First Light

by Sunil Gangopadhyay

  ‘That’s rubbish! The Tantric bastards are only out for what they can get. They’ve set up a replica of a naked whore and they indulge in all kinds of perversities in her name. They drink and thieve and slaughter helpless animals only to gorge themselves on its flesh. Essential philosophy indeed! Hmph!’

  At this point someone shouted from the back of the hall, ‘Why don’t you shut up you old ape? Who wants to listen to you?’ A chorus of voices joined him. ‘Sit down,’ ‘Why do you interrupt?’ ‘We’re here to listen to Sister Nivedita. Not to you.’ Mahendralal turned and glared at the assembly with fiery, red eyes. ‘No,’ he shouted back. ‘I shan’t sit down. I’ll expose the hypocrisy of all the scoundrels who—’

  ‘This is not your forum. If you won’t sit down—get out.’ ‘Try and make me.’

  ‘Aré Moshai!’ A comparatively gentleman-like voice came to Mahendralal’s ear, ‘Why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself? Don’t you see you have no supporters?’

  At this the wind went out of Mahendralal’s sails. He looked around with dazed, hurt eyes and said in a broken voice, ‘I have no supporters! Is that true? Is there no one here who thinks as I do?’ There was a hushed silence. Then Satyendranath rose to his feet. ‘I support you,’ he said quietly. ‘I believe, too, that Miss Noble’s speech is sending out the wrong signals.’ Following Satyendranath’s admission eight or ten other men stood up. ‘Oré Behmo ré Behmo!’ A chorus of crude voices accompanied by cackles of ugly laughter rippled through the assembly. ‘They can’t stand us Hindus but they can’t leave us alone either. Throw them out.’

  ‘I’m not a Brahmo!’ Mahendralal Sarkar thundered. ‘I’m a doctor; a scientist and I—’ The same gentleman-like voice, rising above the cacophony, came to his ears once again. ‘You are just a few Moshai. The rest of us wish to hear Sister Nivedita.’

  ‘Just a few!’ Mahendralal echoed. ‘You’re right. It is a few who are trying to take the country forward. The rest are like sheep following the herd. When Vidyasagar Moshai advocated widow remarriage the bulk of his countrymen were against him.’ This last comment was like a dash of oil on a smouldering fire. Pandemonium broke lose. People shouted obscenities, knocked the chairs down and some lumpens rushed towards Mahendralal. Alarmed at what was happening Nivedita appealed to the assembly with folded hands. ‘Please calm yourselves I beg of you,’ she said, ‘Dr Mahendralal Sarkar is an eminent physician and greatly respected in this country. He has every right to express his opinions.’ Then, addressing him directly, she asked, ‘May I go on with the rest of my speech Dr Sarkar?’

  ‘You may but I shan’t stay to hear it,’ Mahendralal lumbered out of the hall, close to tears.

  Nivedita spoke for nearly forty-five minutes more. She recited Vivekananda’s ‘Kali: the Mother’ and some of her own translations of Ramprasad’s songs. A roar of applause rose at the end of her speech and she was given a standing ovation. People cheered and rushed towards the dais to offer their congratulations.

  Swamiji heard the account of the evening with satisfaction. And his triumph was complete when Nivedita was invited, by the authorities, to deliver the same speech in the chatal at Kalighat. Though the newspapers didn’t take much note of the two lectures, the strange story of a white woman advocating the worship of Kali spread, by word of mouth, till it reached every nook and corner of the city.

  Chapter XXXII

  Bharat could have got his pick of jobs in Patna. He knew English and was an experienced accountant. Many banks were opening branches in the city and he could have found employment in any one of them. But he didn’t want to work in a bank and be tied to a desk from morning to evening. He sought an independent livelihood. Looking around for something to do he discovered that an English education had become the fashion among the Biharis and there weren’t enough schools to accommodate the aspirants. He decided to open a school. Renting a large two-storeyed house for twenty-six rupees a month, he put up a signboard outside which read Bharat Kumar Singha BA: Presidency College. The rooms on the ground floor were fitted up with desks and chairs and converted to classrooms. The upper floor Bharat used as his living quarters.

