Indulekha

by O. Chandu Menon

  It is perhaps too much to say that the scene which here presents itself to the eye between four and seven o’clock every evening cannot be found elsewhere in the world, but it certainly cannot be found elsewhere in India. Carriages throng the marina, some standing by motionless as if in a picture, some gleaming and flashing in the golden sunshine as they pass along in orderly array. They are drawn by a pair of horses, or four, or even six, fine animals of interesting colours, milk-white or black as a rain cloud, roan or piebald. It is a fascinating sight to see the beauty, rank and fashion of the day assembled here. Some people lean back in their carriages, drinking in the sea breeze, others alight and stroll along the beach, or sit on the luxurious seats constructed there, and here and there are groups of children, with faces bright and beaming as the full, blown lotus, all engaged in pleasant conversation, and all enjoying the soft air wafted from the ocean. There, in serried lines, are anchored in all their majesty, vessels from England, France, Germany and other countries, each seeming proudly to hurl defiance at the rest. Steamers are getting under weigh, pouring forth volumes of smoke from their huge funnels, and speeding into the horizon until they and the smoke alike are lost to view, and others, bound for harbour, loom into sight and draw nearer and nearer to the shore. Steam-launches, like the little children of the giant ships, dart gracefully in all directions, plying to and from the pier, and emitting sharp puffs of steam from their slender funnels, while the rays of sunlight glance with brilliance off their fittings of burnished brass. Here may be seen some distinguished travellers, with their suite, preparing to embark, while others who have come to wish their friends God-speed on the voyage are sadly retracing their steps.

  There stands a husband, all eager and impatient to meet his wife, dear to him as life itself, as she descends from the ship. Force of circumstances has compelled her to tarry long in England, but now he lifts her out of the boat in a passionate embrace, and with her enters his carriage as though it was a chariot sent from heaven. Yonder are parents who have come to welcome their children whom they have not seen for years, and whom they now kiss with rapture, giving them greeting in a voice drowned with tears of joy, and all the air is loud with the strains, of a band, making music for the delectation of the people, and the setting sun sheds over the varying scene a living splendour which passes all description.

  Madhavan stood entranced with the prospect before his eye. Like the man in the proverb who had paid the toll, he felt himself free to act as he pleased, and his heart was greatly comforted. Seized with a strong desire to get on board the first vessel he saw and go for a short voyage, he engaged a passage in a steamship Mary Anne, which would sail for Calcutta at nine o’clock that night, and embarked at eight. But, when evil days overtake one, nothing prospers, and Madhavan had omitted to ascertain the date on which the steamer would reach Calcutta. As a matter of fact she was bound to call at many ports on the way, and by the time he had been two days at sea, his fancy for a voyage had completely passed away, and moreover he began to feel ill.

  It took the vessel nine days to reach the Malabar coast, and the yearning which overcame Madhavan at the sight of his native land was unutterable. Thoughts of his mother and of his father rushed into his mind, and he fell to weeping. He certainly had some excuse for giving way to his feelings, because he felt feverish, and was suffering from a large boil on his leg, which made it painful for him to stand upright and walk. The food on board was utterly distasteful to him, and there was no face near him on which he cared to look. The only other passengers were some Europeans and bearded Mahomedans, who regarded him with contempt, and he had not even a servant with him. Such was his condition when the vessel arrived off Malabar, and with the telescope he could plainly see the shore. "O God," he exclaimed, "Thou hast indeed brought me low," and he wept bitterly. But suddenly he remembered lndulekha, and, leaving the telescope, retreated to his berth, determined that even if the alternative was to die and have his body cast into the sea, he would not set foot in Malabar yet. After this the progress of the vessel was slower than before, and, in a word, the passage from Bombay to Calcutta occupied twenty-three days. But the sea air and the sea faring diet, to which he had became accustomed in this prolonged voyage, completely restored Madhavan’s health, and he stepped at Calcutta thanking the almighty for safely bringing him back to land.

  Calcutta seemed to him a city of wonders, but I have no intention of inflicting on my readers an account thereof. After two days, he paid a visit to the park in which are situated the Zoological Gardens, and walked about, looking at one strange sight after another. While thus engaged he saw four men, elegantly dressed, coming towards him. As they approached, he was standing in front of an iron-barred cage which held a panther, and the individuals he had noticed stopped before it also. It was then feeding time, and all drew near to the cage in order to see the operation. The keeper pulled open the outer door, and threw some meat inside, but forgot to shut the door again when he opened the inner partition. The panther at once came out with a bound, and the four persons above mentioned took to their heels, screaming and terrified. But Madhavan drew his revolver from his pocket and fired a shot at the animal, which made it leap furiously in the air. He then fired another shot, and the brute fell dead. The heroes who had run away promptly returned, and one of them, shaking Madhavan by the hand and exclaiming in English "Well done, well done," asked him if he did not come from Malabar.

