Jorasanko

by Aruna Chakravarti

  Rabindranath arrived the next morning to find the whole house in an uproar. A crowd of servants and family members stood outside Kadambari’s apartment, banging on the door and urging her to open it. His father stood at a distance, his face pale and grim. ‘You’ve arrived, I see.’ He looked at his youngest son with cold, hard eyes. ‘Where’s your brother?’

  ‘Jyoti dada could not come. He’s… what’s the matter? Why are all these people?’

  ‘Natun Bou has locked herself in her room,’ Neepmayi said, wiping the tears away from her eyes. ‘We’ve called and called but she isn’t opening the door. Who knows what the foolish girl has done! Why don’t you try, Robi? She might listen to you.’

  ‘Natun Bouthan!’ Rabindranath’s heart was thumping so hard and his mouth felt so dry that he could barely articulate the words. ‘Natun Bouthan! Open the door. I can explain everything.’ But there was no response. After another half an hour of banging and shouting, Debendranath took a decision. ‘Fetch a ram,’ he commanded the servants, ‘and break the door.’ A few minutes later, the panels of massive mahogany that Neelmoni Tagore had put up, a hundred years ago, shuddered and came crashing down. ‘Stand back everyone,’ Debendranath’s deep voice boomed. ‘I wish to enter alone.’

  Stepping into the room, his eyes took in everything at a glance. His daughter-in-law’s body lying on the glass-littered, blood-caked floor. The box with jewels spilling out of it and the sheets of green paper fluttering on the bed. It was this last that drew his attention first. Collecting the pages one by one, he glanced briefly through them. His face hardened. Stuffing them in the pocket of his jobba, he walked through the room, looking for anything else that seemed to be even slightly incriminating. Within a few seconds he discovered the letter Kadambari had written and thrust it in along with the other pages. He looked around, with hawk-like eyes, another minute or two and was satisfied. Then, just as he was about to leave the room, he noticed a slight movement in the body lying on the floor. The chest was rising and falling faintly, almost imperceptibly. He knew that his daughter-in-law was not dead. Not yet.

  Stopping on his way out, he faced his sons and daughtersin-law. ‘Natun Bouma tried to take her own life,’ he announced solemnly, ‘but she’s still alive. Send for the doctor immediately. In the meantime, minister to her as best as you can. Oh! Yes, her jewel case is lying open on the bed. Take charge of it, one of you, and give it to Jyoti when he comes.’

  Kadambari died two days later. But, even before she drew her last breath, all arrangements for a swift and smooth cremation had been made by her sagacious father-in-law. The police had to be informed of her death but, keeping the prestige and dignity of her husband’s family in mind, they did not insist on sending her body to the morgue for a post-mortem. A coroner’s court comprising a magistrate, a clerk and a chemical analyst was set up, in the house, with clear instructions from their superiors as to what their findings would be. Lavishly wined and dined, they conducted the proceedings and left, certifying that the death had occurred from natural causes. Debendranath took another precaution. Determined that no newspaper, Indian or international, would carry the news of his daughter-in-law’s death, he called a press conference and made his wishes known to all the editors of Kolkata, together with discreet hints of suitable gratuities. The newsmen were only too willing and the whole matter was hushed up.

  Kadambari died before dawn on the twenty-first of April. Some hours later, her body was carried down from the third floor and placed on a mahogany bedstead, in the exact spot where Sarada Sundari’s had lain nine years ago. It was the same season of the year and the morning just as bright and beautiful. Kadambari lay in state, as befitted the daughter-in-law of such a great family. Her sisters-in-law had dressed her in a gorgeous red and gold brocade sari and jewels. Her brow was adorned with sandal paste and her parting filled with sindoor. Her feet were crimson, to the ankles, with alta. Thick garlands of juin, her favourite flower, were twined about her neck and arms. The mourners who stood around her body were the same as those who had stood around her mother-in-law. Older, by a decade, with one or two members missing. All, all was the same, down to the vast quantities of sandalwood, ghee and incense that had been ordered for the cremation. In death, Kadambari was given the full measure of glory denied her in life.

