Jorasanko

by Aruna Chakravarti

  Mrinalini wasn’t quite sixteen but already mother of two. Her first was a little girl of three, as fair and delicate as a jasmine flower, and consequently nicknamed Beli Phul by her doting father. The child’s real name was Madhurilata and the healthy baby brother who followed her, two years later, was named Rathindranath, in keeping with the family tradition. After Beli’s birth, Jnanadanandini had taken them away from Jorasanko to her own house in 49 Park Street. Mrinalini was too young, she had explained to her brother-in-law, to care for the newborn. And who, in the strife-torn, faction-ridden women’s wing of Jorasanko, would take on her responsibility? Rabindranath had given his consent and even moved in himself a few weeks later. Jnanadanandini had wanted to assume charge of both mother and daughter but, in the end, she had to admit that she had misjudged Mrinalini’s capabilities. The latter, despite her tender years, was a born nurturer and had insisted on looking after the baby herself. She had done it naturally and spontaneously, and with a degree of expertise that had amazed Jnanada and brought a measure of respect for the girl in her eyes. Her own daughter, Bibi, was two months older but had no interest in household affairs. She read, slept, played the piano and whiled the hours away.

  But if Mrinalini’s nurturing of her infant surprised Jnanada, she was left astounded at the part played by the child’s father. Not only did he spend hours cuddling and petting the little one, he massaged the tiny limbs with oil, bathed her, changed her wet kanthas and, laying her on his lap, fed her milk from a jhinuk so expertly that she cooed and gurgled and flapped her hands with joy. The young couple were so wrapped up in their little one that Jnanada, who had wanted to take care of them all, was left without a role to play…

  ‘Chhoto Babu.’ Rabindranath’s servant Prasanna came and stood by his side. The former had left the deck and now sat in his cabin, reading by the light of a lamp. The book was titled Animal Magnetism and its subject was as hazy and obscure as the rapidly dimming world outside. Putting it down he raised his eyes. ‘Yes, Prasanna,’ he asked, ‘what is it?’

  ‘Chhoto Bou rani and Bolu Babu have not returned from their walk. Gafoor and I went out on the bank but couldn’t find them.’

  ‘There’s no need to panic.’ Rabindranath picked up his book. ‘They’ll come back presently.’

  ‘It’s dark outside and there’s a thick mist rising from the river. The visibility is very poor.’

  ‘The moon will rise soon and the bank will be flooded with light.’

  ‘No, Babu. It’s a waxing moon, only a day old. It’ll give little light. If they’ve lost their way, they’ll have trouble getting back.’

  ‘That’s unlikely. Bolu is a responsible boy. What about the children?’

  ‘They returned long ago. They’re crying for their mother.’

  The days being short, the members of the party went for their walks on the bank in the afternoons, returning to the boat before dusk. Rabindranath preferred walking alone. He had entered a phase of writing short stories and could think up plots, fit them with characters and situations, and even frame beginnings and endings if he walked undisturbed. The children were taken out by their maids and Mrinalini and Bolu formed a twosome.

  ‘Let’s wait a little longer,’ Rabindranath told the servant. ‘Then we’ll go out together.’

  Half an hour later, when the pair still hadn’t made an appearance, Rabindranath set out with a search party. Prasanna, Gafoor and the boatmen led the way with sticks and lanterns in their hands and their master brought up the rear. ‘Bolu! Bolu-u-u!’ he called at the top of his voice. The servants beat their sticks and shouted, ‘Chhoto Bou rani-i-i! Babu!’ but no answering cry came to their ears. The sounds they made got dispersed in different directions on that vast, desolate stretch of sand, leaving only the faintest of echoes. Hours passed. Rabindranath’s heart beat fast. Fears, rational and irrational, crowded into his mind. Had Bolu fainted? He had a weak heart and was given to dizzy spells. Or had one of them been bitten by a snake? Dangerous snakes lurked in the wet furrows. Or what if the two had stepped into a patch of quicksand and been sucked in? How would he break the news to Nau Bouthan? And, horror of horrors, how would he manage without Mrinalini? He had two small children. Would they be left without a mother? The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that something had happened to her and not to Bolu. Daughters-in-law of the Tagore family tended to die before their husbands. His grandmother, mother, eldest sister-in-law and Dipendra’s wife Sushila had gone with sindoor in their parting. So had Natun Bouthan. What if Mrinalini too?

