The village we were bound for was called Mahmudpur but I was assured by my companions that the name was deceptive. ‘There are no Mussalmans in the village. And no untouchables either,’ Jadav Chakravarty said, with an arrogant lift of his head. Then, turning to his friend, he sought confirmation, ‘Are there, Naren?’
‘Not one! Not one!’ the man called Naren cried enthusiastically. ‘Only Brahmins, Kayasthas and Nabasakhs! We wouldn’t dream of living in a village which had Mussalmans and Doms.’
What he said was probably true. But what was so wonderful about living in a village exclusively inhabited by upper class Hindus I could not see. Particularly as they were self-confessed disciples of Swami Bajrananda!
The first person I saw on entering Jadav Chakravarty’s house was Ananda. His eyes lit up and he came forward eagerly. ‘Dada! What are you doing here?’ My host and his friend stared and a new respect crept into their eyes. It was obvious that they thought I was no ordinary mortal. Why else would that divine being, Swami Bajrananda, greet me the way he had?
‘You look ill,’ Ananda said, scanning my face.
‘He hasn’t eaten for three days,’ Jadav Chakravarty answered for me. ‘He was in the coolie camp nursing the sick.’ And he gave a heart-rendering description of the suffering he hadn’t seen. Ananda didn’t look particularly disturbed.
Continuing in his own line of thought, he said under his breath, ‘Three days of starvation couldn’t wreck you on this scale. It has a longer history. What was it? Malaria?’
‘Something of the kind,’ I smiled.
‘How did you manage to get involved with the coolies?’
‘Fate!’ I touched my forehead.
‘I have my doubts. You have quarrelled with Didi and left home in a huff. She must be worried sick by now.’
I smiled. ‘I left home—but not in a huff.’
Ananda nodded. He thought he understood the situation perfectly.
After a bath and meal I felt considerably refreshed. I would have liked to rest but Ananda led me to the door. A bullock-cart stood outside. ‘Your royal equipage is ready to convey you back to my sister. Do step in,’ he said, smiling.
‘I can’t go home just yet. I must go back to the camp.’
‘Don’t nurse your anger, Dada,’ Ananda said, his voice gentle and pleading. ‘You have suffered enough, have you not? You are neither a doctor nor a sanyasi. I’ll do what I can for the coolies. Trust me and go home. Tell Didi her Ananda is well and happy.’
I thanked my host and stepped into the cart. Ananda walked along with it for a while. ‘You have lived the major part of your life in the west, Dada,’ he said. ‘Your body is attuned to its climate. Go back where you belong. The air and water of Bengal are making you sick and languid. Tell Didi I said so.’
I sighed. Ananda had no idea of the enormity of the task he was assigning to me!
‘You have not asked me to visit you even once,’ he said, breaking the long silence.
‘You are a busy man. Your good works are innumerable. How can I ask you to waste your time in idle visiting?’
The truth was that I didn’t want Ananda anywhere near Gangamati. I feared his keen intelligence. He would perceive the degradation into which my life had fallen at a moment’s glance. There was a time when I wasn’t afraid of facing the naked truth. I could cut my losses with a smile. Even a year ago I could have told Ananda, ‘Don’t grieve at my fallen estate. I have riches stored up which lie beyond your powers of perception.’ But today, I lacked that power. A wave of self-pity swept over me. I saw myself as a worthless parasite—weak, vulnerable! A sick, broken man with only a host of broken dreams to keep me company.
‘I’ll come on the strength of the old invitation, then,’ Ananda said, smiling.
‘When?’ I asked, dully.
‘Don’t be alarmed. I promise not to come before you two are reconciled.’
I lacked the energy to repeat that there was no quarrel and therefore the question of a reconciliation did not arise. Ananda turned and walked away. The cart moved on, creaking and groaning over ruts and furrows, over bleak, stony ground.
Ananda’s words rang in my ears. But where was the question of quarrels and reconciliations? Why would I quarrel with Rajlakshmi? What was her offence? Disputes over water rights make sense only when the stream is full and flowing. When the source itself is dry, what is to be gained by dashing one’s head against the bank?