  There was some argument about who would light the dead woman’s pyre. She had no sons and her husband was in shock. Her youngest brother-in-law, whom she had loved so much, was the obvious replacement. But Rabindranath shook his head and the flaming bunch of jute stalks was passed to the eldest grandson of the house, Dwijendranath’s son Dipendranath. Rabindranath stood at a distance and watched, dry eyed, as Dipu lit the pyre and the Brahmo priest Hemchandra Vidyabagish fed the flames with ghee and incense. He watched till the last lick of flame died down and the last wisp of smoke had dispersed into the air. Then, taking a dip in the Ganga, he came home with the others.

  After the pallbearers had returned and all the rites had been concluded, Debendranath breathed a sigh of relief. He had only one duty left. He had to write a letter. Leaving the baar mahal, he came to his apartments and entered the small anteroom in which he did his reading and writing. The day had waned and the shadows of twilight were gathering outside. The room was dark. Ordering a servant to fetch a lamp, he came and sat at the writing table. He drew a sheet of paper, dipped his quill in ink and wrote: Dear Shyamlal Babu… His eyes fixed on those words he paused, wondering how to frame the next sentence, when he was assailed by a strange sensation. He felt a presence in the room. Someone was standing close behind him, so close he could feel a warm breath stirring the hair on the nape of his neck. He turned his head sharply. What was that flash of blue? Natun Bouma…? Nonsense. He shrugged his leonine shoulders, dismissing the thought. It wasn’t like him, he told himself, to be fanciful and superstitious. It must be the strain of the last two days that was playing tricks with his mind. He leaned forward on the table. The shadow of his vast bulk swayed and trembled on the wall. Picking up his quill he added the words:

  I regret to communicate to you some sad tidings. Your third daughter, whom we were fortunate to receive as our Natun Bouma, died last night of heart failure, leaving my entire household mourning her loss. I have no words to comfort you or her mother. All I can do is pray to the All-merciful Param Brahma to give us the strength to sustain our loss.

  Yours in grief,

  Sri Debendranath Thakur.

  1884–1891

  I

  Mrinalini came to Jorasanko riding a palki, drawn by eight bearers, just as Kadambari had done sixteen years ago. A seven-year-old boy had looked on fascinated as a beautiful princess, wearing pearls around her neck and gold anklets on her feet, had stepped into his home and entered his life. She had spoken to him in a low, musical voice sweeter than the strains of baroa that the shehnai was playing. That seven-year-old was twenty three now. A poet and a man of considerable eminence. He had left his childhood far behind and his wonder-filled eyes with it. It was not a princess from a fairy-tale land that he saw now, but a thin, plain girl with a dark complexion and commonplace features who sat, tongue-tied, in his room and when, if at all she spoke, it was in a rude, rustic dialect that he had difficulty comprehending. He felt a mixture of affection and pity for her but not much else.

  Mrinalini, on her part, was as unmoved by her famous husband as he was by her. He seemed as strange and unfamiliar as everything else in her new life. The ancient mansion, with its dark spooky rooms filled with heavy furniture and innumerable people who dressed so oddly and spoke in such artificial voices – she felt alienated from it all. Lonely and friendless. Even the children who had crowded around her during the wedding rituals didn’t come near her anymore. She had tried to make friends with Bibi and Sarala who, she had been told, were her nieces, but hadn’t succeeded beyond a point. She had nothing to say to them that was of interest to them and she didn’t understand most of what they said to one another. There were only two things fro
m which she drew comfort. One was the kitchen of the great house with its warmth and wonderful smells and the other was the array of dolls that her father-in-law had sent to Phooltala after the marriage was fixed.

  Mrinalini was quite the little housewife. She loved cooking and was better at it than her mother or so her father said. She escaped to the kitchen whenever she could, and struck up a conversation with the cooks who, coming from Jessore, understood her perfectly. They addressed her as Chhoto Bou rani, answered her many questions patiently, and listened to her views with respect. They made her feel important.

