First Light

by Sunil Gangopadhyay

  Returning to Kadambari he took her feet in his hands and, drawing them to his breast, begged her to forgive him. But Kadambari withdrew her feet without a word and, rising, walked into the forest. Robi followed her. ‘I’ll never hurt you again Natun Bouthan,’ he begged. ‘I promise. Only forgive me this time.’

  Suddenly, it started raining, the water falling in large drops over their heads and faces. And then the shower became a torrent, drenching them to the skin. Kadambari stood under a tree her body shaking with sobs. The tears pouring down her face mingled with the raindrops and pattered silently down to her feet.

  ‘Robi,’ she called softly.

  ‘What is it Natun Bouthan?’ he whispered

  Kadambari’s lips moved but no words came. Robi gazed on her face like one transfixed. It had a strange, ethereal beauty. Surely no mortal could look like that ‘Devi! Devi!’ he cried out in ecstasy. Kadambari’s eyes, pained and bewildered like those of a bird robbed of her nest, gazed into his. ‘É bhara bhaadar,’ she murmured, ‘Maaha bhaadar Shunya mandir mor. Can you sing it to me Robi? Do you know the tune?’

  Robi hummed under his breath for a minute, then setting the words to the haunting melody of Misra Malhar, he started singing it in an impassioned voice.

  Hand in hand they stood in the rain, wind and thunder as Robi sang.

  Chapter X

  As he descended the stairs one morning Shashibhushan was assailed by a strange sensation. He felt the walls go round and round as if the world was spinning furiously around him. Clutching at the stair rail he shut his eyes. He wondered if this was an earthquake. But, if it was, why was there no commotion and no blowing of conches? Hindus blew conches at such times to appease the snake God Vasuki who held the earth on his head. Shashibhushan took a few cautious steps then, without any warning, his arm was wrenched free of the protecting rail and he fell headlong down the steps to lie in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  Though he lay inert Shashibhushan had not lost consciousness. His head throbbed violently and he felt as though millions of needles were being jabbed into his brain. What was happening to him? Was he dying? He couldn’t bear the agony and tried to call out but his throat was dry and no sound came. And then his eyes, burning with pain and heavy as stones, beheld a strange sight. A girl stood before him; a young girl with tip tilted eyes and long thick hair that hung to her knees like a sheet. She held a bunch of white flowers in her hand. He wondered if she was real or a product of his fevered brain. If she was no illusion, where had she come from? The front door was closed and she hadn’t come down the stairs. She could be a maid of the house but, if so, why had he never seen her? The girl bent over him bringing her face close to his and, looking into those long melting eyes, Shashibhushan fainted.

  Shashibhushan was dangerously ill for the next few days. His brothers filled the house with doctors who tried every possible remedy. But it looked as though he was slipping away. The biggest problem was that he could not be fed anything at all. He retched and vomited incessantly bringing up even the few drops of water that were poured down his throat. His loving brothers saw him wasting away, before their eyes. His emaciated body was as white as the sheets on which he lay and his voice was as feeble as a bird’s. Dr Charles Gordon managed to keep him alive by a superhuman effort. But for how long? This thought was in the minds of everyone especially his sisters-in-law who nursed him with tears in their eyes. Krishnabhamini had great faith in homeopathy and nagged her husband to send for Dr Mahendralal Sarkar. But he was away in Bardhaman attending the Maharaja. A messenger was despatched with an urgent summons and was, even now, on his way.

  Shashibhushan lay in a coma for days broken by small intervals of consciousness. At such times his mind was alert and awake and his eyes unclouded. But he felt as if he was floating on air; as if he had no body. His mind was clear but his limbs were inert and he felt neither hunger nor thirst. He knew he was dying. He would die the moment his heart stopped beating and that time was not far off. Tears of weakness coursed down his sunken cheeks as he thought of his happy days in Tripura. He had left everything behind—his books and his expensive cameras. Who would take care of them when he was gone?

  One night he had a strange experience. It must have been well past midnight for the street noises had ceased and the house was perfectly still. The door to his room was open and, in the dim light that came from a lamp burning in one corner, he discerned a sleeping shape on a grass mat on the floor. It was a maid or a servant, he knew. Ever since his illness his sisters-in-law had insisted on someone sleeping in his room.

