First Light

by Sunil Gangopadhyay

  ‘Why not? Has she turned ascetic?’

  ‘Far from it. She’s got a new babu.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s immensely rich. And he has a title. He is a raja. A real raja.’

  ‘This country crawls with real rajas. What’s his name?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. I’ll have his paw on my neck if I do. He is no ordinary raja. He is a king lion—’

  ‘Bini! Bini!’ Girish Ghosh sighed and shook his head. ‘When she first came to me she was like a doll. She simpered self-consciously and moved her hands and feet with jerky little movements. I made her into the woman she is today. I breathed fire and passion into her. I gave her depth and character. But she has no use for me any more. She didn’t even care to tell me about her new babu.’

  ‘You can’t blame her Gurudev. A woman can’t survive by herself in this wicked city. She needs a man to protect her. You’re totally wrapped up in your Ramkrishna and have no time for her. What is the poor girl to do? Her present protector, I’ve heard, is a good man and treats her well.’

  ‘Let’s go to her. I must see her at once.’

  Amritalal tried to prevent Girish Ghosh from undertaking this foolish venture but the latter had made up his mind. Hastening to his carriage he drove like the wind till he came to his destination. Stepping down, he walked with his accustomed arrogance towards the looming mansion ahead but was stopped roughly by the sentries at the gate. There were two of them—huge, strapping northerners with tall turbans and fierce mustaches. But Girish Ghosh was not intimidated. He had had a lot to drink and was in a fighting mood. ‘Let go of me, you rascals,’ he thundered in his deep rich voice, ‘Let me pass.’ The men didn’t understand. They merely repeated, in their unintelli-gible tongue, that they had orders not to let anyone in. Frustrated in his attempts to enter the house, Girish turned his face to the window of Binodini’s bedroom and yelled, ‘Bini! Binod! Come down. Come down at once.’ Binodini did not come but a maid

  Bini?’ called Padmabala, did. ‘Ogo Babu!’ she said, ‘Didimoni can’t see you today. She’s ill and—’ Girish glared at her. ‘Tell me the truth Podi!’ he asked severely, ‘Does your mistress know I’m here? Did she hear me call?’

  ‘That she did. She’s even seen you from her balcony. She sent me to tell you that—’

  Girish Ghosh turned away. There was a great sadness in his heart. Helping him into the carriage, Amritalal said gently, ‘Don’t be too hard on her. Perhaps her babu was there.’ Girish made no reply. After a while, when the carriage had started moving, he muttered sullenly, ‘Pride goes before a fall. She forgets that it was I who made her. And that I can break her whenever I wish. I can drag her from the limelight and throw her down into the deepest of shadows.’ Suddenly he took Amritalal’s hands in his. ‘Can you get me a lump of clay Bhuni?’ he cried feverishly. His lips twitched with excitement and he ran his tongue over them, ‘I’ll teach it to speak; to sing and dance. And like the Greek sculptor Pygmalion, I’ll breathe life into it. I’ll make it into a greater actress than Binodini ever was! Get me a new girl. As young and raw as you can find. I want to try my hand at it again. I want to feel the joy of creation.’

  Chapter XL

  Ramkrishna’s health was deteriorating rapidly. There were days, now, when he felt so weak that he needed help to perform his bodily functions. He had virtually stopped eating. His tongue was bloated,to twice its size and covered with sores. And his throat hurt so badly that to swallow a drop of water was agony.

  Dr Mahendralal Sarkar advised a change of scene. Calcutta, with its pall of dust and smoke, was a polluted city, extremely harmful for the patient who had lived in Dakshineswar for many years and was used to breathing the pure, clean air of the Ganga. It was imperative, he said, that Ramkrishna be moved to cleaner, quieter surroundings.

  Ramkrishna’s disciples discussed the matter amongst themselves. The best places for recouping health were, of course, Darjeeling and Puri. But they were a good distance away and far too expensive. It was necessary to look for some place nearer home. One of them suggested a return to Dakshineswar. But Ramkrishna shook his head. Mathur Babu’s son Trailokya, the present owner of the temple, had never shown the slightest interest in Ramkrishna. He must have heard of his illness but hadn’t come to see him even once though he stayed right here in Calcutta. The disciple tried to push his proposal by pointing out that Ramkrishna’s adored Ma Kali was in Dakshineswar. But Ramkrishna retorted sharply, ‘Is she not everywhere? Even here in Calcutta?’