  Bharat’s school became popular quite quickly. He charged the pupils five rupees a month and kept the number down to fifty. He had no desire to work himself to the bone. Nor was he greedy for money. Even from what he received he was able to put away a tidy sum each month. The parents of his pupils were generous and supplemented the fees with quantities of presents. Baskets of bananas, pots of pedas and sacks of fine, fragrant rice arrived from time to time cutting down his expenses considerably. One of them had even placed an Akbari gold mohur at his feet once.

  Bharat worked hard with his students all day and spent the evenings reading. Sometimes he got bored and sauntered over to a tea shop nearby. The tea sold here was tea as the Calcutta babus drank it—a fine golden liquid emitting a subtle but delicious aroma. What the Biharis sold as tea was a thick caramel-coloured concoction smelling of buffalo milk and sweet as syrup. The savouries here, too, were not the usual kachauris and laddus. Spicy potato cakes with crunchy crusts, banana flower cutlets delicately flavoured with cloves and cinnamon and spiked with nuts and raisins, slices of eggplant and onion rings dipped in foaming batter and fried to a golden crispness came in an unending supply, hot and fresh, from the kitchen. There were chairs and tables at which one could eat and drink in comfort. The proprietor of the shop was a young man called Barin. He kept no servants and served his customers with his own hands. His cook was an elderly lady whom he addressed as Ranga Ma. Bharat had seen her once or twice and had marvelled at her stately beauty.

  Barin was a gregarious by nature and unburdened his soul to Bharat within a few days of their acquaintance. He was an orphan, he told him, devoted to his stepmother and together they had opened this shop in Patna.

  ‘Why Patna?’ Bharat had asked. ‘Why not Calcutta? You would get more customers there.’

  At that Barin had told him that his father hadn’t married his stepmother. Consequently, she was in disgrace with his relatives who were rich and powerful. One of his brothers was Secretary to the Gaekwad of Baroda. They dared not go to Calcutta from fear of humiliating their relatives. Ranga Ma had sold her house and given him the capital for his tea shop. And she slaved in it from morn till night. But it wasn’t doing too well. All the Bengalis of Patna came to it, ate their fill, appreciated Ranga Ma’s cooking and ran up bills of credit which they neglected to pay. Barin had little business sense and Ranga Ma was too delicate to press anyone for payment. As a result the till was nearly empty and Barin was at his wit’s end. He was seriously thinking of winding up the shop and moving to Baroda. Secretary to the Gaekwad! The designation rang a bell in Bharat’s mind. Where had he heard it? And in what connection? Suddenly it came to him. The young man in the train! His name was … Ah! Yes—his name was Aurobindo Ghosh.

  ‘I know your brother,’ Bharat told Barin. ‘We travelled together on the train to Patna. He tried to persuade me to go to Baroda.’ Bharat smiled and added, ‘He wanted to practise his Bengali on me.’

  ‘Let’s go together Dada!’ Barin clutched Bharat’s hand and begged, ‘You could open a school there and Sejda could find me something to do.’

  ‘I’d like to,’ Bharat said cautiously, ‘but it’s not that easy. I’ve become hopelessly involved. I can’t wind up my school as easily as you can your shop. My pupils depend on me.’

  But, as a matter of fact, Bharat had started wearying of his new vocation. The pupils were mostly adults and all they wanted was a smattering of business English which they needed to secure jobs. ‘I am at your service. I am your most obedient servant. My whole family is at your service.’ Once they had picked up a few such bits of jargon they stopped coming. Bharat found it impossible to teach them anything else and became bored and irritable in consequence.

  One day an elderly man came to his school. He was a wealthy industrialist and a member of the Congress. His name, he told Bharat, was
Shiupujan Sahai. He made himself comfortable within minutes of his arrival and came straight to the point. ‘I hate the British,’ he told Bharat, ‘but I must learn their language to do business with them. I need your help in the matter. But I’ll tell you frankly—I refuse to sit in a classroom with boys the age of my grandsons. We must make some other arrangement. Either I come to your house, after school hours for lessons or you come to mine.’

  ‘What can I teach you?’

  ‘Spoken English. You must converse with me in English all the time we are together.’ He thought for a few moments then said, ‘I have an idea. You are a single man and spend your evenings alone. Why don’t you come to my house, every day, and have the night meal with me? I can’t give you fish curry but you’ll get dollops of pure ghee on your rotis and bowls of fresh malai.’ He laughed merrily and added, ‘By the way, have you heard that the next session of the Congress is to be held in Calcutta? We could go together.’