  He lay awake for a while listening to the faint sound of breathing that filled the room. Then something happened that almost made him sit up with shock. A woman came through the door into his room and, walking past the sleeper, came straight up to his bed. A tinkling sound accompanied her movements. As she drew near he discovered that it came not from her anklets but from the bunch of keys that hung from her waist. The woman was plump and matronly. She wore a white sari of garad silk with a broad red border and her forehead was marked with a large circle of sindoor. Tears ran down her face and her body shook with sobs. Shashibhushan recognized her. She was his mother.

  ‘Ma,’ Shashibhushan whispered, ‘why do you weep?’ ‘Bhushu,’ she cried in a choking voice. ‘What is this I see? My beautiful boy reduced to a handful of bones! All the blood has left your golden limbs. Oh my darling child! Why do you suffer so?’

  ‘I can’t eat anything Ma. I’m dying.’

  ‘Hush my son,’ She stroked his forehead with tender fingers as she used to in his childhood. He was her youngest child—her baby.

  ‘Have you come to take me away with you Ma?’ he asked, his hand clinging to the stroking fingers.

  ‘Don’t ever say such a thing,’ the apparition trembled. ‘All will be well. Tell them in the kitchen to roast some raw bel and make a sherbet with the pulp. Drink it. It will bring the taste back to your mouth. Then you can have a bowl of soft rice gruel.’ Even as she said these words her voice grew faint and her form receded in wave upon wave of darkness. Shashi knew he was slipping away again. ‘Ma! Ma!’ he tried to cry out, ‘Don’t go.’ The last thing he remembered before he fainted was the cool clinging of his mother’s fingers and the faint fragrance of her hair. After that—oblivion.

  When he recovered consciousness the room was empty and the sheets were soaking wet with perspiration. But, strangely, the limbs that had been immobile all these days now obeyed his bidding. He turned over on the other side quite effortlessly. His heart pounded furiously. His mother had died seventeen years ago when he was a mere boy. Yet the hand that he had held was warm and moist—a hand of flesh and blood. He took a deep breath. The faint fragrance of her still hung upon the air. Shashi shut his eyes to ward off the panic rising in him. His temples had started throbbing again and his throat felt dry. ‘Water,’ he called out hoarsely, ‘A little water.’ The words had barely left his lips when jhinuk of cool water was held to them. He opened his eyes and got another shock. A face was poised above his—not his mother’s but that of the young girl he had seen the day he fell. The eyes that looked into his were dark and tender and the long hair framing her face fell in silken strands on his sheet. Was this a dream too? But he could feel the water trickling down his throat and his mouth felt cool and moist.

  Next morning when his sister-in-law came into the room with his breakfast of sago and milk he raised a feeble hand and waved it away. ‘Bring me a sherbet of raw bel,’ he said, adding, ‘Make sure it is roasted first.’ This presented no difficulty for there were several bel trees in the back garden and they were laden with fruit. When the sherbet arrived he drained the silver glass to the last drop. Next day he could swallow a bowl of gruel.

  As his body recovered by degrees his mind grew clearer and sharper. He spent hours mulling over his experience of that night. He had seen not one vision but two. One was that of his dead mother. There were some who believed that the soul was immortal. Even if one wer
e to grant that—surely the physical was not. The sari his mother had worn in life, her bunch of keys; even the thick gold bangles that now adorned the arms of his eldest sister-in-law—how had they returned in their original form? Could it be that those who professed to have seen ghosts or even gods and goddesses were not liars after all? Ramkrishna, the priest at the temple of Dakshineswar, claimed that he saw Ma Kali and even talked and laughed with her. Shashibhushan had dismissed his claims with the contempt it deserved. But now he was not so sure. Keshab Sen, he reflected, must have passed through a similar experience. Else, how had the burning flame of the Brahmo Samaj fallen under the spell of Ramkrishna? On Shashibhushan’s return from Tripura he had heard that Keshab Babu had turned his back on all reason and logic and was at the beck and call of the rustic priest. Keshab Babu and his followers, Shashibhushan reasoned, must have put Ramkrishna to a severe test and been satisfied with the result.

  Shashibhushan was able to sit up but was still not strong enough to stand without support when Dr Mahendralal Sarkar came to see him. Mahendralal was big and hefty in build: and sported a pair of moustaches as thick and fierce as that of a Kabuli cat. He had begun his career as an allopath standing first in the MD examination. A confirmed atheist he had, in his youth, upheld the rational and the scientific and rejected gods, ghosts and homeopathy with unconcealed scorn. He had even founded a society called the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. Then, suddenly, at the height of his career, he had turned to homeopathy and was now its leading practitioner.

