veranda on three sides with rooms opening out from it. The walls were made of beaten earth and the roofs were hung with thatch. There was a garden beyond, filled with flowers, and a square pond with a rose apple tree growing crookedly from one bank. And, as she thought about the house, a scene rose before her eyes. She saw a group of women, in red-bordered saris, going round and round a husking pedal. She heard the whistling of the wintry wind, the blowing of conches and the weird cacophony of chanting and ululation. It was her wedding day…

  Four days before the party was to leave, Kadambari found the first letter. Her husband had just returned from a short visit to the family estates in Sajadpur and she was sitting on the floor, in front of his portmanteau, sorting through his clothes. Picking up a jobba, she found a stain near the pocket and flung it on the pile she meant to send to the washerman. Then, frowning a little, she picked it up again. The stain looked odd. She was sure it wasn’t grease or dirt. What could it be? Bringing it close to her nose, she sniffed at it delicately and recoiled. It reeked of cheap scent.

  There was a little rustle and she felt something hard against the cloth she held in her fingers. Slowly, very slowly, she put her hand in the pocket and drew out a wad of thick, light-green paper. It was covered with writing in very black ink and drenched in attar. Her eyes ran over the lines: Lord of my heart, she read, so many days have gone by since these lovelorn eyes have beheld your beloved face! My wretched heart still beats but is so dejected and disconsolate that it seems broken in a thousand pieces. I know how low I am before you. You are a prince and I a miserable worm from the gutter. But the heart knows no reason and life for me without you is akin to death.

  The letter ran on and on. Two sheets of close writing full of scratches and cancellations, incomplete sentences, faulty spelling and grammatical errors. It described, repeatedly and in detail, the rapture that the first sight of Writer Babu had brought to the woman’s heart. How she thought of him all the time – from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning to when she shut them at night. How he haunted her even in her dreams. For he was the only man who had treated her as a woman and not a whore. She wrote of how she would forever treasure the handkerchief he had given her when he had found her weeping in the greenroom. She kept it with her always, hiding it between her breasts, so that she could feel the embroidered initials of his name against her pulsing heart. She begged him, again and again, to come soon and cool the burning in her eyes. The letter ended with the words Your slave forever, Golapi.

  Kadambari folded the letter and sat holding it in her hand for a long time. The sound of her breathing filled the silent room. She felt sweat break out in beads on her temples and trickle down her armpits. Jumbled thoughts ran round and round her brain like rats caught in a trap. They gnawed and nibbled at her head and heart. Who was Golapi? From her use of terms like ‘Writer Babu’ and ‘Greenroom’ it was obvious that she was an actress. But who was she? Could she… was it possible… that she was Golapsundari? The girl whose acting her husband admired? She was in love with him! She wore his handkerchief between her breasts so that she could feel the initials of his name against her heart. And he? Was he too…? The quiet in the room grew so deep and compelling, she felt herself floating in it. ‘I embroidered the handkerchief,’ she spoke the words aloud, wanting to dispel the eerie silence with the sound of her voice. To hold on to something, something real. ‘I embroidered it. The letters JNT intertwining with one another in shades of green and set within a circlet of purple violets. I spent hours over it. And he? He gave it to another woman.’

  Kadambari turned her head and looked, with hard, dry eyes at the window where a wasp was buzzing against the shining glass. Another one lay dead on the sill. She brought her slender arms together and hugged her breast. The time had come, a voice within her whispered, when all the disparate strands of her life were coming together, when every past sorrow and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty were knitting themselves into a pattern. Her life, she saw clearly now, was moving towards a crisis. Something would happen soon… very soon. She felt a shiver pass over her frame but strangely, inexplicably, the thought warmed and comforted her.

  Rising, she went to her closet and opened a drawer. From it she drew out a heavy walnut case lined with blue velvet. It was full of jewels. Shoving the letter under a gold moon necklace, fringed with ruby pendants, she locked the case with trembling fingers, shut the drawer and walked to the window. The wasp was still buzzing against the pane. Leaning forward, she flung the window open and released it into the hot afternoon air. Then, laying her cold cheek against the sun-warmed glass, she murmured, ‘Robi! Robi! What is to become of me?’