  The kitchen was such an interesting place. There were so many dishes being cooked that she hadn’t even heard of, leave alone eaten. There was so much about city cooking that she had to learn. Why, the humble yam, for instance, that grew wild in jungles and around pools and ponds in Phooltala, and which the poor ate in the absence of other, better vegetables, was so highly respected in the kitchen of her father-in-law’s house. Mrinalini watched, her eyes round with wonder, as the cooks turned it not only into delectable savouries with oil, spices and scraped coconut, but even into sweets! Delicious syrup-soaked pancakes and crisp, candied nuggets. Greens that rioted in people’s backyards in the village, to be ruthlessly weeded out and thrown away, were actually bought, with good money, from the bazaar here. What a strange place the city was!

  When Mrinalini wasn’t hanging around the kitchen, she sat in her room playing with her dolls. She played alone, taking on a variety of roles and discarding them as and when the whim took her. She was mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, grandmother and great-grandmother to her large family and they kept her busy and happy. She cooked and swept, washed utensils, bathed and dressed her children, fed, pampered and scolded them. And, occupied in all this, she was totally oblivious to the goings-on around her. Three deaths had taken place from the day she had stepped into the house. Debendranath’s eldest son-in-law, Soudamini’s husband Saradaprasad, had died on the night of the wedding; her sister-in-law Kadambari, four months later; and her third brother-in-law, Hemendranath, shortly afterwards. But, if anyone in the house was casting aspersions on her or calling her ill-omened and her presence inauspicious, Mrinalini was blissfully ignorant of it. As she was of what her famous husband was doing or thinking.

  Mrinalini’s stay at Jnanadanandini’s house hadn’t lasted long. She wasn’t performing well in school and was slow in picking up the other accomplishments her sophisticated sister-in-law wanted for her. She did everything she was told, obeyed Jnanadanandini’s instructions to the letter, but she wasn’t making much headway. Besides it was clear to everyone that the girl was lonely and unhappy. Her husband had no time for her. Bibi and Suren had their own friends and she was afraid of her sister-in-law. She wandered about by herself in the house and garden, a forlorn, bizarre-looking figure in a coat and skirt and shoes and stockings which were at complete variance with her oiled plait, rows of bangles on each arm and sindoor on her brow and parting. It wasn’t in Jnanada’s nature to give up anything halfway but with Mrinalini she had to admit that she was fighting a losing battle.

  Jyotirindranath had recovered from the stupor into which he had fallen after Kadambari’s death. Helped by the steady encouragement and relentless prodding of his redoubtable mejo bouthan, he was ready to take up his duties once again. A date was fixed for Sarojini’s inordinately delayed trial run and it was decided that Rabindranath and Akshay Chowdhury would accompany him. But, at the last moment, Jnanadanandini announced her decision of joining the party with her children. The men tried to discourage her. They pointed out that this was a test venture undertaken with the goal of identifying defects in the vessel. It wasn’t safe to take women and children along. But Jnanada pooh-poohed their fears away. If the worst came to the worst, she said, there were lifeboats in the vessel, weren’t there? Besides, she and her children were good swimmers which, she pointed out with a snide laugh, Akshay Chowdhury wasn’t. Packing Mrinalini off to Jorasanko she got ready to accompany her brother-in-law on Sarojini’s maiden voyage.

  The trial run brought to light the perfidy wrought by the Kelso and Stuart Company. They had not only wasted many precious months in fitting up the ship, giving the Flotilla Company ample time to get its act together, they had failed to give the vessel the weight, balance and alignment its large shell required. The result was that Jyotirindra was in possession of a huge beautiful ship, fitted with every modern convenience, but not adequately water worthy. There was absolutely no possibility of beating the British at their own game with only Sarojini at his disposal. The thought infuriated him and made him reckless. One by one, he bought up, in quick succession, four more steamers – Bharat, Banga Lakshmi, Lord Ripon and Swadesh. Needless to say, he not only wiped out all his resources but plunged himself neck deep in debt. His family and friends were horrified at what he was doing but didn’t have the heart to tell the newly bereaved Jyotirindra that ruin was staring at him in the face.

  Much happier in Jorasanko, Mrinalini spent much of her time in learning cooking and playing with her dolls. But she didn’t give up her studies. Hemendranath’s daughters went to Loreto Convent, too, and they were only too happy to take their young aunt under their wings. She wore her English outfit in the morning and went to school in the family carriage, but the moment she came home she took it off and turned herself into a daughter-in-law of the house – an identity with which she felt at ease. What Mrinalini liked about her life in Jorasanko was that she was taught Bengali and Sanskrit – subjects with which she was familiar and in which she could make good progress – at home by Hemchandra Vidyabagish. But, best of all was the fact that her nephew Bolu, four years older than her, became her good friend and mentor. He helped her with her studies, particularly Sanskrit, making her quite an adept in the subject.

