Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  ‘You are, to take you on your own valuation,’ I said at last, ‘a very competent and honest official. Since that is so, why does the loss of this clerkship mean so much to you? A man like you can have the best of jobs. There are not many like you in Burma.’

  The man looked visibly taken aback. He hesitated for a few minutes, then said incoherently, ‘You are right, but you know how it is! I’m a family man—many kids—you understand?’

  ‘Are you married to a Burmese woman?’

  ‘Why? How do you know? Has that British bastard written that in his report? Do you believe him?’ He stood up, agitated.

  I signalled to him to sit down and observed calmly, ‘There’s no need to get excited. What’s wrong with marrying a Burmese woman?’

  ‘Exactly! What’s wrong with marrying a Burmese woman? I’m not afraid. What I do, I do boldly. I’m a man and I need a woman. And it isn’t as if I have anyone back home in the village. And, after all, this is where I live and work. And this is where I shall go on living. You get me, don’t you?’

  I nodded my head as if to say I did but went on to ask, ‘You have no one of your own in India?’

  ‘Not a soul. If I had, would I have spent the best years of my life in this heathen land? No one at all—you understand? I was born into a wealthy and reputed family—a line of zamindars. My ancestral home still stands. It would dazzle your eyes to look at it—even today. But Fate was against me. My family got wiped out. I was young and sentimental—I couldn’t bear to live alone. So I gave up my property rights and came away to Burma.’

  ‘Do you know Abhaya?’ I asked suddenly.

  The man was shocked into silence. His face paled beneath the filth encrusted on it. He asked, haltingly, ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘It could be that she has come to Burma to look for you and has appealed to the company for maintenance—’

  ‘Oh! So that’s how it is,’ he sounded relieved. ‘I admit that she was my wife—once.’

  ‘Now—’

  ‘Now she has forfeited her rights. I have left her.’

  ‘What was her offence?’

  The man pulled a long face and whined mournfully, ‘There are some matters—you understand? It is best to keep them within the family. But you are more to me than the closest of relations so I don’t mind telling you. She’s an immoral woman. Immoral and depraved. In fact that’s the reason for my leaving my country and living the life of an exile all these years.’

  I felt so revolted I couldn’t look him in the face. I realized that Abhaya’s husband was not only a liar and a thief—he was the scum of the earth; a thoroughbred scoundrel with no conscience and no heart.

  ‘You did not announce this when you came away. You even wrote to her and sent her money for several months—’

  The villain opened a vast cavern of a mouth and grinned. ‘Well! You know how it is. Upper class people like us are fated to suffer in silence. I couldn’t proclaim my wife’s infidelity to the world like a low-caste peasant. Anyway, let’s not relive unpleasant memories. It makes me sick to even utter her name. About this case. I cannot tell you how relieved I am you are in charge, Srikanta Babu. But there is one thing that I shall insist upon. That white rascal of an Englishman must not be let off lightly. He must be taught such a lesson that he won’t dare trifle with me again. Can’t you get the swine transferred to the head office?’

  ‘No,’ I answered shortly.

  The accused laughed and pushed the file towards me. ‘That’s a joke,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows that you have the manager under your thumb. I made all the necessary enquiries before I came. Anyhow, how you deal with him is your business. I’d like to catch the nine o’clock train back to Prome. Can you arrange to let me have the manager’s order reinstating me before that?’

  I was silent for a while. It is difficult to counteract flattery even when one is convinced that it springs from base and selfish motives. But I steeled myself and said coldly, ‘The manager’s order is not going to help you. You had better start looking for another job.’

  The man’s jaw sagged. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I’m going to recommend your dismissal from the company.’

  He stood up, then sat down again folding his hands with exaggerated humility. ‘Save me, Babu,’ he said in a nasal whine. ‘I have many children. They’ll die of starvation.’

  ‘I’m not responsible for them. Besides, I don’t know you. I cannot accept your word against your superior officer’s.’