  ‘I have no desire to go to Calcutta.’

  ‘Why not? Young men like you should take an interest in politics.’

  ‘My school—’

  ‘All schools close down for the winter. I’ll tell you what. We’ll make you a delegate and I’ll pay for your ticket.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why are you so keen on taking me?’ ‘Because you’re a Bengali. Your presence will be useful to me. I neither know the language nor the city.’

  ‘I’m not a Bengali. I’m an Assamese.’

  ‘I know. I’ve made enquiries. I also know that your knowledge of Bengali is as good as that of the native born to the soil. Interacting with you will help me learn two languages—English and Bengali.’

  Bharat had no intention at all of falling in with Shiupujan’s plans. But the man was relentless in his pursuit. After that evening he came to Bharat’s house every day and dragged him over to his own. He gave him lavish meals and doses of wisdom over them. The influence of the Congress, he told Bharat, was spreading rapidly and soon it would become a household word. This was the time to seize the bull by the horns and exert pressure on the rulers. Young, educated men like Bharat were needed to lead the country towards freedom and light. But the idea of going to Calcutta was so distasteful to Bharat that he resisted the old man’s wiles with all his strength. He even toyed with the idea of giving Shiupujan the slip by escaping to Baroda with Barin. But destiny had planned otherwise.

  One night Bharat was awakened by shouts of ‘Fire! Fire!’ ringing in his ears. He scrambled out of bed and ran to the window to see a thick column of smoke rising from below. The fire was in his own house! He made a dash for the door and opened it. The heat hit him like a wave and smoke engulfed his head making him choke and splutter. The water poured out of his smarting eyes but, even through the haze and film of tears, he saw that the staircase was on fire. Tongues of flame darted here and there licking the woodwork. Desperate for survival he ran down the steps, braving the smoke and flame, but halfway down he stopped short. All his savings were in a tin box locked in a cupboard upstairs. He couldn’t leave without them. Dashing up to his bedroom he fumbled under his pillow for the key. He found it and ran towards the cupboard. But, before he could fit it into the lock, it slipped out of his trembling hand and fell, with a tinkle, to the floor. Bharat went down on hands and knees groping for the key. But the room was dark and hazy with smoke and he couldn’t even see his own hand. Yet, by an amazing chance, he found the key. His hand trembled so badly that a few precious moments were lost before it turned in the lock. By the time he emerged from the bedroom, with the tin box under his arm, he found the flames leaping over the bannisters, right up to the door. There was no way he could go down now.

  Bharat had come close to death so many times in his life that every nerve and sinew of his body was attuned to fight it. Gripping the box firmly he ran to the adjoining terrace and leaped out into the dark. The men who were hanging about outside, watching the fire, saw his figure come vaulting down. They ran towards him and dragged him over to a place of safety.

  Bharat’s life was saved but one foot was badly injured in the fall and he was cut and bruised all over. He smiled grimly to himself. He had survived another attempt on his life but his school, with everything in it, was burned down to its foundations. He wondered if someone had set fire to the house on purpose! Who could it be? God or man? But, even if it was God who was guilty of arson, he would not be shaken by the fact. He might limp all his life but he would not cringe before Him.

  *

  The train hissed its way into Howrah station like an angry snake belching a column of acrid smoke. Bharat’s heart thumped, heavy as lead, against his ribs. He was in Calcutta again. Who knew what would happen to him now?

  Bharat had broken his heel bone in the fall and been confined to bed for two whole months. During this time Shiupujan had been more than a brother to him. He had taken him home after the fire and nursed him back to health with tender care. Consequently Bharat did not have the heart to refuse his invitation to accompany him to Calcutta. Shiupujan and Bharat were not the only delegates on the train. There were people from many parts of north India forming queues in front of the tables set up on the platform. These were manned by Congress workers. ‘Where do you come? Which state?’ they asked each one, before doling out information about the schedule of events and facilities provided by the party. Bharat and Shiupujan joined the line and were told that arrangements had been made for their stay in Ripon College.