  One of the defects that needed to be corrected immediately was the new bride’s accent. The harsh sibilants of her native Jessore and the tendency to rattle off long sentences, without adequate pauses, needed to be replaced with the fluid grace of Bengali as it was spoken by educated city people. Her husband took this task upon himself and Mrinalini was an obedient pupil. This tutoring episode began on a comic note.

  One morning, Rabindranath walked into his bedroom and, squatting on the floor, pulled out a dust-covered leather trunk from under the bed. Opening it, he stared at its contents with puzzled eyes. While lodging with the Scotts in England the eldest of the girls, who was also his special friend, had requested him to teach her Bengali. Needless to say he had accepted with alacrity. Getting down to the task, however, he had discovered that the most difficult part of the tutoring was not in making his pupil understand the principles of spelling and grammar but in moulding her stiff Anglo-Saxon tongue into uttering the mellifluous inflexions of the Bengali language. He had thought a lot and read a lot on the subject, making notes on scraps of paper as and when something occurred to him. Then his father had ordered him to return and he was forced to leave England in a hurry. He packed the papers in a leather trunk, hoping to be able to use them on his next visit which never materialized. Ten years passed. Rabindranath got busy with other things and the papers lay forgotten in the old trunk under the bed.

  This morning, as Rabindranath was about to step into his room to give Mrinalini her lesson, he suddenly remembered the notes and decided to consult them. But, opening the trunk, he stared in dismay. Half a dozen large clay dolls, their limbs in a hideous state of mutilation, lay side by side. Two had one arm missing; one both. Two were only torsos and the last, except for the fact that she was a woman, could have passed as the horseman of Sleepy Hollow – being headless. There was no sign of the papers. Turning to his wife, who was playing quietly in a corner, he asked, ‘Did you open this trunk, Chhoto Bou?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mrinalini, suckling her infant son – she had the doll’s head pushed against her flat chest and neatly covered with her sari – looked up briefly. ‘I’ve made it my hospital,’ she said in her quaint singsong voice.r />
  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Some of my dolls were sick. I had to send them to the hospital.’

  ‘Hunh!’ Rabindranath grunted. ‘Without heads, legs and arms it’s a wonder they’re still in need of treatment. But why did you have to make this your hospital?’

  ‘I couldn’t find anything else,’ the little wife said simply.

  ‘And the notes inside the box? Where have you kept them?’

  ‘Notes! I didn’t see any notes. There were some dusty sheets of paper with nonsense scribbled on them. I threw them away.’

  ‘Threw them away?’ Rabindranath sank down on his haunches. ‘Wonderful! Now all my notes are gone.’

  ‘They weren’t notes. They were scraps of paper. Dirty scraps’

  ‘They were my notes. They took me months to prepare.’

  ‘I keep telling you they weren’t notes.’ Mrinalini’s face flushed and her soft, drooping cheeks started to tremble. ‘Why won’t you listen?’

  ‘You’ll never understand. You’re a silly girl, Chhoto Bou. No, you don’t deserve to be called Chhoto Bou. I’ll call you Chhutki.’

  Mrinalini felt terribly, terribly insulted. She pushed out her lip and was ready to cry. But making a great effort she controlled herself. ‘Not Chhutki,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘There was a girl called Chhutki in Phooltala. She was a thief. She stole my red ribbon.’

  ‘How did she do that?’

  ‘She opened my plait when I was sleeping and took it away. Such a nice ribbon! Baba brought it for me from the fair.’

  ‘Very resourceful! Not Chhutki then. You’re not a thief though you did steal my notes. I’ll call you’

  ‘I didn’t steal them.’ Mrinalini could control herself no longer and burst into tears. ‘And they weren’t notes,’ she cried between sobs. ‘They were just dirty scraps of paper with some rubbishy writing on them. Like crows’ legs. And I needed a hospital’