  After some search a house was found in Kashipur on the Barahanagar Road. A pleasure mansion, standing on eleven bighas and four kottahs of land, it belonged to Rani Katyayani’s son-in-law Gopalchandra Ghosh. It had sprawling gardens filled with fruit trees, shrubs and flowering vines—somewhat tangled and neglected but still beautiful. There were two ponds with ducks and geese. The whole property Could be rented for eighty rupees a month. Since it was not possible for Ramkrishna to live there alone it was decided that a good part of his entourage would move with him. The rest would come and go at their convenience. The house would be taken for six months to begin with and all the expenses would be met out of a common fund to which everyone would contribute. Ramkrishna, though seemingly indifferent to all things other than his own illness, kept himself informed about everything that went on around him. Calling Surendranath Mitra to his side one day he said, ‘Look, Surendra, you’re the most well-to-do among my disciples. The others are clerks and schoolmasters—hard put to fend for themselves and their families. Between them they’ll manage the other expenses. But you must offer to pay the rent.’ Surendranath agreed and within a few days the whole party moved to Kashipur.

  One day Mahendralal Sarkar came to see Ramkrishna. He was in a foul mood. He had spent the morning in the house of a patient—an elderly lady with a huge establishment in Boubazar. The exercise of examining the patient had proved so futile that it left him fuming with rage. Flinging the fee offered to him by the lady’s son in the boy’s face he had stormed out of the house. ‘What’s the matter, sir?’ his compounder Jaikrishna asked in dismay, ‘Has your patient expired?’

  ‘The old hag won’t die in a hurry,’ Mahendralal huffed and puffed on his way to his carriage, ‘She’ll kill everybody off first … Bit by bit,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Why didn’t you take your fee then?’

  ‘What did I do that I should take a fee? The old bitch wouldn’t let me touch her. She lay in bed with the curtains drawn, as coy as a new bride, while her maid applied the stethoscope. I couldn’t even see if it was touching her back or her bum. An old hag of sixty with a rump like an elephant’s and breasts the size of pumpkins! What had she to fear from me? Would I have eaten her up?’ The good doctor snorted in his indignation. Jaikrishna gave a cackle of laughter and got a box on his ears for his pains. ‘Why do you laugh, you rascal? Is this a laughing matter?’ Then, sobering down, Mahendralal clicked his tongue and muttered sadly, ‘We need women doctors in this country. I keep saying so but no one heeds me.’

  When the carriage had started moving Jaikrishna consulted a notebook and said, ‘Your next appointment is at the Medical College. There is a meeting at—’

  ‘I’m not going to any meeting,’ Mahendralal announced firmly, ‘I’m sick and tired of them. I’ve a mind to visit the old man at Kashipur. I sense a beckoning within me …’

  Walking into Ramkrishna’s room the doctor was surprised to see him sitting up in bed chatting and laughing with his disciples. ‘Ohé Master!’ he was saying to Mahendralal Mukherjee, ‘The boys are tired of eating dal bhaat day after day. Send out for some mutton. You needn’t spend more than five or six annas. The cook can make a good, rich curry and serve it with hot—’ Seeing Mahendralal at his door, he gave a start and left his sentence in mid air. Mahendralal shot a sharp glance at his patient’s face. It was smooth and unlined and bore not a trace of the agony that had etched deep marks on it over the last few months. His body, too, seeme
d relaxed and comfortable in a dhuti wrapped loosely around his middle and an uduni covering his bare back and chest. In his eyes was an expression the doctor could not fathom.

  A tremor passed through Mahendralal’s frame as he looked into those eyes and a deep depression assailed him. Conquering it with the force of character that was natural to him, he sat in the chair that was brought for him and asked brightly, ‘I hear Dr Coates came to see you. He’s a fiery old saheb with a violent temper. Was he rude to you?’ The disciples shifted their feet and looked pointedly at Shashi. Prior to examining his patients Dr Coates had asked Shashi to hold his bag but Shashi hadn’t touched it. He was an orthodox Brahmin and wouldn’t touch anything belonging to a mlechha Christian. ‘You, you! Go from here you ullu,’ the old man had shouted, his face red and angry. Mahendralal laughed on hearing the story and, turning to Ramkrishna, asked, ‘And what about you? Are you not an orthodox Brahmin? How could you allow a mlechha foreigner to touch you?’

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ Ramkrishna replied, stammering a little. ‘Something happened … I’m not quite sure what. I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on till after he left. Then I purified myself by sprinkling gangajal on my bed and chanting Om Tat Sat.’

