Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  Kamal Lata was right. The fever left me, not the next morning but in a couple of days. But our secret was out. Kamal Lata understood how things were between us and so did Bara gosain.

  Kamal Lata sent for us the day we were to leave the akhra. There was a thala by her side with a pair of garlands and bowl of sandal paste on it which, I guessed rightly, had been brought in from the shrine.

  ‘Do you remember the year you got married, gosain?’ she asked.

  ‘He remembers nothing,’ Rajlakshmi answered for me. ‘Ask me.’

  ‘Isn’t it strange that one should remember and the other forget?’

  ‘It happened in our childhood. He was very young—’

  ‘But he is older than you, Raju.’

  ‘Only five or six years older,’ Rajlakshmi said carelessly. ‘I was eight or nine then. One day, I put a garland around his neck and said to myself, “From this day onwards you are my husband.” I said it three times. But this monster stood right where he was and ate up my garland.’

  ‘Ate up your garland? Did you eat flowers in your childhood, gosain?’ the Vaishnavi laughed, unbelieving.

  ‘It was a garland of ripe bainchis,’ I answered. ‘Anyone would’ve eaten it.’

  ‘From that moment onwards my troubles started,’ Rajlakshmi took up her tale again. ‘I lost sight of him and—don’t ask me the rest, Didi. People say so many things and think so many things. None of them are true. I only know that I wept and prayed day and night and, at last, God took pity on me. He gave back to me what He had taken.’ She turned her face in the direction of the shrine and shut her eyes. Her lips moved as though she uttered a prayer of thanksgiving.

  ‘His garlands and sandal are before you, bon. Put them on one another before you leave the akhra.’

  But Rajlakshmi shook her head and folded her hands in supplication. ‘I don’t know about him,’ she said, ‘but I can’t obey you in this, Kamal Didi. Whenever I close my eyes I see my red garland swaying on his youthful breast. I want that image to remain the eternal one.’

  ‘But I ate up that garland,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Mr Monster, you did. Now eat me up if that will fill your stomach.’ And, laughing, she dipped her fingers in the bowl of sandal paste and smeared it all over my face.

  We went to take leave of Bara gosain. He looked up from the book he was reading and welcomed us warmly.

  ‘We have very little time, gosain,’ Rajlakshmi said, dropping down on the floor. ‘We’ve come to say goodbye and to beg forgiveness for all the trouble we’ve caused you.’

  ‘We are bairagis, bon. We are not used to others begging from us. But when do you propose to trouble us again? Let it be soon for the akhra will become dark and lonesome without you.’ Kamal Lata smiled and nodded her head in agreement and Bara gosain went on, ‘The last few days were some of the happiest days of my life, bon. You are a veritable spirit of joy. You shower love, happiness, song and laughter wherever you go. Your presence illumined our little hermitage with the power and force of lightning.’ He stopped, then pointed to me and said, ‘Kamal Lata calls him, Natun gosain. I shall call you Anandamayee.’

  I had to interrupt this flow of rhetoric. ‘You’ve only seen the lightning of your Anandamayee’s eyes. You haven’t heard the thunder of her voice as I do all day long Ratan is here before us. Ask him, if you don’t believe me.’

  Ratan fled in embarrassment and Rajlakshmi said coolly, ‘Don’t believe a word of what he is saying, gosain. He’s jealous of me—that’s all.’ She glanced witheringly in my direction and went on, ‘I don’t get a moment’s peace with this sickly, boring creature hanging around me day and night. I shall keep him locked up at home when I come next.’

  ‘You’ll never do that, Anandamayee. You won’t be able to.’

  ‘I will. I get so exasperated sometimes—I wish I could die.’

  ‘Such a wish was expressed by Radha Rani in Vrindavan, many a time. But she couldn’t die for who would look after her Kanu? Don’t you remember the song:

  Sakhi kare diye jabo?

  Tara Kanu sebar ki ba jane?

  (Friend! In whose care shall I leave my Kanu?

  Can anyone serve him the way I do?)

