First Light

by Sunil Gangopadhyay

  ‘Where?’ Dwarika raised his face from the pot. The foam from the milk clung to his whiskers. Basantamanjari did not answer. She tripped on ahead of him her footsteps as sure and swift as a doe’s and he was obliged to follow. After a while they came upon a sadhu in saffron sitting on a rock. He wore a soiled and tattered dhuti and his hair and beard were matted with weeks of dirt. A lathi with a bundle tied to one end rested at his feet. He looked weary to the bone. Basantamanjari stopped and pointed a triumphant finger. ‘There!’ she exclaimed. Dwarika stared at her in dismay. The man was a total stranger.

  ‘Who is he?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘Don’t you recognize him?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him in my life.’

  Basantamanjari laughed a tinkling little laugh whereupon the sadhu raised a tired head and looked straight into Dwarika’s face. Two pairs of eyes held each other for a long moment. Suddenly a shiver ran through Dwarika’s frame. He had recognized the man. It was Bharat. A wave of emotion passed over him but he didn’t know what it was. Was it joy on seeing his friend, lost to him for so long? Or was it fear—of the woman he had married? How had she known Bharat was sitting here? From where did she get these strange powers?

  Dwarika stood dumbfounded for a while. Then, walking up to Bharat, he placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bharat!’ he said, his voice breaking with the power of his feelings. Bharat kept staring at him but wouldn’t speak. ‘It’s me, Dwarika! Don’t you recognize me?’

  ‘Dwarika,’ Bharat echoed as though in wonder.

  ‘Yes. And this is Basi—my wife. You remember Basantamanjari? I took you to see her once. I married her and … why don’t you speak? Is anything wrong? Are you hiding from someone? When did you come here?’

  ‘Last night.’ Bharat spoke at last but his voice was flat and toneless.

  ‘Have you become a sadhu?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you dressed like one?’

  ‘It makes life easier—somehow.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘‘Nowhere.’

  ‘Come with me then. I’ll take you home and—’ ‘I’m quite comfortable sitting here.’

  ‘Nonsense! How long can you stay sitting on a rock? You must come home with me. I insist.’ Dwarika took hold of Bharat’s hand and pulled him to his feet. ‘I’ve rented a house in Nurganj,’ he went on. ‘It’s a big house with many rooms. You’ll be quite comfortable. We’ve met after so many years. Do you think I’ll let go of you that easily?’ He dragged Bharat along as he spoke and Bharat followed without offering any further resistance. Basantamanjari had stood silent all this while. Now she brought her lips to Dwarika’s ear and whispered, ‘He’s hungry. He hasn’t eaten in a long time. Why don’t you buy him something to eat first?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Dwarika replied. Leading Bharat to a sweet shop he bought him a pot of milk and a lotus leaf piled with hot jalebis. Bharat ate and drank mechanically, his eyes blank. Dwarika tried to enthuse him with reminiscences of their college days. ‘Do you remember the confectioner in Maniktala? He made wonderful jilipis! Much smaller than the jalebis here of course. But very crisp and crunchy. How we loved them! But we had so little money then—we could never eat our fill.’ Bharat threw the empty leaf and pot away and said, ‘I think I’ll go now.’

  ‘Go where? You’re coming home with me. Why do you hesitate? Is there anyone else with you?’ Bharat shook his head. ‘That’s settled then,’ Dwarika said happily. ‘We arrived last night too and mean to stay a month. We’ll see the sights together … Akbar’s fort and Bharadwaj Muni’s ashram.’ In his happiness at seeing his old friend, in a place so far from his native land, Dwarika did not notice that Bharat was not responding to his overtures. He was going along with him but mindlessly like an automaton.

  Reaching the house Dwarika ordered a servant to fetch hot water and fresh towels for his guest. Then, giving him a set of his own clothes, he made him bathe and change. The two friends had their midday meal together, with Basantamanjari in attendance waving away flies with a palm leaf fan. The hot bath had relaxed Bharat’s tensed muscles and now, with the good food, warm in his belly, he had difficulty in keeping his eyes open. ‘Go to your room and rest for a while,’ Dwarika said, ‘We’ll talk in the evening.’ Then, returning to his own room, he helped himself to a paan from Basantamanjari’s silver box and took up his albola.