  ‘You contradict yourself Moshai!’ Mahendralal Sarkar said shaking his head severely at Ramkrishna. ‘Only the other day you told us the story of Shankaracharya of Kashi. Of how, as he walked down the street one day, a Chandal bumped against him by mistake. “Why did you touch me?” he asked the Chandal angrily. But the Chandal replied, “I didn’t touch you and you didn’t touch me.” Then, seeing the look of surprise on Shankaracharya’s face he explained, “It is the soul that is important is it not? And the soul is not contaminated by touch. Our souls are as pure and untainted as ever they were. “Didn’t you tell us this story? Then why all this purification? All this gangajal and Om Tat Sat?’ Ramkrishna grimaced and made a gesture of helplessness. Then he said, ‘You are right, doctor. I don’t practise what I preach. I can’t help it. I’m a victim of my conditioning. For centuries we Brahmins …’ His voice trailed away for a few seconds, then he continued, ‘The other day Latu was standing by my side holding on to my bed when my meal arrived. How could I eat with him holding me. So I asked him to leave the room. Naren was very angry, “You don’t believe in untouchability,” he scolded, “Why then did you ask Latu to leave the room?” To tell you the truth, doctor, I don’t know what I believe and what I don’t. I can’t make myself out. We Brahmins … generations of conditioning!’

  The disciples looked nervously at the doctor. They were all afraid of him. He was so fierce and unpredictable. And so rude to their guru. Yet Ramkrishna Thakur never seemed to take offence. He did not brook argument from others. He either snubbed them into silence or changed the subject. But with the doctor he was different. He heard him out patiently and tried to answer his questions. They remembered an argument that had taken place the last time he was here. Ramkrishna was trying to explain the difference between faith and knowledge. ‘Faith is like a woman,’ he said. ‘She’s allowed to enter the innermost sanctum of the house. Knowledge is like a man. He has to wait in the outer rooms.

  ‘Not all women are allowed to enter the innermost sanctum,’ the doctor had punctured the beautiful argument with his accustomed crudity. ‘What about prostitutes?’ Ramkrishna and his disciples were tense with anxiety every time the doctor came on a visit. He found fault with everything he saw and was quite vocal in his criticism. If he caught sight of a disciple touching his head to his guru’s feet he snarled angrily, ‘Why do you addle his brains with all this sycophancy? He is a good man. Don’t worship him as a god. This is how Keshab Sen was ruined.’ He attacked Ramkrishna quite mercilessly whenever he felt like it. ‘Why do you place your foot on people’s chests during your famous trances?’ he demanded once, ‘Who do you think you are?’ Ramkrishna looked guilty and ashamed. ‘Ogo! I’m not myself when I’m in samadhi,’ he answered humbly. ‘God enters me and takes possession of my body and soul. I lose all control. I have no knowledge of what I’m doing. It’s a kind of madness. It is this madness, perhaps, that is killing me—little by little.’ Mahendralal gave a snort of contempt at which Naren took him up. ‘If you can devote your life for the spread of science,’ he demanded, ‘Why can’t he risk his for the grandest of all sciences—the discovery of God.’ Mahendralal’s face turned a fiery red. ‘Discovery of God indeed!’ he muttered. ‘Why can’t each man do his work on earth with sincerity and commitment and leave God alone? But no. Everyone aspires to be a religious reformer! Has any man who is obsessed with God been content to live with his personal quest or discovery—as you put it? Every one of them—be he Jesus, Chaitanya, Buddha or Muhammud has had to pull crowds along with him. “What I say is right. Everyone else is wrong.” Is this not a shameless proclamation of the self?’

  Today, however, he did not seem to be in a fighting mood. Fixing his eyes on the sick man he said softly, almost tenderly, ‘I couldn’t sleep very well last night owing to the storm. And I kept worrying about you. You’re apt to catch cold easily. So I came this morning to see how you were.’

  ‘O Ma!’ Ramkrishna exclaimed with an ecstatic smile. ‘These are words of love. Your soul has caught colour after all. You have imbibed faith and—’ ‘No’ the doctor interrupted hastily, ‘Not faith. Only love. Love is beyond all reason. I love you, so I keep coming to you. Your disciples hate me. If they had their way they would kick me out of your presence. Everyone hates me. Even my wife and son think I’m hard hearted; devoid of love and mercy. ‘But I’m not. It’s only that … that I don’t display my emotions.’