  Hailing a carriage Shiupujan ordered it to proceed in the direction of Sealdah. Seating himself, Bharat lifted the shutters and peered curiously outside. It was ten years since he had been here. Yet Calcutta hadn’t changed all that much. The streets looked much the same. So did the houses. Then, suddenly, he saw something odd. A vehicle passed down the road overtaking the carriage. It had no roof—only sides and some seats. A man sat behind a wheel. He was doing nothing but twisting the wheel this way and that and pressing what looked like a balloon from time to time. Qoink! Qoink! A noise like a quacking duck came every time he squeezed the balloon. The vehicle moved in spurts and trembled as it moved. But its speed was phenomenal. Shiupujan’s eyes nearly started out of his head. ‘What’s that?’ he cried out, clutching Bharat’s hand. ‘There are no horses or mules pulling that carriage! It’s moving by itself!’

  ‘I think this is what the sahebs call a motorcar. Sometimes it’s referred to as an automobile. I’ve heard about this new invention but I’m seeing one for the first time.’

  ‘Chhi! Chhi! Ram kaho!’ Shiupujan bit his tongue and tweaked his ears as though he had inadvertently witnessed something unholy. But his curiosity was greater than his disgust and he asked after a while, ‘How does it move? Do you have any idea Bharat Babu?’

  ‘We came in a train pulled by a steam engine. Maybe these vehicles follow the same principle.’ Shiupujan snorted. He had no opinion of these new fangled inventions. What dignity there was in a horse-driven carriage! What leisured grace! This was … this was obscene. He glared at the motorcar which was fast becoming a speck in the distance.

  Ripon College, being closed for the winter vacation, had been converted into a guest house for the delegates. But many more had come than was anticipated. In consequence all the rooms and verandas overflowed with people cooking, eating and sleeping wherever they could find a bit of space. The floors had, presumably, been washed a little while back and were wet and muddy in consequence. Bharat and Shiupujan stared at one another in dismay. Where would they find place for themselves in this bedlam? And they had come totally unprepared. They had neither bedding nor cooking utensils with them.

  But their discomforts of the night were as nothing compared to what they encountered in the morning. Awaking to nature’s call, at dawn, Shiupujan descended from his corner in the attic where he had spent a restless night tossing and turning on his bug-ridden hired mattress. Coiling his sacred thread about one ear he walked towards to the row of privies that stood at one end of the immense courtyard. B
ut before he reached within twenty yards of them a horrible stench hit his nostrils like a wave. The food he had eaten the night before, from an alley hotel, churned in his belly and rushed to his throat in a sick gurgle. The privies being too few in number to accommodate the needs of so many, people had just squatted wherever they could and eased themselves on the floor of the courtyard. There was a tremendous clamour of voices shouting. ‘Volunteer! Volunteer!’ ‘Where are the scavengers?’ ‘How disgusting!’ ‘What kind of arrangements have these people made for us?’ ‘So many people and so few privies!’

  Shiupujan stood watching the scene, his nostrils pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Horror and disgust were stamped on every line of his face. Suddenly a hush fell on the clamouring crowd. A young man, about thirty years old, came forward swinging a bunch of besoms in one hand. He was small and slight with a long nose and sallow complexion. He wore a simple dhuti worn high, almost to his knees, and a coarse cotton vest. ‘This is a sorry state of affairs,’ he said in a high, slightly sing-song voice. ‘The organizing committee should have made better arrangements. However, complaining won’t help matters. I just bought some besoms from Baithak Khana Bazar. Let’s fall to work and clean the mess ourselves.’

  The delegates stared at the strange man in horror. They couldn’t believe their ears. Many of them were Brahmins and others from the highest strata of society. How dare he suggest that they clean privies as though they were scavengers? The young man smiled at the horrified faces and said pleasantly, ‘Let’s not forget that scavengers are human beings, too, with sensibilities just like ours. If they can clean our muck why can’t we do the same for our own?’ Shiupujan had been so absorbed by the scene that he hadn’t noticed Bharat come down the stairs and stand next to him. The young man looked at him and said, ‘Come. Join hands with me.’ But Bharat stood as though rooted to the ground. The others also stood where they were without moving an inch. The young man smiled and pouring some water from a bucket that stood by one of the privies began wielding his besom and sweeping up the piles of excrement. Bharat turned to go back to his room. Suddenly something came over him. He turned and walked, step by step, slowly, falteringly, towards the young man and put out his hand for a besom. The latter handed it over with a smile. ‘Come friend,’ he said, ‘Let’s work together. I’m from Gujarat. My name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. What’s yours?’