  Mahendralal had been initiated into homeopathy by the great Rajen Datta himself—he who had cured Ishwarehandra Vidyasagar, Raja Radhakanta Deb and the Maharaja of Jaipur earning their gratitude for life. Radhakanta Deb had offered him a sum of twenty-five thousand rupees but Rajen Datta had refused it. He came from a very wealthy family of Taltala and didn’t need the money. Besides, as he said, the fact that homeopathy had established itself as a viable alternative to allopathy was, in itself, his reward. Mahendrala’s involvement with homeopathy had started as a challenge. He had set out to study its basics in order to be able to refute its claims with greater authenticity. But the more he studied the science the more it interested him. And, then, he turned to it altogether.

  Mahendrala’s decision sent shock waves through the medical circles of Calcutta. He was threatened with expulsion from the Bengal branch of the British Medical Association and his roaring practice sank to a whimper. But Mahendralal bided his time and, gradually, his old patients returned one by one.

  Now his chambers were more crowded than those of any other doctor in the city. Keshab Sen and Mahendralal Sarkar—advocates of reason as opposed to blind faith-had been Shashibhushan’s gurus in his youth. But now both had fallen from their pedestals. One was clashing cymbals and singing kirtans in a Hindu temple and the other had become a disciple of Hahnemann. Shashibhushan was appalled. What was homeopathy, after all, but glorified guess work? Some diseases left the body by a process of natural remission and the homeopaths took credit for it. The irony was that he, himself, had been brought to such a pass that he was hoping to be cured by a system in which he had no faith. It was doubly ironical that the treatment was to be meted out by none other than the erstwhile high priest of Reason.

  The floor quaked under the heavy boots of the great doctor as he came up the stairs. Reaching the landing he turned to Manibhushan and asked sharply, ‘What is that noise? Where is it coming from?’ Manibhushan smiled. ‘From our puja room,’ he replied. ‘Our priest is making the customary offering to the family deity.’ Mahendralal glanced down at his kerchief the tip of which could be seen peeping out of the breast pocket of his dun coloured coat. He drew another out of his trouser pocket and wiped the perspiration from his balding crown. ‘Is your house always as noisy as this?’ he asked sternly. ‘We are Vaishnavs,’

  Manibhushan replied taken aback, ‘and must partake of prasad before sitting down to the midday meal. Today, of course, a special puja is being conducted for Shashi—’

  ‘Stop it,’ Mahendralal thundered. ‘Stop it at once. My ear drums are fit to burst. I shudder to think of what the poor patient is going through.’ Then, fixing his eyes on Manibhushan’s startled face, he added, if you can’t or won’t I’ll leave at once.’ He turned around and began walking away. Manibhushan followed him begging abjectly, ‘Please rest a while and have some paan and a smoke. The arati will be over in half an hour and—’

  ‘I neither smoke nor eat paan when visiting a patient. I’ll wait here for two minutes. Go to your puja room and get the infernal din stopped. At the end of two minutes I’ll leave.’

  A servant was hastily despatched with the message. The priests were loath to stop the arati and abused the man roundly. But the moment they heard that Dr Mahendralal Sarkar was in the house they trembled in apprehension. They had heard that the man was a vile heretic who did not hesitate to march into puja rooms with boots on and manhandle the priests. ‘Stop the gongs and conches,’ the head priest commanded. ‘We will go on with the mantras. Keep your voice down or that blaspheming rogue will hear us.’

  ‘Good riddance!’ the doctor exclaimed as soon as the clamour ceased, ‘Now let me have a look at the patient.’ Entering the sickroom, however, he lost his temper again. ‘Clear the room,’ he ordered, ‘There are too many people here. Open the doors and windows. Don’t you know that the sick need fresh air? Ugh! This room hasn’t been cleaned in ages. What is that glass of stale milk doing in the meat safe? And the dirty plates on the floor? Have them taken away at once. Has no one told you that a bedpan must be kept under the bed?’ Coming up to Shashi, he placed a hand on his head and asked in a voice that had miraculously become soft and gentle. ‘Where is the pain my boy? Here?’ Then waving away the vast throne like chair that had been brought for him to sit on, he said, ‘You come from Tripura. Are there mosquitoes there?’

  ‘Lots of mosquitoes,’ Shashi answered.