  ‘You’re amazing Basi!’ he exclaimed when she came in an hour later. ‘He’s my friend but I didn’t recognize him. And you—’

  ‘He’s very unhappy,’ Basantamanjari interrupted abruptly. ‘He’s always been like that. Ever since I’ve known him at least. He lost his parents as a child. And, as far as I know, he has no relations at all. What he needs is a wife. We must find one for him and—’

  ‘I have a feeling he’s lost his wife. Quite recently—’

  ‘What did you say?’ Dwarika sat up with a jerk. ‘Lost his wife? But he isn’t even married!’ Then, glancing sharply into her face, he asked, ‘How do you know he has lost his wife?’

  ‘I … I don’t know anything,’ Basantamanjari stammered. Dwarika’s furrowed brow and stern glance quelled her. ‘I get the feeling he’s passing though a bad phase. Some private grief … like the death of a wife—’

  ‘You and your feelings!’ Dwarika exploded angrily, ‘I’m tired of them! I want an ordinary woman—not a sorceress. Wait—’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go and ask Bharat this very minute.’

  ‘No, no. Please don’t,’ Basantamanjari begged. ‘Not now when he’s resting. And I may be wrong. Quite wrong.’

  But Dwarika had walked out of the door. Stomping up the stairs he came to Bharat’s room. It was empty. The bed was neat and smooth and folded upon it in a tidy pile were the clothes Dwarika had lent him. Dwarika rushed out to the gate where the darwan informed him that the Babu had left about an hour ago, adding, ‘He had his lathi and his saffron bundle with him.’

  Chapter XXIII

  Leaving Allahabad behind Bharat joined a group of pilgrims who were walking to Vindhyachal. Three days later, weary and footsore, he sat outside the temple of Vindhyavasini and tried to take stock of his situation. But his mind felt empty and wouldn’t take hold of a single thought. His eyes wandered here and there and finally rested on a group of men sitting in a circle within the precincts of the temple. Their lips were moving together and he realized that they were singing. Straining his ears to hear them above the din made by the crowds milling around him, he heard words that sounded like Bengali but uttered with a strange inflection. It wasn’t Oriya. He was sure of that. Presently one of the men rose from the circle and came and sat beside him. He was small and fair with a shaven head out of which a shikha sprang, thick and strong and waving like a flag. He wore no upper garment though it was the middle of winter and bitterly cold.

  ‘What district of Bengal do you come from?’ Bharat enquired politely by way of opening the conversation. But, for some reason, his question infuriated the man. ‘You Bengalis think everyone comes from your part of the world!’ he cried indignantly. ‘Is there no other region in this country? No other language? We come from Assam. Our language is Assamese.’ Bharat shrank a little from the man’s wrath. Then he remembered that his mother had been an Assamese. Somehow the thought made him feel quite kindly towards the stranger. ‘I liked the song you were singing,’ he said smiling. The man threw a sharp glance at Bharat’s face and, seeing nothing there but a shy innocence, he responded in a considerably softened tone, ‘I’m glad of it.’ Then, pausing a little, he added, ‘We’ve been travelling for over a year. We’ve seen Prayag, Mathura, Brindavan and all the Peethasthans where Sati’s limbs lie scattered. The only one left was Vindhyachal, where the toe of her left foot fell, and we are here now. Where do you come from?’

  ‘Puri.’

  ‘Ah! Jagannath dham. A great pilgrimage! I’ve been there twice. Then you are not a Bengali. Yet you speak the language.’

  ‘I’ve had to lear
n it to converse with my clients.’

  The man’s face darkened at these words. ‘We have to learn it too,’ he said after a glum silence. ‘It’s a compulsory subject in our schools. Our women are discarding the mekhala and have taken to wearing saris and our boys trim their hair in the Bengali fashion. I can’t stand this aping of another culture.’

  ‘I would like to go to Assam,’ Bharat said quickly in an effort to steer the man away from the controversial subject. ‘I’ve heard that the scenery is very beautiful.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ the man cried enthusiastically. ‘Why don’t you come with us? My name is Lakshminath Phukan but I’m better known as “the fiddler of Shivsagar”.’ I can easily put you up in my house. Do you have money for the fare?’ Bharat nodded. The man plucked at a pouch tucked into his waist and took out a green betelnut. ‘Have some gua,’ he said offering it to Bharat. Bharat knew that, in Assam, offering betelnut was a symbol of friendship. He took it from Lakshminath and put it in his mouth.