  ‘How little we know of love! Most of the time we only delude ourselves. But you are different. You have known true love. You have felt it in your heart. If only you could surrender what you have at Sri Krishna’s feet—’

  ‘Don’t wish that for me, gosain!’ Rajlakshmi shuddered. ‘Pray, rather, that I live out my life as ordinary people do and leave him alive and well when I go.’

  I understood Rajlakshmi! I knew that the guilt and pain of casting me off still lay on her heart like a weary burden and that she lived, from moment to moment, in fear of a terrible retribution. I wanted to soothe her fears away so I said, lightly, ‘Taunt my poor, sickly body all you can. You haven’t a clue to its hidden powers. It is indestructible. I’m certainly not going to die before you.’

  Rajlakshmi gripped my hand and cried feverishly, ‘Swear before all these people that what you said is true. Swear it thrice.’ Her eyes swam and large tears rolled down her cheeks. Everyone stared at her—shocked at her vehemence. She released my hand, quickly, and laughed awkwardly. ‘That old fraud of an astrologer has made me so nervous—’ She dabbed at her eyes and laughed, unable to complete her sentence.

  We took leave of everyone in the akhra. Bara gosain promised to visit us and to bring Padma, who had never seen the city, with him. On reaching the station, the first person we set eyes on was the ‘sour-faced astrologer’ of Rajlakshmi’s description. He sat on a piece of blanket in the centre of the platform, a group of people around him.

  ‘Is he to go with us?’ I asked Rajlakshmi.

  She nodded but averted her face to hide her embarrassment.

  ‘No, he is not,’ I said, firmly.

  ‘Why not? He won’t do any harm even if he can’t do any good.’

  ‘I don’t care about what he can do—good or bad. Give him whatever you promised and get rid of him. If he really has the power to appease the planets he can do it here, where we won’t see him.’

  ‘I’ll tell him that.’ Rajlakshmi commanded Ratan to bring the man to her. I don’t know what she gave him or what she said but he nodded his head many times and looked pleased. The train arrived in a few minutes and we set off on our journey back to the city.

  Twelve

  RAJLAKSHMI’S CROSS-QUESTIONING FORCED ME TO REVEAL THE source of my new found wealth. The facts of the case were as follows. While in Burma, a racing enthusiast who was an officer of mine had borrowed my savings, on the promise that I would get fifty per cent of his gains, if any, over and above the interest accrued thereon. On my return to Calcutta I found a registered parcel containing four times the amount I had loaned out, waiting for me.

  ‘What is the amount?’ Rajlakshmi probed.

  ‘A fortune to me but a mere trifle to you.’

  ‘Still, how much is it?’

  ‘Eight thousand.’

  ‘You must give it to me.’

  ‘Aré! I thought Lakshmi was a giver—not a taker.’

  ‘Lakshmi doesn’t approve of squandering money. She doesn’t trust fakirs and sanyasis. They are worthless wastrels, in her opinion. Bring me the money.’

  ‘What will you do with it?’

  ‘I’ll spend it on myself. From this day onwards it will be the sole means of my support.’

  ‘The sum is too small. You can’t even pay your servants’ salaries out of it—let alone Gurudev, your widows in Benaras and your hundred and one charities.’

  ‘I’m not speaking of them. I’m speaking of my own day-to-day living.’

  ‘This is another of your self-delusions, Lakshmi.’

  ‘It isn’t. I’m not giving up my own money. That will be used for all my other expenditure. But I will live on what you give me. If it is enough, well and good. If not—I’ll starve.’

  ‘Then you’d better make up your mind to
starve.’

  Rajlakshmi laughed. ‘You think it is a small amount. But I know the secret of making a little go a long way. I’ve often wanted to tell you how I made my money but I couldn’t because of the way you clam up the moment I mention my past. But, one day, you’ll realize that your preconceptions are totally without foundation.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t have believed me. You won’t touch my money because you think it is tainted. Yet you’ve never asked me for the truth.’

  ‘Then why do you talk of it today, all of a sudden?’ I cried, hurt by her allegation.