These thoughts ran round and round my head like rats in a trap and I lost my sense of time. Suddenly I sat up with a jerk. The bullocks had tumbled into a ditch. Pushing aside the sacking that hung in front of the cart I poked my head out. The afternoon light had mellowed and the sun was about to set.
‘Why don’t you keep to the road, boy?’ I asked the driver, a good-looking hulk of about fifteen.
‘The bullocks climbed down. It was not my fault.’ The boy’s answer came sharp and clear in the Rarh * dialect.
‘You’re supposed to control the bullocks.’
‘I’m not used to them. They are new.’
‘It will soon be dark. How far is it to Gangamati?’
‘How do I know? Have I ever been there?’
‘Then why did you offer to bring me?’
‘I did nothing of the sort. Mama ** said, “Take Babu to Gangamati. Keep going south till the road forks. Then turn east.”’
‘I hope we aren’t travelling north instead of south and west instead of east.’
‘We may be. Who knows?’
The boy’s cryptic, arrogant answers angered me. ‘You are a fool and a scoundrel,’ I shouted. ‘Why did you come if you don’t know north from south? Who is your father?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘And your mother—?’
‘She’s dead too.’
‘Good for them. Looks like we will both join them shortly. Come on, get going.’
The bullocks ambled along for a hundred yards or so. Suddenly the boy broke down. ‘I can’t go any further. I’m tired.’ And he burst into loud sobs.
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll go back home.’
‘What about me?’
‘You must fend for yourself, Babu. The fare is one rupee, four annas. Mama will beat me if you give less.’
I looked around me with apprehension. Dusk was falling. Soon it would be dark. The best course would be to go back with the blubbering boy. But, at the thought, a tremor passed through my frame. I couldn’t face Ananda again. I scanned the landscape. Wasn’t that dark mass a grove of mango and jackfruit? Then human habitation couldn’t be far off. I would find shelter for the night. If I didn’t, I could walk on and on—away from Rajlakshmi, away from my familiar world. I had done it before. I could do it again.
I climbed down and paid the boy. I saw that his actions were suited to his words. His tears dried as if by magic. He changed direction within seconds and, even as I stood there, became a speck on the horizon.
Thirteen
AS I WALKED THROUGH THE TREES IN SEARCH OF A NIGHT’S shelter, a curious feeling came over me. A sense of encroaching on someone’s private preserve oppressed me. I tried to tell myself that this was not the first time, that I had accepted people’s hospitality often enough before. But the feeling persisted. I thought, at first, that it was prompted by the fact that my roving had hitherto been outside Bengal. This was Rarh. I knew nothing of it. But, by the same logic, I had known nothing of Burma when I first set foot on it. Yet, I had felt no shame, sensed no humiliation in throwing myself on Da Thakur’s charity.
The truth, as I saw it now, was that I myself had changed. I had been free then. I could float, effortlessly as a bird, from experience to experience. Now, bound to Rajlakshmi as I was, the desire to lose myself was a travesty, an imitation of the old. Yet, not knowing what else to do, I kept on walking.
Suddenly, I caught a glimmer of white through the dark branches on my left. Changing direction I walked on till I came to an old derelict building w
ith a high iron gate. But the hinges had rusted away and many of the spikes were gone. Inside, two rooms opened out on to a veranda. I entered one. Four iron cots stood in the corners. They had mattresses on them but the covers were ripped and torn and the stuffing bulged out in places. Some plates and glasses of thick enamel, encrusted with dirt and grime, lay scattered about. The air was mouldy and smelt of bat droppings.
As I looked around, a man, pale and gaunt as a ghost, materialized from one of the corners. I guessed that the place was a hospital and this shadowy creature its sole inmate.
‘Can you spare me a few annas, Babu?’ he said in a nasal whine.
‘Why?’ I asked, surprised.
‘I’ll buy something to eat. I’m starving.’
‘You are a patient. You shouldn’t be eating food from the bazaar.’
He was silent.
‘Don’t they feed you here?’