  His rheumy eyes stared into mine as it dawned on him at last that I meant exactly what I said. Then he burst into a fit of sobbing so loud and piteous that the office clerks, the darwan and the peon started up from their seats and crowded at the door.

  I was startled and acutely embarrassed but I managed to say coldly, ‘Please pull yourself together. Abhaya has come to Burma for your sake. Go to her. I don’t ask you to take back an immoral wife, but if she forgives you after hearing the truth—the whole truth—get a letter from her. I’ll try to help you retain your job. If not, do not embarrass me by coming to me again.’

  I knew the psychology of men of his type. The male chauvinist and bully is invariably lily-livered and feeble at heart. A tremor passed over his vast bulk as he wiped his eyes and asked, ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Come back tomorrow at the same time and I will give you her address.’

  He rose and with an obsequious salaam left the room.

  Abhaya sat pale and silent as I narrated the events of the day. I waited for some response, but when nothing was forthcoming I asked, ‘Can you forgive him?’

  She nodded.

  ‘If he offers to take you back—are you ready to go?’

  Another nod.

  ‘You have seen what Burmese women are like. Do you have the courage to make your home with one of them?’

  Abhaya raised a streaming face. Her lower lip trembled so violently that she couldn’t speak for a while. Then she wiped her eyes and, clearing her throat with an effort, said, ‘What else can I do?’

  I suddenly found myself at a loss. I did not know if I should rejoice at her decision or shed tears over it. All the way back home I wrestled with myself trying to examine my feelings. But no matter how hard I tried I could come to no conclusion. My heart grew heavy and cold and a bitter hatred—of whom or what I could not say—pulsed and pounded in my brain. When the man came again, the next day, I did not even glance at him. He may have guessed how I felt, for he picked up the slip of paper that bore Abhaya’s address without a word and, salaaming humbly, left the room.

  But when he reappeared the next day all his familiar garrulity was back. Laying Abhaya’s letter on the table he said, ‘I can’t thank you enough, Srikanta Babu. I’ll never forget your kindness. As long as I live I shall remain your devoted slave.’

  ‘Go back to your job,’ I said with an indifference I was far from feeling. ‘The manager has forgiven you.’

  He smiled, displaying rows of large red teeth. ‘I don’t worry about the manager. All I ask for is your forgiveness. I have erred grievously—I admit it,’ and he burst into a passionate speech so long and involved that I prefer not to strain my reader’s patience by repeating it word for word. The long and short of it was that his account of his wife’s infidelity was totally false; that a wife as chaste and pure as his was not to be found anywhere in the world; that he had always loved Abhaya above everyone else—even himself—and would do his duty by her. Only, this fresh complication in his life—he had never desired marriage with a local woman but had been forced into it by circumstances—had to be sorted out first. But that would not take long. He was taking Abhaya to Prome tonight and would have the Burmese slut out of the house, bag and baggage, by the day after tomorrow. As for the children—ugly, vicious brats—what use would they ever be to him? Would they feed him and clothe him in his old age or perform the proper rites over his body? No, he didn’t give a damn for any of them and would drive them out of
the house without a qualm.

  ‘Are you taking Abhaya away tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly. Certainly. It was different when she was out of sight. Now that I have found her I refuse to stay away from her even for a moment. What a jewel of a wife she is! She came all the way to Burma for my sake. Have you ever seen a devotion to match that, Srikanta Babu?’

  ‘Do you intend to keep the two woman together?’

  ‘Oh! no. I shall take Abhaya to the postmaster’s house. She’ll be quite comfortable there. The postmaster’s wife is a kind woman and will look after her. But only for two days. Then I’ll instal the goddess of my home and hearth where she belongs—here,’ and he touched his chest with an extravagant gesture.

  After his departure I picked up Abhaya’s letter and read the two lines she had penned, over and over again. I don’t know how many hours I passed in this occupation but it seemed only a minute before the clock struck the half hour after four o’clock, and the peon stood respectfully at the door waiting to lock up.

