Jorasanko

by Aruna Chakravarti

  Rabindranath and Mrinalini were in Shilaidaha when all this was going on. One day, Jyotirindranath came to his younger brother with a message from Jnanadanandini. He was to go to Kolkata, meet his friend Ashutosh Chowdhury and seek his help in resolving this impasse. But Rabindranath wasn’t keen on meddling in this matter any further. It had become extremely complicated and messy. Mejo Bouthan would see only her own point of view. As for Bibi, she was too timid, too overawed by her mother! Had she expressed her real feelings right in the beginning, much of the unpleasantness could have been avoided.

  At the moment, however, thoughts of Bibi and her problems receded as Rabindranath looked at his elder brother with sorrow and dismay. How Jyoti dada had changed! His brilliant, handsome, dashing Jyoti dada, whom he had looked upon as a lodestar in his boyhood, was standing before him, stooping from his great height – a ghost of his former self. The bright gold of his complexion had turned a dull, tarnished copper. His hair with the fashionable Albert cut had thinned, and his once flashing dark eyes were dim and ringed with silver. Even his voice had changed. It was weak and plaintive; the voice of a man who knows that defeat and humiliation lie in wait for him at every corner. Rabindranath’s eyes burned at the sight of Jyotirindranath standing, abject and humble, before him, begging for a favour. That, too, not for himself but on behalf of an overbearing, arrogant woman who had held him in the hollow of her hand all his life and ruined his chances of happiness with the gentlest, sweetest, most loving wife any husband had ever known. Rabindranath looked away. He couldn’t bear to meet his brother’s cataract-ridden eyes.

  ‘Tell Mejo Bouthan,’ he said quietly, ‘that I’ll have to turn down her request. I can’t go to Kolkata.’

  ‘She’s depending on you, Robi,’ Jyotirindranath said urgently. ‘She has been humiliated once. We can’t allow that to happen again. You must help her.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her to reconsider her decision? Bibi will be quite happy living with the Chowdhurys.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s a Tagore tradition and…’

  ‘Other families have traditions too. Besides, isn’t Pratibha living in her husband’s home?’

  ‘Her parents didn’t mind breaking ours. Mejo Bouthan does.’

  Rabindranath was silent for a few moments. The double standards people have, he thought, laughing inwardly. Mejo Bouthan setting herself up as a champion of the Tagore family traditions! What a joke!’ Aloud he said, ‘Talking to Ashu will be of no use. I know him well. He won’t go against his sister.’

  ‘But you’ll go against your sister-in-law?’ Jyotirindranath asked sadly.

  ‘I didn’t say that. It’s impossible for me to leave Shilaidaha just now,’ he said firmly, ‘but I’ll write a letter to Ashu explaining the circumstances and request him to mediate. Though I still feel Mejo Bouthan should leave the decision to her daughter and son-in-law.’ Seeing the look of disappointment on his brother’s face, he added, ‘Let’s hope for the best.’

  Rabindranath was right. Ashutosh Chowdhury didn’t even bother to reply to his letter. But something else happened. Pramatha told his sister that he loved Indira and was determined to marry her. And since her mother was so insistent that he live with them, he would do so. Thus the strong, forceful Jnanadanandini won this battle too as she had won all her battles all her life. Her heart swelled with triumph. She had achieved the unachievable through sheer force of character! She had ensured her daughter’s marriage to the man she loved. Yet, unlike her cousin Pratibha, she wouldn’t have to occupy a subservient position in the Chowdhury household under the rule of a domineering sister-in-law. Bibi would live as she had lived from the time she was born, in the lap of luxury, enjoying every happiness, every comfort. Pramatha wasn’t doing too well, it was true, but that was of little consequence. Jnanada would take care of all their needs.

  Rabindranath had given the matter of his children’s education a good deal of thought after Jnanadanandini’s comment that he was allowing them to grow up like savages. Undoubtedly, they were learning a lot from their tutors, but was that enough? Education wasn’t only about picking up facts. It was also about sharing thoughts and ideas with one’s peers. By keeping his children at home, he was depriving them of the company of others of their age, of bonding with them and entering into healthy competition through study and play. Was he doing right? He couldn’t bear the thought of sending them to institutions like St. Xavier’s and The Oriental Seminary, where he and his brothers had studied. Could an alternative be found? How would it be if he started a school of his own? A school for boys run on the principles of Gurukul, the ancient system of education that was prevalent in Vedic India? Shantiniketan, with its pristine, pastoral landscape was an ideal location. But establishing a school and running it was expensive. Where would he find the money?