  ‘It may be sudden to you. It isn’t to me. It is a thought that torments me day and night. Do you really believe me capable of using money earned in sin in the service of my gods? Or for your welfare? Could I have saved your life, over and over again, if I had done anything so vile? God would have taken you away again, I’m convinced of it. But you don’t trust me. You don’t believe me to be truly yours.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You had barely met Kamal Lata, yet you gave her a patient hearing. You allowed her to share the most intimate details of her shameful past with you and, in doing so, relieved her of the burden she had carried for years. You released her from the pain of memory. But I, whom you’ve known from childhood, what have you ever done for me? Have you ever asked me for the truth about myself? You haven’t. Why? Because you distrust and fear me. Because you distrust yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t ask her to tell me anything. She compelled me to listen.’

  ‘You didn’t ask her because she was a stranger. Her life was not tied up with yours in any way. Would you say the same of me?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. But are you Kamal Lata’s disciple? Do you have to pour out your woes before me simply because she did?’

  ‘Don’t try to put me off. I insist on telling you.’

  ‘Was ever a man plagued so? I don’t want to hear—yet I must.’

  ‘You may stop loving me. You may even cast me off but hear me you must.’

  ‘Why do you force me to take these difficult decisions?’

  ‘You are a man,’ Rajlakshmi laughed. ‘Don’t you have the strength of mind to cast me off if you think it right?’

  I confessed my lack of strength with a humility that would have melted any woman’s heart. ‘Lakshmi,’ I said, ‘don’t make the mistake of counting me among the men of your acquaintance. They are iron men with hearts of steel and I esteem them highly. But I am human and weak. I dare not cast you off for fear that you’ll really go away. And then, what will become of me? Is it not better to leave things as they are?’

  ‘You may have heard,’ Rajlakshmi went on inexorably, ‘that my mother sold me in childhood to a Maithili prince.’

  ‘Yes. I heard another prince mention the fact many years later. He was my friend.’

  ‘One day I lost my temper and threw her out. She went back to the village and spread the news of my death. You must have heard of my death in Kashi.’

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘What did you feel?’

  ‘I felt—sad. “Poor Lakshmi!” I said to myself. “She died young.”’

  ‘Just that and nothing more?’

  ‘Not just that. “She’s fortunate to have died in Kashi,” I thought. “Her soul is already on its way to heaven. Poor Lakshmi!”’

  ‘I don’t believe a word. “Poor Lakshmi” indeed! I’m sure you didn’t waste a moment’s thought on me. Swear on my head that you did.’

  ‘It was so long ago,’ I said hastily. ‘I don’t remember exactly. That is what I must have felt.’

  ‘You felt nothing of the sort. You don’t have to reconstruct the past for my benefit. I know what you felt well enough.’ She paused for a moment and continued, ‘And I? I wept day and night and prayed unceasingly to Lord Vishwanath. “Why do you punish me so cruelly?” I cried, over and over again. “Am I to live this life of shame to the end of my days? Am I to lose him whom I took for my husband even before my heart and soul were fully awakened?” I can’t bear to think of those days, even now. Memory is so painful! ‘I’d die, willingly, if death would blot it out.’

  I glanced at the tense, pale face and felt my heart constrict with pain. I wanted to stop her from undertaking the nightmarish journey into the past, but I lacked the power. I understood her completely. Her memories had tormented her night and day but she hadn’t dared to share them with me for fear of losing the little she had gained. But her association with Kamal Lata had strengthened her. She was determined, today, to lay down her burden of memories, as Kamal Lata had done, and so win her release. She would burst the shackles of fear that bound her and stand revealed before me even if it cost her her love. Kamal Lata was the only one before whom this proud, arrogant woman had bowed her head and begged humbly for a way out of the darkness that stifled her soul. I saw this in my mind’s eye as clearly as in the clear light of day and peace and contentment filled my heart at the thought.

  After a brief silence, Rajlakshmi took up her tale again. ‘After the prince’s death—he died suddenly—Ma secretly conspired to sell me again.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To another prince. That gem of a friend of yours—don’t you remember?’

  ‘Not very well. It was so long ago. What happened then?’