  Bharat had been wandering aimlessly ever since Mohilamoni’s death a year ago. He had given up his job, sold everything he possessed and, leaving his son with the child’s grandparents, had set himself adrift on the sea of humanity to be cast from this shore to that at its will. His wife’s death had had a strange effect on him. His heart hadn’t burned with anger at the unfairness of life or been crushed by sorrow at losing her. A strange lassitude had taken possession of him. He seemed to accept the fact that happiness was not for him. Death had stalked him all his life and was still stalking him. There was no sense in fighting it. In any case he had no fight left in him. There was only one thing that frightened him and shook him out of the stupour into which he had fallen. He had observed that whenever he was alone by himself and looking into the eyes of a deity in a temple, his lips started moving of their own volition. He strained his ears to identify the sounds that came out of his own mouth and found that he was whispering, ‘Birds, birds, birds’, repeating the word over and over again till his eyes rolled and his lips frothed with the effort. At such times his head would move forward and backward and he got an uncanny feeling that the rest of his body was immobile as though planted firmly in the earth. Only his head was moving, being pulled to and fro by a string. People would stare at him when he was afflicted thus. Some would run away in fear. Others, wiser and more considerate, would try to shake him out of his frenzy. Coming to, all of a sudden, he would find his face streaming with sweat and his limbs shivering like leaves in spring. Then he would run like one possessed, his mind shrieking out the question: ‘Am I going mad? Is the blood of my forefathers rising up in me, corroding my brain and poisoning my very existence?’ In his desperation he would jump into a nearby stream or pond and dip his burning head in the water over and over again, ‘I’m Bharat Singha,’ he would tell himself, ‘I’m well educated. I’ve studied English and Logic and Mathematics.’ Then, when his head and body had cooled, he would seek out an inn, eat a good meal and sleep for a long time …

  Bharat joined Phukan’s group but abandoned it the night before it reached Varanasi. ‘Why am I going to Assam?’ The thought came to him suddenly, ‘Because my mother was born there? Does that make it my motherland? Is there anyone waiting there for me with open arms?’ In a flash he came to a decision. He would walk away in the opposite direction. He had enough money to keep himself going for two years. He would wander about as the whim took him.

  One day Bharat stumbled over a jagged stone and got a nasty cut in his big toe. He ignored it and continued to walk though the pain increased steadily and the toe began to fester. Finally, when he could walk no more, he started travelling by train, hobbling his way between stations. He took care not to go east. He didn’t want to see Calcutta or Cuttack ever again.

  At Nagpur station he decided that he needed a few days of rest. Hiring a tonga he came to a dharmashala which took in travellers on the payment of eight annas a day. He was shown into a large room when ten or eleven people were already accommodated. There was no furniture in the room. Those who wished to, could hire a mat, a pillow and a blanket on the payment of another four annas. Bharat handed over the money and, seeking out a corner, spread his bedding on the floor. Then he lay himself down and slept, at a stretch, for the next twenty Waking up the next day he found that his foot was swollen to twice its size and his head and limbs were burning with fever. Sitting up with difficulty he brought his foot to his mouth and started blowing on it. The man who lay next to him, a plump youth also in saffron with a growth of matted hair covering his cheeks and chin, looked curiously on. After a while he mumbled a question which Bharat didn’t understand. The language sounded quite alien to his ears. Shaking his head Bharat stood up. He hadn’t eaten for two whole days and was ravenously hungry. Limping his way painfully down the stairs he came out into the street. Fortunately, he didn’t have to go far to look for food. There was a shop right opposite selling kachauris and laddus. Bharat bought some and ate his fill. While he ate he looked at his swollen foot and thought, ‘I suppose I should see a doctor. But what if I don’t? Gangrene will set in and the toe will fall off. The leg might have to come off too! But what of it? There are so many cripples in the world. I can be one of them. Does it really matter? The pain is excruciating of course but I’ve lived with it for so long—I’m loath to let go of it … People who have a purpose in life need all their limbs. I have no purpose. I can do without …’

  Upon this thought he hobbled back to his place in the dharmashala. The young man lying next to him raised his head at his entry and said something. Again Bharat didn’t understand. But this time he responded to his fellow traveller’s attempt at friendship. He had bought more food than he could eat and some kachauris and laddus were left in the sal leaves he held in his hand. Passing the bundle to the young man Bharat smiled kindly at him whereupon the former sat up and started cramming the food into his mouth as fiercely and ravenously as though he hadn’t eaten in days.