  Suddenly a faint cry came from across the river. The boatmen heard it first. Dropping their sticks they sank to their knees on the sand and raised their hands to the sky. ‘Masha Allah! Masha Allah!’ they shouted. ‘They’re safe, Babu! They’re on the other bank.’

  ‘H-h-ow did that happen?’ Rabindranath’s tongue was so dry in his mouth that he could barely articulate the words.

  ‘They must have walked over the sandbanks not realizing that they were crossing the river. We’ll take the boat to the other side and fetch them.’

  Two hours later, Bolu and Mrinalini sat in Rabindranath’s cabin, looking shamefaced and penitent, as they heard his account of the anxiety they had caused everyone and the efforts that had been made to trace them. Rabindranath fixed a comically stern eye on his young wife and said solemnly, ‘The events of the day have left me with one conclusion. One only. From this day onwards I shall advocate the principle of purdah for women and the strictest confinement in the zenana.’

  ‘Why?’ Mrinalini looked up in surprise.

  ‘Because women are dangerous creatures. If allowed to run free, they make life hell for everyone around them. Not only are they incapable of fending for themselves, they make it a point to lead their men astray. I’m convinced that it was you who instigated poor Bolu and made him walk so far away from the boat.’

  ‘I-I… didn’t,’ Mrinalini muttered, her face red with embarrassment.

  ‘Of course you did,’ Bolu contradicted her energetically. ‘You ran over the sandbanks like a hunted doe. I kept calling out to you but would you listen? What could I do but follow? Catch me going out walking with you ever again.’

  Rabindranath glanced at his wife’s flushed cheeks. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘All’s well that ends well. Now that our Goddess Lakshmi has returned to her boat, could we please have some dinner? I’m famished and sleepy. If I know Maulvi saheb he’ll be here at crack of dawn tomorrow with a swarm of tenants. I’ve thought of a verse I’ll recite to them as soon as they arrive:

  Fie! Fie on you tenants

  And you zamindari

  Get lost, the pack of you

  Maulvi! Why do you tarry?

  A year later, Rabindranath decided to go to England. His brother Satyendra was going with his old friend Taraknath Palit’s son, Loken, and Rabindranath was invited to join them. Leaving Mrinalini and the children in Jorasanko, he travelled with Loken to Bombay where his brother joined them and they boarded a ship to England. Rabindranath had planned this as a pleasure tour along the lines his grandfather had taken more than forty years ago. His idea was to see Europe and gain exposure to Western music, art and theatre. Rabindranath liked Loken’s company. He was a high-ranking ICS officer with a brilliant analytical mind. He was also deeply sensitized to the fine arts. Moreover, the presence of Satyendranath ensured that all the arrangements for his travel and lodging would be taken care of. He couldn’t have had it better. But history repeated itself with a comic twist. On his last voyage to England, Rabindranath had been compelled to abandon the ship even before it left India’s shores owing to the insistence of his nephew Satyaprasad who couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from his wife and child. This time it was Rabindranath’s turn. By the time the ship reached Aden, he was so seasick and miserable, he wrote a letter to Mrinalini.

  Bhai Chhoto Bou, he wrote, I’ve been terribly ill for the last three days. Whatever I’ve eaten I’ve thrown up. It’s a wonder I�
�m still alive. On Sunday night I felt my soul leaving my body and flying to Jorasanko. You lay sleeping at one end of a large bed with Beli and Khoka by your side. I caressed you a little, then kissed the children and returned. Did you think of me when I lay sick in my cabin? I wanted to be in Kolkata so badly! It seems to me, now, that there’s no place like home. Once I get back I’ll stick to it and not move an inch…