  One afternoon, he came to his apartments in Jorasanko to find his wife sitting on the terrace, her back to the sun, sheets of mango pulp spread out before her. She had a book in her hands which she was reading with great concentration, waving it over the mango sheets, occasionally, to ward off the flies. He stood at the door and watched her for a while, his heart beating rapidly. Natun Bouthan used to sit just the way Mrinalini was sitting, her legs folded sideways, with sheets of pickles and preserves in front of her, reading a book and drying her long hair in the sun. He shut his eyes. A scent, faint and lemony, long forgotten, drifted to his nostrils.

  ‘You?’ Mrinalini turned her head, breaking the spell.

  ‘What are you reading, Chhuti?’ her husband asked, dropping down on the mat by her side. Mrinalini pulled the end of her sari a little lower over her brow and showed him the book. It was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you have graduated to Twain,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was so sick of seeing you and Beli weeping your eyes out over East Lynne and The Mighty Atom. How many times have you two read those silly books? Twenty? Thirty?’

  Mrinalini smiled but said nothing. She had always had a quiet, controlled personality but she was speaking less and less as she grew older. Rabindranath crossed his legs comfortably under him and said, ‘I would like to share an idea with you, Chhoto Bou. How would it be if I started a school?’

  ‘A school!’ Mrinalini echoed. ‘What kind of school?’

  Rabindranath outlined his plans to her in detail. ‘It will be a good thing not only for our children but for many others of our land. What do you think?’

  Mrinalini had listened, very quietly, all this while. ‘I think it’s a very good idea,’ she said slowly. ‘We’ll all move to Shantiniketan. I’ll help you. I’ll take care of the children’s boarding and lodging.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ her husband responded enthusiastically. ‘The boys will need a mother figure. But where do I find the money? I’m still paying off the loan I took from Motichand Nakhtar.’ Rabindranath had embarked on a grand plan of improving his financial situation by starting a business with two of his nephews a year ago. But it had proved a disaster and he was still repaying a debt of forty thousand rupees he had taken from the Marwari jeweller. Mrinalini rose and went into the anteroom where her iron chest was kept. Opening it, she drew out a carved wooden casket and handed it to her husband. Rabindranath lifted the lid and found that the box was full of jewels and gold coins. He knew that they had been give to her at the time of their marriage, and on several occasions after that, by various members of the family.

  ‘Sell them,’ Mrinalini said to her astonished husband, ‘and start your school.’

  ‘Sell them!’ he echoed. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve worn the jewels only once or twice. That, too, when I was a new bride. They are of no use to me now.’

  ‘We have three daughters. Don’t you want to keep some for them?’

  ‘No. They’ll get their share of jewels from the estate. Their grandfather will take care of it.’

  Rabindranath stared at her in amazement. And suddenly he felt small and humble. She was the da
ughter of a penniless clerk and had known only poverty and deprivation before she was catapulted to the status of a daughter-in-law of the Tagores of Jorasanko. But the wealth and prestige of her new family hadn’t touched her. She had carried out the duties of her position with meticulous care but never sought its advantages. She lived and dressed as simply as her mother had done and worked her fingers to the bone in the service of the vast, extended family of which she was now virtually the mistress. She was so young! Only twenty-five. Yet the lure of fine clothes and jewels simply passed her by. He realized, for the first time, that hers was a special soul. Free from the trappings of the world.

  ‘Have you discussed your project with Bolu?’ Mrinalini broke the silence. ‘He’ll be very interested.’

  ‘I will,’ Rabindranath replied, then added in a whisper, ‘Only… I don’t think he’ll be with us for long.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Mrinalini leaned forward and pressed her palm on her husband’s mouth. ‘Keep faith in our Param Pita. He will not be so cruel to Nau didi and Bouma.’