  ‘But you should,’ Girish Ghosh advised. ‘You should open the doors of your heart from time to time.’ Embarrassed by his own sentimental outpouring Mahendralal said gruffly, ‘Let’s change the subject. Let’s have some singing. Sing a song Naren.’ Ever willing to oblige, Naren burst into song. ‘Prabhu main ghulam/main ghulam/main ghulam téré,’ he sang in his rich baritone, ‘Tu dewan/Tu dewan/Tu dewan méré.’ Carried away by the power and melody of Naren’s voice Ramkrishna rose from his bed and started swaying and pirouetting but, unlike other times, the doctor made no move to stop him; not even when his body became still and stiff in a bhav samadhi. It lasted only a few moments, then exhausted, Ramakrishna sank down on the bed with a sigh. For the first time that morning he looked straight into the doctor’s eyes. ‘Why!’ he exclaimed, ‘I see tears. You weep—’ Mahendralal shook his head helplessly. The hard knot in his throat melted into a gush of tears that rolled down his cheeks and chin. ‘My heart twists with pain whenever I hear sweet music,’ he said. Ramkrishna clapped his hands like a child. ‘You’ve caught the fever of the divine.’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s no escape for you now.’ Then, as if cracking a joke, he winked and added, ‘You should thank me for it.’ The doctor looked steadily into his eyes. ‘Do I have to do it in words?’ he asked. The voice was husky and tender—quite unlike his usual strident tones. ‘What am I but an ordinary physician? I’ve been given the privilege of coming to you. I’ve learned so much …’

  He rose and left the room. Girish Ghosh accompanied him to the door. ‘How is Paramhansa Dev?’ he asked. ‘Much better—wouldn’t you say? At least seventy-five per cent better.’ Mahendralal placed a hand on Girish’s shoulder. Shaking his head sorrowfully he muttered, ‘No. He’s not well. Not well at all.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Girish exclaimed, shocked. ‘He’s moving around without help. And he’s eating better. I can guarantee that he’ll be out in the streets in a couple of days.’ Still shaking his head Mahendralal murmured, ‘No one will be happier than me if your words come true.’ He walked down the stairs not on heavily resounding feet, as was his wont, but with a muffled tread.

  Two days later Ramkrishna vomited blood—great globs spattering his clothes, bed and floor. The cancer in his throat had spread its tentacles right across his head and lungs and excruciating pain shot through them in spasms. Groaning in a
gony Ramkrishna mutered, ‘Avatar! Avatar! If I am one why do I suffer so? It’s these people—Master and Girish and the others—who are responsible. If they hadn’t insisted on deifying me this would never have happened.’ But the very next morning he sent for Naren. Asking all his disciples to leave the room he beckoned to the boy to approach him. Then, taking his hands in his, he whispered, ‘I give you … all that I have. From this moment I’m a fakir. I have nothing left. Nothing.’ Then, his glance falling on his wife Saradamoni as she stood weeping in a corner of the room, he said, ‘I leave her in your care. I leave them all in your care.’ Naren stood like an image of stone, his large, lustrous eyes fixed on the dying man’s face. ‘Who is this man?’ he thought. Ramkrishna seemed to hear the words that beat in Naren’s head and heart, ‘You still don’t understand,’ he said sadly. ‘I’ll tell you the truth. The absolute Truth. He who is Ram is Krishna. And they dwell in this body mingled together! Ramkrishna! Your Vedantas of course will tell you different—’ He glanced once more at Sarada and said, ‘The boys will look after you as they’ve looked after me. Don’t weep. You know how I hate a glum face.’

  On Sunday morning a man called Rakhal Mukherjee came to see him from Bagbazar. The man was a pukka saheb and he started berating the disciples the moment he entered the room. The soup they were feeding their guru had no strength in it, he said. Chicken broth was what he needed. Ramkrishna shrank a little from the idea of eating the unholy fowl. ‘I have nothing against it personally,’ he said his voice faltering, ‘Our religion forbids it and … We’ll see about it tomorrow.’

  But the same evening, while chatting with his disciples, he gave an agonized cry, ‘I burn! I burn!’ he shrieked, ‘My lungs are on fire. Is this the end? Ma go! Is this the end?’ Two of his disciples ran to fetch the local doctor who came in a few minutes. All through the examination Ramkrishna tossed and turned in agony, ‘I feel as if boiling water is shooting through my veins. Will I get well doctor?’ Then, seeing that the doctor’s face was serious and he made no answer he nudged the disciple closest to him and asked in a bewildered voice, ‘Does that mean I won’t get well? After so many months of agony they say I’ll never get well! I’m not afraid of death. But, can anyone tell me from where the breath of life escapes? And how?’