  The longing intensified as the days went by. Adding to it were the letters that arrived, regularly, from Bibi begging him to return. Bibi was seventeen years old now, a beautiful girl with her grandmother’s fair complexion and her mother’s large eyes and aquiline features. She was also extremely accomplished. She was doing her graduation from Kolkata University, spoke and wrote excellent English and French, and had a good grasp of both literatures. She played the piano and the violin with a high degree of proficiency and had received her intermediate degree from the Trinity College of Music. But with all this she did not neglect her Indian heritage. Under her uncle’s influence, she studied Bengali at home and learned Indian classical music. She had taken lessons as a child from Bishnu Chakravarty, who was the lead singer for the Brahmo Samaj gatherings, and later from the famous Ustad Badridas Sukool. She was currently occupied in preparing the notations for Rabindranath’s lyrics.

  Rabindranath had been very close to Bibi from the time that he had stayed with his Mejo Bouthan in England. Even more than Suren’s, he had enjoyed her company. He had told her stories and, as she grew older, he had read out his poems to her. After Natun Bouthan she was the only one who read everything he wrote and understood it. Her mind was so receptive, so attuned to the most delicate nuances of his thoughts and feelings that he could open up to her as to no one else. On her part, the attachment grew in intensity every day. She was so proud of her Robi ka. He was such a handsome, distinguished man! Such a brilliant poet! When he was in Kolkata they were in constant touch. When he wasn’t, she wrote him long letters, to which he replied faithfully, filling sheet after sheet with his elegant, flowing hand.

  After Bibi the niece Rabindranath loved best was Swarnakumari’s daughter Sarala. The two girls were just a year apart in age and good friends. But they had very different personalities. Her mother’s despotism, benevolent though it was, had rendered Bibi’s nature soft and pliant. She was easily led and easily intimidated. Sarala, on the other hand, had known nothing but neglect all her life. Left to the tender mercies of wet nurses and, later, to that of maids and tutors, Sarala had had to fall back on herself from infancy. Like a plant forced to survive in a harsh, arid environment, Sarala had made herself hardy and resilient. And, now, as a graduate of Kolkata University, who had also earned the distinction of standing first among the female candidates and been awarded the Padmawati Gold Medal, she was a strong, self-reliant young woman with a mind of her own. She allowed no one, least of all her mother, against whom she bore a long-standing grudge, to interfere in her life or comment on her actions.

  Sarala, like many of her cousins at Jorasanko, had a good ear and understanding of music and was equally proficient in Indian and Western classical forms. Her greatest gift was her ability to blend the two. Her first attempt at the kind of fusion she excelled in later was undertaken before she was twelve years old. Rabindranath, whose nickname for her was Solli and hers for him Roi Ma, had written the poem Sakaatore oi kandichhe sakale / Shono shono pita (The people weep in deep distress / Hear, oh father, hear), meaning to compose the music and sing it at the Brahmo Samaj gatherings. But his precocious niece had pre-empted him. She had set it to the scale of an English piece and given it the depth and resonance of a hymn. Rabindranath was amazed when she played the piano and sang it to him. The measured dignified chords of the composition synchronized exactly with the words he had written. He was convinced that he couldn’t have done better. On her twelfth birthday, he arrived at his sister’s house, a flat box under his arm. It contained a musical notation copy bearing the title Socatore—Composed by Sarola on its cover.

  Loreto Convent, where Bibi’s mother had sent her, excelled in producing elegant, sophisticated women, Indian in nationality but British in everything else. Students were given a traditional English education and taught music, painting and embroidery on the same lines. They were also given a thorough grounding in English etiquette, thus rendering them eminently suited to become wives of young barristers and ICS officers, newly arrived from England. It was just such a future that Jnanadanandini had envisaged for her daughter. Bethune School, in which Sarala had studied from childhood, used a different model. It taught its students everything there was to learn from a traditional Western system and instilled in them, at the same time, a sense of their Indian identity and a love of their motherland. It was from her years in Bethune that Sarala imbibed her patriotism, an ideal that stayed with her and shaped her entire life. The signs were visible from an early age.