  Balendranath had been suffering from consumption for some years now. And, in the tradition of the Tagore family, a number of doctors were treating him collectively. But nothing seemed to be helping. He was getting thinner and paler, every day. Despite his condition and against everyone’s advice, Prafullamayi had got him married, a couple of years ago, to the daughter of one of their own kin, a military surgeon stationed in Allahabad.

  Balendranath, as Mrinalini had rightly presumed, was very excited by the idea of a school and promised to help all he could. He had turned religious of late and had quite a few ideas of his own. One of the disciplines of the school syllabus, he suggested, would be theology but not in the abstract, comprehensive form of a study of all religions. His wanted the students to be educated in the tenets of the Brahmo dharma and initiated. But Rabindranath didn’t agree. He wanted to keep his institution strictly secular, free from all religious influences. He had no intention of turning it into a forum for dissemination of the Brahmo faith.

  Despite this, the eighty-five-year-old Debendranath Tagore, head of the Adi Brahmo Samaj, not only endorsed his youngest son’s proposal wholeheartedly, he also drew up a deed sanctioning two hundred rupees a month, from the estate, for the running of the school. He had very strong, almost uncanny powers of perception where his children were concerned. He, who had actively discouraged Jyotirindranath from following almost all the schemes he had formulated, didn’t do so now. He understood why his youngest son was so keen on opening a school. He had suffered acutely from the prevalent system of education and wished to spare his children and others of the land from a similar fate. Besides, the Maharshi had a strong streak of nationalism and shared the view of many that the British system was producing a nation of clerks with the mentality of slaves. How much better it would be if the ancient wisdom of the seers of India was to be revived! He knew his son Robi. He had brains, practical sense and consistency. He would succeed in his mission.

  But an unfortunate incident stalled everything. Halfway through the course of action initiated to set up the institution, Balendranath died. The end came much sooner than expected. He passed away peacefully in his sleep one night, leaving his wife and mother in a state of complete devastation and Rabindranath and Mrinalini, who loved him deeply, shocked and bewildered.

  1899–1902

  I

  Prafullamayi had been brought to Jorasanko by an enamoured Sarada Sundari and been loved and pampered by her above all the daughters-in-law of the house. But those days were long since gone. The great beauty which had dazzled the eyes of her mother-in-law had faded with time and the repeated tragedies of her life. Prolonged fasting and morbid abstinence had whittled down her voluptuous body to near emaciation and her complexion, which Sarada had likened to a Persian rose, had turned a spectral white. Her hair, which had once fallen like a river of black silk to her hips, now hung in thin wisps to her shoulders and her eyes had dimmed with years of weeping. Her mad husband still lived – a cowering, whimpering handful of skin and bones and unkempt hair. Servants bathed and fed him when he let them but that was rarely for he would turn violent, swiftly and suddenly, without any provocation. During those times, he was seized of enormous strength and flung things about and howled and wept with rage. Everyone in the house avoided him.

  Yet, strangely enough, his son’s death struck a chord in the dim, muffled layers in which Birendra’s mind had buried itself. He was fast asleep when the body was taken out through the great gates into the streets to the sounds of weeping and the chanting of prayers. When he awoke the house was quiet again but the first thing he said on opening his eyes was, ‘Where’s Bolu?’ Then, when no one answered him, he rose trembling from his bed and ran down the stairs across the yard through the baar mahal and came to the deuri. ‘Where’s Bolu?’ he asked the darwan, looked this way and that, and came back again to the house. Half an hour later he went out again. ‘Where’s Bolu?’ he asked everyone he met. He kept on doing this till Prafullamayi pushed him into his room and shut the door.

  Prafulla’s world came to an end with the death of her son. Added to the grief was an overwhelming concern for her daughter-in-law. The poor girl was only fifteen and had been married for three brief years. How would she live? Who would take care of her? Her father-in-law was insane and the other inmates of the house, caught up in their own affairs, were indifferent to her fate. Prafulla felt overwhelmed with guilt. Bolu had been consumptive for many years. His mother knew he hadn’t long to live. Yet, her yearning for a family of her own, a daughter-in-law and grandchildren, had driven her to an irresponsible act which had ended in disaster for a young, innocent girl. Everyone had warned her against the marriage but she had turned a deaf ear. And, in her stubbornness, history had repeated itself. She had done to her daughter-in-law what Sarada Sundari had done to her. Regret and self-castigation crushed and swamped all her other feelings.