‘I get a bowl of sago in the mornings. By the evening I get so hungry that I stand at the gate and beg from the passers-by. If I get a little money, I buy muri (puffed rice) or chire. If I don’t, I starve.’
‘Doesn’t the hospital have a doctor?’
‘Yes. He comes once a day—in the mornings, usually. There was another man. He did everything—from mixing medicines to cleaning lanterns. But he left last month. He said he hadn’t been paid for over a year. He hasn’t been replaced.’
‘Do you know whom the hospital belongs to?’
In answer the man led me to the veranda where, fixed on the wall, was a vast marble plaque. On it, inscribed in gold leaf, was the name of the hospital and the date of its inception together with a panegyric in honour of the English magistrate who had performed the ceremony. There was also a kind of family tree of the founder—one Rai Bahadur, who had immortalized the memory of his dead mother by this tremendous service to the nation. Unfortunately, as I gathered, after meeting the expenses of the building and the plaque, he had had no money left to run the hospital. His interest, too, had waned and finally disappeared.
In return for a few annas, the man gave me the heartening news that within a hundred yards of the hospital lived a family of Chakravarty Brahmins who were renowned for their hospitality. They would be happy to give me a night’s lodging. In fact, he would take me there himself on his way to the grocer’s.
A few minutes walk brought me to my destination. I had thought, from the man’s description, that the people whose hospitality I sought were well-to-do, generous folk. What I saw depressed me considerably. The house was in the worst state of disrepair imaginable. And, for all my companion’s tributes to their gracious hospitality, the inmates turned a deaf ear to his calls.
‘Thakur moshai!’ he cried, over and over again, banging on the door with all his might. But a death-like silence pervaded the little house.
I tried to stop him but his tenacity was really admirable. I understood, now, how he had managed to keep alive in that mausoleum of a hospital. After hours, or so it seemed, when the frail door was on the point of bursting at the seams, a fretful voice answered from within, ‘Not today. I can’t give you anything today. Please go.’
My friend was not put off in the least. ‘Come out and see who’s here,’ he cried. I was horribly embarrassed. He spoke of me as though I was the family’s gurudev and my sole purpose in coming was to bless the household.
‘Who is it, Bhim?’ The voice changed. It became gentle and had a glow in it. There was a click and within seconds a lean, faded man in a ragged dhoti stood in the doorway. ‘Who is it?’ he asked again, peering up at me.
‘He’s a gentleman, a Brahmin!’ Bhim answered enthusiastically. ‘He lost his way and came to the hospital. “Don’t worry, Babu,” I said, “I’ll take you to Thakur moshai. He’ll look after you.”’
I must admit that Bhim had not exaggerated. My host received me with great warmth. Spreading a mat on the floor, he invited me to sit down. Then he proceeded to prepare a hookah mumbling apologetically, ‘My servants are all ill with fever.’
As I digested this piece of information, a woman’s voice boomed from the inner room, ‘Who is it? Who is being entertained at this time of night?’
My heart missed a beat at the sound. I guessed that this was the voice of the mistress. The master of the house trembled visibly as he answered, ‘He’s a Brahmin, ginni, * a great man from the city. He lost his way and needs a place to stay. He’s our guest for the night—only the night. He will leave as soon as dawn breaks.’
‘Everyone loses his way. And manages to find it to this house,’ the voice came loud and clear. ‘What are you going to feed him with? Ash from the hearth? You know very well that we have no food—’
The blood froze in my veins. The hand that held the hookah shook. I attempted to rise but my limbs were paralysed. Chakravarty moshai said quickly, to hide his embarrassment, ‘Come, come, ginni. What nonsense you talk! No food in my house! Come to the kitchen. I’ll arrange everything.’
‘What will you arrange? There’s a handful of rice in the jar. I’m going to cook it and give it to the children. You are mistaken if you think I’ll deprive my own babies to feed that hulk.’
After this a marital war ensued in which all norms of civilized behaviour collapsed and disintegrated. I tried to rise but Chakravarty moshai grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me down. ‘You are my guest. And a guest is akin to Narayan. If you leave—I’ll hang myself.’