  When she was a little girl of ten, two circus parties were performing in Kolkata – one run by an Englishman and the other by a Bengali. They were known as Wilson’s Circus and Bose’s Circus respectively, and Jyotirindranath had offered to take his nieces and nephews to any one of their choice. ‘Oh! Mr Wilson’s of course,’ Jnanadanandini, newly returned from England, suggested enthusiastically on behalf of her children.

  ‘No,’ Sarala said firmly, ‘I want to see Bose’s circus.’

  Jnanadanandini was astonished, partly at the way she had been contradicted and partly at the strange preference exhibited. ‘Why?’ she had cried out. ‘The Indian circus can never be as good as the English one. Besides, the place is bound to be filthy.’

  ‘A little dirt will not harm us,’ Sarala replied evenly. ‘It’s an Indian circus run by one of our people. How hard Bosemoshai must have worked to compete with the Englishman! We must encourage him.’

  Jyotirindra had laughed and backed her up and the whole party had gone to see Bose’s circus. Another time, while still at school, she had gone around with a black band on her arm though she had no idea she was wearing it because Surendra Banerjee had been sent to prison for opposing the Ilbert Bill.

  Sarala’s parents were among the first Indians to be seriously caught up in the movement against British rule which was gradually gathering momentum. Her father, Janakinath Ghoshal, had been a member of the Indian National Congress from its inception in 1885. He had nurtured the organization over the years and played an important part in its proceedings. It was his enthusiasm that had fired many other members of the Tagore family, including Rabindranath, into a rethinking of the merits and demerits of a regime they had not only accepted but considered indispensable all these years. Sarala’s brand of patriotism was different from that of her parents. She favoured action and retaliation, not talks and negotiation. But, being a wise young woman, she realized that before she undertook a campaign she would have to become financially and emotionally independent. She would have to learn to hold her parents and all the others who sought to influence her at bay and stand on her own two feet. For that, the first thing she would have to do was to leave Kolkata. She started looking around for opportunities. Her parents were horrified and tried to make her change her mind. Failing to do so, they turned to Rabindranath. Sarala loved her Roi Ma and would listen to him. Janakinath wrote to Rabindranath in England, begging him to stop her. She was only eighteen. How could he, her father, allow her to travel to an unknown destination alone?

  Between his own homesickness, Bibi’s pleas and the problem of Sarala, Rabindranath wanted to cut his sojourn short and return. But he hesitated. He had made detailed plans for the trip to Europe and shared them with his fellow travellers. What was more, he had borrowed the money, at a high rate of interest, from his nephew Satyaprasad. Was it all to go waste? Besides, how was he to explain his sudden change of heart to his brother and Loken? He bided his time, wondering how to broach the subject.

  And then, suddenly one night, he dreamed of Mrinalini. She stood before him, her head bowed, just as she had stood the day he h
ad first seen her in Phooltala. He woke up with a start. And after that he couldn’t sleep a wink. Thoughts passed in and out of his head. Sharp, searing thoughts that probed cruelly, piercing the cloak of self-assurance and composure that he had donned all these years. For the first time, he took stock of himself as a husband truthfully, and found himself wanting. Here in this cold, dark, remote land, filled with an alien people, he yearned for the sweet comfort of the life Mrinalini had created for him. He missed Beli’s childish babble and the feel of his wife’s body against his at night. He missed her warmth and her nurturing. But did he miss her? How often did he think of her? He wanted to please Bibi by returning to Kolkata. He wanted to meet Sarala, before she left, and give her his advice and blessings. But had he ever thought of how Mrinalini was faring in his absence? She was younger than both his nieces and she was his wife. Yet he had left her alone in the indifferent, friendless environment of Jorasanko with two small children and another in her womb. He was enjoying himself in Europe while she was… Heaven knew what she was doing! She never complained, never asked him to consider her needs or do anything for her. Was that why he was forgetful of her most of the time? The more he thought, the more agitated he became. He realized that he was kind to her as one was to a child. He teased, praised and scolded her with a careless, easy affection. But was that enough? Did it satisfy her?

  That long, sleepless night, Rabindranath thought of nothing else and by dawn he came to a decision. He would leave as soon as he was able to secure a passage to India. And, having reached, he would reorient himself as a husband. He would make Mrinalini happy.