  A shadow fell across the floor and Kadambari turned her head. A woman with a large bundle resting on her hip stood at the door. It was Bishu, the weaver’s wife. ‘Natun Bou rani…’ Bishu waddled into the room and set her load on the bed. She was short and fat and had a mole on the tip of her long, sharp nose. ‘Why are all these clothes lying on the ground?’ she asked curiously. ‘Are you packing for a journey?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kadambari answered absently, her eyes on the dead wasp lying like a crushed yellow flower on the windowsill. ‘We’re going to Narendrapur to look for a bride for Robi.’

  ‘That’s good news.’ Bishu smiled, displaying a row of broken, black stumps. ‘It is time he was settled. If only Ma Thakrun were alive…’ Swallowing the rest of her sentence she threw a sharp glance at Kadambari. ‘What’s wrong, Natun Bou rani?’ She peered into her face. ‘You look pale and your jacket is soaking with sweat. Do you feel unwell?’

  ‘No.’ Kadambari frowned and shook her head. ‘I’m quite well. But I told you last time that I won’t buy any saris for the rest of the year…’

  ‘I’ve got all the latest designs,’ Bishu said quickly. ‘And such a variety of borders – you can’t imagine. You haven’t seen anything like them. Take a look. You don’t have to buy.’

  ‘I don’t want to look at saris,’ Kadambari said with as much determination as she was capable of. ‘Show me your other stuff.’

  Packed between layers of saris, Bishu kept boxes full of alta, sindoor, attar, tortoise-shell combs, ribbon, tinsel, kohl in tiny silver caskets, glass bangles, strings of coloured beads and pictures of gods and goddesses.

  Kadambari looked at everything with lacklustre eyes and shook her head. Then, suddenly, her eyes caught sight of a parcel wrapped in red muslin. ‘What’s in that?’ she asked curiously. ‘That red bundle right at the bottom?’

  Bishu folded her hands and brought them to her forehead. ‘My Guru Ma is a deyashini,’ she said. ‘These are some roots and herbs over which she has uttered mystic incantations. They can cure any disease. But I’ve been strictly forbidden to sell them unless the person who buys
is in dire need.’

  ‘Open the bundle,’ Kadambari said. ‘Let me see what you have.’

  ‘But you said just now that you were in perfect health. Why do you want to see?’

  ‘Open it.’

  Bishu stared at her. Then, as if doing her customer a great favour, she slowly untied the knot in the muslin and held up her wares one by one. She took her time over the task, bringing out the herbs, roots, pills, powders and potions that the votaress, whose disciple she was, had given her. ‘These,’ she said, showing Kadambari a cluster of tiny greyish white bulbs, ‘banish bile and catarrh and perk up the digestion. One pod, crushed and mixed with the juice of a betel leaf and taken on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning…’

  ‘What else do you have?’

  ‘This oil,’ Bishu held up a phial, ‘extracted from different types of seeds is very effective in treating joint pains. And this,’ she pointed to something that looked like dried grass, ‘improves the eyesight. A sprig taken daily with a handful of almonds for six months to a year is guaranteed to cure blindness.’

  ‘And this?’ Kadambari picked up a small velvet pouch. ‘What’s in this?’

  Bishu took it from her hand, loosened the string and tipped the contents on to her palm. There were about twenty tiny pellets of some sticky black substance. ‘These are balls of opium,’ she said. ‘They soothe the nerves and induce sleep in insomniacs. They are very powerful…’

  ‘Give me some,’ Kadambari interrupted her. Her nostrils were dilated and her breath was coming hard and fast. Then, hearing Bishu’s gasp of astonishment, she tried to compose her features and make her voice sound natural and everyday. ‘The truth is that I suffer from insomnia. I can sleep no more than three to four hours… and even then I’m ridden with dreams and nightmares.’

  Bishu hesitated. ‘It’s strong stuff,’ she muttered. ‘Rendered even more potent from the incantations by my Guru Ma. I’m… I’m afraid to give it to you.’

  ‘Why should you be afraid? These medicines have been prepared by her to cure people’s ailments. I have the symptoms you describe. And, because I can’t sleep at night, I wake up with dreadful headaches. You must help me.’