  Nine

  I RECEIVED A LETTER FROM ABHAYA’S HUSBAND BEFORE THE MONTH was out. The first half of the letter was packed with fulsome praise of me and innumerable expressions of gratitude. The second contained a flood of invective against Abhaya.

  The gist of the matter was this. Abhaya’s husband had rented a big house, far beyond his means, with the intention of keeping his Burmese wife and children in one part of it and Abhaya in the other. But Abhaya, far from being overwhelmed with gratitude, had refused to leave the postmaster’s protection. He had begged and pleaded but to no avail. Her disobedience and disregard of her husband’s wishes had cut him to the heart. He was convinced that irreverence of this kind was being bred by the values of the world in which we lived. Oh! To have been born in the age of truth—the great satya yuga in which Sita and Savitri had lived—in which women walked smiling into the funeral pyres of their husbands and were engulfed by the flames even in the act of clasping their dead lords’ feet to their bosoms! An age in which women carried husbands rotting with syphilis to the houses of favoured prostitutes—their faces radiant with happiness. Ah! Where had that world vanished? Where were the Aryan women of old? Where was that blind unquestioning obedience to a husband’s wishes; the stubborn identification that made a woman glory in her position as shadow to her lord and master’s substance? Ah! India. To what depths art thou fallen! All this and much more he wrote, filling four-and-a-half pages. He ended with the regret that Abhaya had trampled on his heart in more ways than one. Not only had she refused to move into her husband’s house—she had been receiving letters and even money from one Rohini Sinha.

  Although the epistle afforded me more amusement that I had had in years I couldn’t help feeling a measure of annoyance at Rohini Babu’s interference. After all Abhaya had come all the way to join her husband. Their relationship had yet to establish itself. In her state of doubt and bewilderment, when she needed all the help and support her friends could give her, why was he confusing and discouraging her?

  And Abhaya too—what was she thinking of? Why did she go away with her husband if she had had no intention of living with him? If she expected him to abandon his existing family she was not being very fair. He had married the woman after all and fathered her children. Did she imagine that Burmese women had no feelings? Were they not justified in claiming maintenance? And, anyway, if that was her condition she should have clarified it right from the start.

  That afternoon, just as I was about to leave, the peon brought me another letter—this time from Abhaya. It was a strange communication for it contained no reference to herself or her new life. But every line of it breathed her concern and fear for Rohini Babu’s welfare. Reminding me of his ill health she requested me, over and over again, to look after him for there was not a soul in the world more desolate and unhappy. That this passionate plea was wrung from a heart sick with yearning was not difficult to guess. In the last line of her letter she briefly informed me that she was still living in the postmaster’s house.

  As I sat with the letter in my hand I was aware of a strange sensation. I felt as though I were, once again, in the presence of a chastity as dazzling and awesome as that of Annada Didi’s. The wonder that had always accompanied the thought of Annada Didi’s magnificent conquest of sorrow, degradation, injustice and isolation was upon me in an instant. ‘There is something phenomenal about a woman’s chastity,’ I thought. ‘It elevates her far above the reach of a man on the one hand and renders her weak and vulnerable on the other.’ I was aware, of course, that I was confusing issues. Men learned in the Shastras would tell me that a woman’s fidelity is the sole prerogative of a wedded husband. I had neither the capacity nor the heart to argue.

  I had not visited Rohini Babu after Abhaya’s departure, chiefly out of a desire to avoid seeing his misery. But after reading the two letters I decided to go to him that very evening and scold him heartily for cherishing a secret adulterous passion for another man’s wife. As I knocked on the door it fell open revealing a room shadowy with twilight. The lamp had not been lit but a faint smoke haze hung in the air. The doors and windows were wide open and the shutters rattled in the breeze.