  ‘I feel so guilty, Bouma,’ she said to Shahana one day. ‘I was headstrong and selfish and wouldn’t accept the truth. I can’t forgive myself for ruining your life.’

  Shahana stood still, her head bowed. In her widow’s thaan she was a slight, fragile figure.

  ‘You are so young,’ Prafullamayi continued, ‘and you have no children. There’s no reason why you should not have a second chance. I shall write to your father, requesting him to take you back to Allahabad and find another husband for you.’

  ‘No, Ma.’ A shadow fell across Shahana’s face.

  ‘Why not? Widow remarriage is legal now thanks to Vidyasagarmoshai. And it isn’t uncommon, especially in Brahmo families.’

  ‘Leave me to my fate. What God has willed…’

  ‘You are too young to take that decision. Leave it to your father. I’ll tell him that I shall know no peace till you are settled once again.’

  But someone had other ideas on the subject. And that was Debendranath. One of his first actions, after his grandson’s death, was to change the terms of his will. His fourth son’s patrimony, hitherto held for Bolu, was withdrawn and redistributed, and a sum of one hundred rupees a month was sanctioned for what remained of his family. Prafullamayi’s hopes of seeing her daughter-in-law remarried were also dashed by her redoubtable father-in-law. He was against widow remarriage, though he took care not to show it openly, and would not tolerate it in his own family. Upon a rumour reaching him that Shahana’s mother had found a suitable match for her widowed daughter, he sent his youngest son to stop the proceedings and bring her back to Jorasanko. Rabindranath went dutifully on his father’s errand, worked on Bolu’s mother-in-law and managed to bring Shahana back with him. And when Prafulla, foiled in her attempt to provide her daughter-in-law with a fresh lease of life, tried to take stock of what money, jewels and Company bonds she had at her disposal, he wrote to Mrinalini, who was away from Jorasanko at the time: Nau Bouthan had only one son. One bond alone – with the world. That bond has been most cruelly shattered. Yet she occupies
herself, all the time, with thoughts of money. Of buying and selling. Everyone in the house is shocked and displeased at her behaviour. But I, who am aware of the diversity that lies in human nature, am trying to take it as calmly as possible. Strange to say, it struck no one, not even Rabindranath, that Prafulla was doing what she was, not for herself but to secure a comfortable future for her young daughter-in-law.

  Bolu’s tragic death may have shaken and saddened Debendranath, but the terrible afflictions suffered, over a lifetime, by his mother and the bleak future of his young widow seemed to cause little or no concern to the grand old patriarch of the Tagores of Jorasanko. He was busy giving finishing touches to his current project, a house he was building for his youngest son on the tract of land that his father had left for Nagendra and which he had wheedled out of his widow, Tripura Sundari. It was a large, palatial house, red in colour and hence called Lal Bari. And Rabindranath, for all his love of Bolu, seemed equally indifferent to his mother’s and widow’s fate. Whatever his private feelings in the matter, he toed his father’s line. He had never opposed him and didn’t do so now. He too, like Debendranath, had projects of his own which were taking up all his time and attention. One was his school for boys in Shantiniketan. The other was finding a groom for his thirteen-year-old daughter.

  Rabindranath had always lent his voice to movements aimed at social reform especially when they concerned the women of the land. It was true that he hadn’t supported the passing of a bill against child marriage but that, as he was careful to explain, was because he felt that change in societal norms had to come from within. Laws achieved nothing. He had expressed his thoughts quite succinctly in several articles. Yet, when his own daughter entered her teens he became restless and eager to get her settled. The surprising thing was that, of his favourite nieces, Bibi and Sarala, one had tied the knot with the man of her choice at the age of twenty-six and the other was still unwed. His anxiety and haste surprised everyone and friends and relatives came to their own conclusions as to the cause. Some thought that the poet was keen on wrapping up his parental duties as swiftly as possible so that he could get back to his own work with a mind free from practical worries. Others, less generous in spirit, took another view. The Maharshi was old and his health was failing. All the ceremonies performed in the ancestral house of Jorasanko during his lifetime would be paid for by the estate. After his death, his sons would be left to fend for themselves. Rabindranath was staggering under a heavy debt already. It was to his advantage if the marriages of his daughters took place while his father lived.