‘An ideal solution,’ the voice came prompt and sharp. ‘If I’m rid of you I’ll gladly beg from door to door to feed my children.’
I couldn’t bear it anymore. I stood up and said in a resolute voice, ‘That may be the best course for you, Chakravarty moshai. But kindly do it at your leisure. For the present, either let me go or get me a length of rope so that I may hang myself and be relieved of your hospitality.’
There was a stunned silence. Then my host addressed his opponent, ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hunh,’ said the voice from within.
Suddenly an arm appeared through the door and set a brass pitcher, with a bang, on the floor. ‘Take this to the grocer’s and bring back rice, dal, salt and oil. See that the devil Srimanta doesn’t cheat you.’
‘No! No!’ My host was happy again. ‘I’m not a child.’ Then peering into the hookah he said, ‘The fire is out. Change the bowl, ginni. I’ll have a few puffs before I go. I won’t be long.’ He pulled at his hookah with tremendous enjoyment and departed. Thus, husband and wife were reconciled.
After an hour or so I was invited into the kitchen. My appetite had vanished and I felt sick and exhausted. I had spent many nights of my life under strange roofs but nowhere had I witnessed the kind of scenes that I had in that house. Yet, I couldn’t get out of the situation either. I followed my host with a heavy heart but that night was, obviously, one of surprises. On entering the kitchen I found that, instead of a cooked meal, rice, dal, ghee, salt and vegetables lay in mounds on pieces of banana leaf. A fire roared in the hearth and a brass pot stood before it.
‘Put everything in the pot and set it on the fire,’ my host directed, fairly dribbling at the mouth. ‘The dal is excellent—khari musuri *—and so is the ghee. It will make a fine kedgeree.’
I didn’t understand the situation in the least, but, afraid of sparking off another controversy, I did as I was told. My ignorance of the art did not escape the eyes of my hostess.
She came out of the shadows and addressed me directly, ‘You know nothing of cooking,’ she said in the voice that still had the power to make me tremble.
‘No,’ I admitted humbly.
‘My husband wanted me to cook the meal. He said, being a stranger, you would never come to know. But I refused. My conscience would not allow me to rob you of your caste. We are Agradani ** Brahmins. Our touch is polluting for high caste Brahmins like you.’
I didn’t dare tell her that I had eaten at the hands of people far lower in the caste ladder than she. I cooked the meal according to her instructions and f
orced myself to swallow it. But the ‘fine kedgeree’ tasted like sawdust and felt like a pile of nuggets in the pit of my stomach. I wished, desperately, for the night to be over. I would walk out of the depressing house the moment I saw a glimmer in the east.
I steeled myself and went on eating but the moment I washed my mouth everything came up and I vomited, violently, all over the floor. I wanted to clean up the mess but, overcome with exhaustion I couldn’t move a muscle. A dark mist swirled before my eyes. I said, gasping, ‘Let me lie down for a few minutes. Then I’ll get up and clean the floor.’
‘Hush, child!’ said a voice, surprisingly soft and maternal, and a pair of gentle hands took hold of me. ‘Come and lie down on my bed. I’ll clean it up in a minute.’ She led me to her room and I shut my eyes, surrendering to the inevitable.
When I awoke, it was morning and the sun was high over the horizon. My head ached unbearably and my body burned with fever.
‘Are you awake, Baba?’ the voice of last night spoke from the foot of the bed. I opened my eyes painfully. I saw a woman in her forties, dark and pock-marked with commonplace features. But not a trace of the harshness that had emanated from her person last night was evident this morning. Most prominent in her physiognomy were the marks of a lifetime of struggle and suffering.
‘I didn’t see you properly last night,’ she said. ‘You are very young indeed. Had my eldest son lived, he would have been your age.’ She placed a cool hand on my forehead and murmured, ‘The fever is quite high.’
I felt acutely guilty at the thought of the burden I had become on this poverty-stricken family. ‘The hospital is not too far off. I can walk to it—with a little help,’ I said, my throbbing eyes shut against the glare.
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