  I walked a few steps and peeped into the kitchen. A column of smoke curled upwards from the hearth at one end, and at the other, a basket of vegetables by his side, sat Rohini Babu—his hand arrested in the act of slicing a brinjal. I could see at a glance that it was not the sound of my footsteps that had made him freeze like that for he did not even turn his head. I waited a few moments—then tiptoed back into the room. As I stood uncertainly in the smoky dusk I felt the presence of an overwhelming sorrow within those walls—a sorrow that brimmed over the bounds of conventions, ethics and morals. It rose from the room like a cloud of fog and, growing thicker and more impenetrable every minute, enveloped me where I stood. I had to escape. Groping my way out of the room I sank down on the stool in the veranda.

  After a while I heard someone moving about inside the room. A voice called from within, ‘Who is there?’

  ‘I’m Srikanta.’

  ‘Srikanta Babu?’ Rohini Dada came forward eagerly, a lighted taper in his hand. Clutching my arm he led me back into the room.

  We sat in silence for a while, then I said, ‘Don’t go on staying here, Rohini Dada. Let me take you to my hotel.’

  ‘Why?’ Large, innocent eyes shone out of a lined face.

  ‘You are not happy here.’

  ‘I’m happy enough,’ he answered with a faint smile.

  I had no answer. I had come with the intention of jerking him out of his abject self-surrender, of exhorting him to fight his weakness and conquer it like a man. But, in the presence of his all-consuming love, my anger and scorn melted away.

  ‘I’ve given up the tuition,’ he continued. ‘It was too much for me. But the work in my office is terribly strenuous. I get quite tired by the evening. Otherwise—I’m all right.’

  I listened quietly, remembering the day he had said just the opposite, when he had turned a deaf ear to Abhaya’s pleas and dashed off to his tuition. He had been warmed, then, by the thought of keeping Abhaya in greater comfort. A machine needs fuel, I thought sadly. It cannot run on water. I repeated my offer of taking him to Da Thakur’s hotel but he refused. I realized that he couldn’t bear the thought of breaking up the household he and Abhaya had built together. Not that he cherished any hope of things ever being as they had been. He stayed on only for the sake of the memories that breathed all around him for they, alone, could sustain him and keep him whole—painful though they were. To leave these protecting walls would be, for him, equal to embracing annihilation.

  As I stepped into my room late that night I noticed a man sleeping on the floor against one wall. I asked the maid who he was and she answered that he was a gentleman, meaning that he was not a mechanic or a coolie. I understood, now, why Da Thakur had installed him in my room.

  We got acquainted after dinner. He had come, he sa
id, from Chittagong in search of his younger brother who had left home four years ago. Only a few weeks back the family had heard that he was in Rangoon and was living with a Burmese woman. ‘You’ve heard about the women of Kamrup,’ he asked, ‘the ones who change men into sheep? Burmese women are no less dangerous from what I hear. You must help me rescue my brother from the woman’s clutches.’

  I promised to do what I could and, with that noble intention, I made my way the next morning to the younger brother’s house. On reaching it I discovered that it was his Burmese wife’s ancestral home and that she was an orphan with a young sister. The young man was out on his morning promenade and the two girls and their maids were making cheroots—these being the source of their livelihood. The older sister received me with great deference. She thought, no doubt, that being a Bengali, I was a relative of her husband.

  Burmese women are exceedingly industrious while the men are invariably lazy and shiftless. Since women are the principal breadwinners (and domestic servants of course) it is important for them to obtain a measure of education. Men, on the other hand can be as illiterate as they please as there is no pressure on them to provide for their families. The sight of a man living on his wife’s income and frittering away his time in idle pursuits is a general one. Society does not condemn him. Neither does his wife. On the contrary, that is by and large the norm for men in Burma.

  The young master of the house arrived within a few minutes. He was dressed in impeccable English attire. Rings gleamed on his fingers and a heavy watch and chain hung from his waistcoat. His Burmese wife left her work and, rising from her seat, relieved him of his hat and stick. Her sister fetched cigars and matches while the maids hurried inside to prepare tea and paan.

  ‘Lucky fellow!’ I thought. ‘They treat him like a king.’ I knew the man’s name, but have forgotten it since. It may have been Charu or something like that.