  Coming from the east Bharat had no idea that the place of his sojourn was at the centre of a storm. About a month ago, the chief officer of the Plague Commission, an Englishman called WC Rand, had let loose a reign of terror on Maharashtra—the province being badly affected by the plague. In the name of plague control, armed soldiers had stormed into people’s houses knocking over furniture and kitchen utensils, molesting the women and beating up the men if they dared to protest. If anyone hours. showed symptoms of any illness, be it a stomach infection or a common cold, he was bundled off to the camp, his agonized cries falling on deaf ears. There, more often than not, he caught the contagion and died. This dehumanizing treatment of his fellow human beings had enraged Tilak and he had written several burning articles in Maratha and Kesri.

  Fired by Tilak’s courage in denouncing the rulers, five young men decided to take the law into their own hands and exterminate the hated Rand. A carefully laid out plan was put into execution. On the night of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s coronation, three brothers—Damodar, Balkrishna and Vasudev Chapekar—together with their two friends, Sathe and Ranade, took up strategic positions outside the Governor’s residence where a grand dinner and dance was in progress. The plan was to shoot Rand as soon as his carriage rolled out of the gate. But Balkrishna, who was to give the signal, mistook the carriage of another guest, a young army officer called Lieutenant Ayerst, for the Plague Commissioner’s. In consequence Ayerst was shot at and killed. In a few seconds the boys realized that they had made a mistake for Mr Rand’s carriage came to the gate even as Ayerste’s coachman whipped up his horses and galloped away with a screaming Mrs Ayerst. The next minute Rand fell under the bullets of the assassins. Thus two Englishmen lost their lives at the hands of natives. The five young men escaped and could not be tracked down despite all the efforts of the police.

  Fuming with resentment, the authorities ordered the arrest of Bal Gangadhar Tilak averring that it was he who had incited a group of well-born, well-educated boys and turned them into t
errorists and traitors. Denied bail, Tilak was thrown into prison like a common felon. Some days later he was brought from Poona to Bombay where a hearing was scheduled in the High Court. But no counsel agreed to appear on his behalf. In desperation, Tilak wrote to his friends Sisir Kumar and Motilal Ghosh and requested them to help him out.

  The news came as a shock to the educated elite of Calcutta. A meeting was held at the office of the Amrita Bazar Patrika and was attended by Ashutosh Chowdhury, Janakinath Ghoshal, Anandamohan Bosu, Rabindranath Thakur and Umeshchandra Banerji among others. It was decided that two senior barristers would be sent from Calcutta to appear for Tilak and that the expenses would be met from contributions from all the gentlemen present.

  In the meantime, the hunt for the five absconding youths was on with the police raiding every house in the Marathi mohallas and turning the lives of all Marathi boys above a certain age into a living hell. The air was thick with rumours. One day Damodar and Balkrishna had been seen in Aurangabad; the. next day in Kolhapur …

  Bharat knew nothing of all this. And so he hadn’t the faintest idea that his young roommate was the absconding Ranade. After the assassination the five friends had decided to go their separate ways assuming, quite correctly, that the police would find it difficult to track them down individually. Starved and exhausted, his limbs burning with fever, Ranade had been on the run for weeks. With the police on his heels like a pack of baying hounds, he had fled like a pursued animal from place to place to avoid capture and sure death.

  That night Bharat was rudely wakened from sleep by a tremendous blow on his back. Opening his eyes he saw a huge figure towering over him, a burning mashaal in his hand. His heavily booted foot was raised for another kick but before he could direct it Bharat sat up, straight as an arrow, and cried out angrily in English, ‘How dare you touch me?’ The man sprang on him and, clutching him by the hair, forced him into a standing position. Now Bharat saw that there were five of them in the room and that they were policemen. One, a white-skinned Anglo-Indian, came forward at hearing a native speak his tongue and asked roughly, ‘Who is this bastard?’ Then, taking Bharat by the throat he raised his fist. But, before he could strike, Bharat hit him full on the mouth his bony fingers leaving their mark on his cheek and chin. Then, all five fell on him and beat and cuffed and kicked him till he lay on the ground half dead. The informer, who had brought them to the dharmashala, now pointed a finger at Ranade, whereupon they yanked him out from under his blanket where he lay shivering with fever and fear. They fitted shackles not only on him but on all the other inmates of the room and dragged them off to the Kotwali. Even then Bharat had no idea why all this was happening to him or what wrong he had done.