  ‘The plot was discovered. I told Ma to go back home. “I’ve taken a thousand rupees as an advance,” she cried. “You may keep the touting fee,” I told her. “I’ll repay it to the last paisa. But if you don’t leave by the night train I’ll sell myself to Ma Ganga. By daybreak, tomorrow, you’ll only have my corpse left to do what you like with. You know me, Ma. I don’t make idle threats.” Ma went back to the village and spread the news of my death, on hearing which you sighed and said, “Poor Lakshmi! She died young.”’ She laughed a little and continued, Had your sigh come from the heart it would have been enough for me, then. But today, I want more from you. I want you to shed a few tears for me when I’m really and truly dead. I want you to say to yourself, “Everyday, since the world began, thousands of lovers exchange garlands and vows of constancy. But no love in the past, present or future can compare with my poor, unchaste, unfulfilled Lakshmi’s love. Not one heart in the world can match the constancy of the nine-year-old one that beat for me alone to the day of her death.” Will you whisper these words in my ear? I’ll hear them even after I’m gone.’

  ‘Why, Lakshmi! You’re crying.’

  She wiped her streaming eyes with the end of her sari and continued, ‘Do you think God didn’t see how a helpless child was tormented by her own mother? Will he not dispense justice?’

  ‘He should. But religious people like you understand God and his ways better than I do. In any case, He is not likely to listen to a heretic like me even if I request Him to do so.’

  ‘You must joke about everything!’ She thought for a minute and said, ‘People say that a man and a woman cannot live together unless they share a common faith. We share nothing yet we manage to live together. How?’

  ‘We live a snake-and-mongoose life, threatening to kill one another every minute. But since killing is punishable by law we torture each other in so many different ways. One banishes the other out of a fear that he will become a hurdle on her path to heaven.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Then she realizes that she’s made a terrible mistake. She weeps and beats her breast and begs forgiveness.’

  ‘Is she forgiven?’

  ‘Yes. But go on with your story.’

  ‘An old Bengali ustad of Kashi—I called him Dada Moshai—used to come to the house to give me singing lessons. He had been a sanyasi once but had abandoned the saffron robes many years ago and married a Mussalman woman. This lady was a celebrated dancer and taught me all I know about dance. They loved me as tenderly as if I was their own daughter and I trusted them implicitly. “Dada Moshai!” I begged. “Let us run away from here. I
can’t live this kind of life anymore.” He was a poor man and was reluctant to take the risk. “I have a lot of money with me,” I said. “It will last us a long time. After that—He will provide. We must put our faith in Him.” We wandered all over the country. We went to Allahabad, Lucknow, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Mathura and finally settled down in Patna. Half the money I loaned out, at a high rate of interest, to a usurer and the other half I invested in a cloth and cosmetics business. I bought a house and had Banku brought over from the village. And how I earned my living—you’ve seen with your own eyes.’

  I was silent for a long while. Then I said, ‘I believe this story because you are telling it. If it were anyone else I would have dismissed it as fiction.’

  ‘Can’t I cook up a story?’

  ‘You can, I suppose. Only I don’t believe that you are capable of deceiving me.’

  ‘Why do you trust me so implicitly?’

  ‘Because I know you, Lakshmi. You would live in mortal fear of some harm coming to me had you deceived me. You wouldn’t be worried for yourself—only for me.’

  ‘How do you know that? This fear haunts me day and night—it doesn’t haunt you.’

  ‘Would you be happy if it did?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t ever want you to share my pain. I’m your slave. Don’t think of me as anything else.’

  ‘Hopeless!’ I exclaimed in exasperation. ‘You should have been born a thousand years ago—in the age of Sita and Savitri and the other chaste women of our myths.’

  ‘Yes. I should have. I feel closer to them than to the women of today. You admire modern women and think you understand them but I know them better than you do. Try exchanging me with one of them. You’ll come back in a week, weeping and beating your breast—as you accused me of doing a little while ago.’

  ‘The argument is purely hypothetical. You know, very well, that I won’t exchange you with anybody. But you’re being excessively unjust to the modern woman, Lakshmi!’

  ‘Even if I’m being unjust, it’s not excessively so. I’m not blind, gosain, and I haven’t lived in a well. I’ve travelled a lot, seen a lot. In fact, if you have one pair of eyes, I have ten.’