  ‘The water of mountain streams is often infected. Do people suffer from stomach trouble in Tripura?’

  ‘Yes. Many of them do.’

  ‘Have you ever had a serious illness? When has a doctor last seen you?’

  ‘I enjoy good health as a rule. The last time a doctor attended me was fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Have you ever had an accident?’

  ‘I fell off my horse once. I was a boy of twelve then.’ Mahendralal took Shashibhushan’s wrist between his thick fingers and, shutting his eyes, seemed to go off into a trance. Then he examined, one by one, Shashibhushan’s eyes, tongue, arms and legs, tapping at the joints with his knuckles. After the examination was over he called for warm water to wash his hands. ‘The crisis is over,’ he said abruptly, ‘The boy will live. The attack was a bad one and could have damaged the brain. But, mercifully, all is well.’ Glancing at the books on the shelf he said to Shashibhushan, ‘You read Herbert Spencer, I see. Have you read Kant?’

  Manibhushan had been fiddling with a purse in his pocket all this while. Now, as the doctor rose to leave, he drew it out. ‘My fee is thirty-two rupees,’ Mahendralal said. The two brothers exchanged glances. The best of allopaths charged sixteen rupees a visit. A homeopath, they had thought, would be much cheaper. The doctor looked from one face to another and said brusquely, ‘You don’t have to pay me now. I’m leaving some medicine which the patient will take for the next three days. He’ll be up and about by then and must report to my chamber on the fourth day. If he is unable to do so you needn’t pay a paisa. Mahen Sarkar doesn’t take money without effecting a cure.’

  As the doctor moved towards the door Shashibhushan cried out, ‘Doctor Babu! May I ask you a question?’

  ‘You may,’ the doctor replied turning back. ‘A doctor is obliged to answer his patient’s questions.’ Shashi turned pleading eyes on his brothers. ‘Will you leave the room please,’ he begged. After they had left, Mahendralal shut the door and came up to the bed. ‘I thought I was dying,’ Shashi burst out as if in desperation.
‘I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eat. Then my mother came to me. She said I was to have bel sherbet and soft rice gruel. I feel much better—

  ‘Very well. Eat whatever you like. All food is good if the body doesn’t reject it. Besides, mothers know what is good for their children.’

  ‘You don’t, understand. My mother’s been dead these seventeen years. Yet she came to me. You examined me doctor, am I going mad?’

  ‘No. I found no trace of insanity. And your speech is perfectly coherent.’

  ‘I can’t talk about it to anyone. They’ll dismiss it as a dream. But I saw her as clearly as I see you now. I touched her—’

  ‘What of it?’ Mahendralal said comfortably. ‘You’ve seen your mother. You’re the better for it. Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Can the dead come back to life?’

  ‘No,’ Mahendralal’s voice was firm. ‘No one, not even God can raise the dead. But the human mind has strange and unlimited powers. It can create everything out of nothing. When the desire is strong enough, even the dead can be seen and touched.’ Patting Shashi gently on the head the doctor rose to leave. ‘I have a theory on the subject,’ he said, ‘which I would like to share with you. But not in your present state. Come to me when you are fully recovered and we’ll have a long chat. And, for the present, carry on with the diet the ghosts have prescribed. It has done you good.’

  Dr Mahendralal’s medicine had the effect he had anticipated. Within three days Shashibhushan was able to walk about freely and eat his meals with enjoyment. What was more the old urge to read returned. His brothers sent for all the latest papers and journals. Shashibhushan threw aside the Englishman and took up the Indian Mirror instead. But what intrigued him most were the journals of the Brahmo Samaj. He was appalled at the state into which the Samaj had fallen. Debendranath Thakur had loved Keshab Sen as one of his own sons. Yet Keshab had broken away from the Adi Brahmo Samaj and formed an association of his own called Naba Bidhan the chief activity of which was his own self projection. In consequence a third group had come into being under the leadership of Shibnath Shastri. Revolted by Keshab’s behaviour, Shibnath never lost an opportunity to point out the former’s contradictions and retrogressions. Keshab, who had made burning speeches against child marriage, had recently married his own ten-year-old daughter to a prince of Coochbehar. That too by Hindu rites. It was rumoured that Keshab was advocating a return to idol worship. He had put up a flag in the Brahmo prayer hall before which arati was performed every evening and at the foot of which every Brahmo was expected to knock his head in homage. Shashibhushan tossed the paper away in disgust.