  There was some reason for this question, because Madhavan’s hat had dropped off in his encounter with the panther, and his knot of long hair had fallen loose. His questioner had seen some of his countrymen in Madras, and hence recognized his Malayali origin.

  Madhavan replied in the affirmative, and the stranger then asked him how long he had been in Calcutta.

  "Two days," answered Madhavan.

  "Where are you staying?" was the next enquiry.

  "At a hotel," said Madhavan.

  "Have you come to see the country?"

  "Yes," replied Madhavan.

  "I have a great respect for your countrymen," then said the stranger. "You are young and handsome, and we are all delighted with your pluck and presence of mind. I am a merchant and live near here. My name is Babu Govind Sen. The gentleman who stands next to me is called Gopinath Bannerjee, and he is my partner in business. The next is Babu Chitraprasadh Sen; he is my younger brother, and this lad is my son, employed in the Government service at Bombay. His name is Babu Kesav Chandra Sen. If you have not made any other engagements, we shall be very glad if you will accept such hospitality as we can offer, and stay with us as long as you are in Calcutta. My son must go back to Bombay in a week: if you think of going back to Malabar then, you two can travel comfortably together so far."

  Madhavan felt himself greatly drawn to this worthy man who spoke to him so courteously in pure English, and said, "I accept your kind invitation with pleasure. I have neither relations nor friends in this part of the world, and I cannot understand what I have done that you should show me so much kindness. All I can say is that I am most fortunate."

  The whole party then stood for some time examining the carcase of the panther, and, after telling the park-keeper the circumstances under which it was killed, made their way to the gate, where the Babus and Madhavan entered a fine open carriage drawn by four horses and drove away to Babu Govind Sen’s house.

  Babu Govind Sen and his brother, Chitra Prasadh Sen, ranked among the leading millionaires of Calcutta. Their residence was called Amaravathi, and consisted of several detached houses, which stood well back from the road, and were surrounded on all sides by lovely beds of flowers. Even at the entrance of this vast garden Madhavan was filled with astonishment, for he saw, while yet at a distance, four or five mansions towering with their white pinnacles into the sky. He had never seen such imposing houses, and from the moment he passed the gates which lifted high their heads, everything seemed so strange and wondrous that he felt he must be in the home of Indra, in the legendary Amaravathi.
Everything he saw betokened a profusion of wealth. From the lordly gates, adorned with many a rare architectural device, a broad carriage drive, made of the finest gravel and rolled smooth, swept in a graceful curve up to the hall door, and on either side of it stood ornamental fences of brass trellis work, painted white and overgrown by creepers clustering with fragrant flowers. Here and there were placed, five or six feet apart, fountains of marble cunningly wrought, and nothing was wanting to charm the senses with delight. It would require several pages to enumerate all the beauties of the place, and when he alighted from the carriage and looked around, Madhavan felt as if he were walking in a dream. Entering the house and passing from one apartment to another, he was filled with admiration of the furniture. Sofas, covered with rich velvet and brocade, and luxurious chairs and couches, handsomely carved and decorated, marble-topped tables and tables fashioned in the English style out of ivory and out of wood filled the spacious, lofty rooms; numberless huge mirrors, set in golden frames twelve to eighteen feet in height, reflected and redoubled all the objects of art placed in front of them, until the mind of any one unaccustomed to the sight was fairly bewildered. Chandeliers, with hundreds of silver candlesticks embedded in globes of glass,- which white in themselves, flashed with myriads of colours when illuminated by the sun or the fire light-and festooned with crystals cut into divers shapes, hung by silver chains from the lofty boarded ceilings resplendent with gold, green and yellow paint. Bracket lamps, with their gold and silver branches, crystal pendants and globes of exquisitely cut glass, adorned the towering walls which were tinted white or blue or yellow. The floors in some places were covered with rich silken carpets, and in others surfaced with polished marble slabs. Broad flights of stairs, modelled after the lotus and the cobra’s hood and guarded by balustrades, painted white, yellow and green, and gilded at the top and bottom, led to the palatial rooms above. The doors and the windows were works of art, and the hangings were made of costly silk. The bedsteads, of gold and silver lacquer, were complete with curtains of brocade, mattresses and pillows of silk and velvet, and silver inlaid canopies, but no pen can do justice to all that Madhavan saw.

  The turrets, which, rising high above the topmost rooms, were an object of curiosity and interest to all and were reached by passing through the fifth and sixth storeys, consisted of walled chambers without a roof. In some places the floor was of pure crystal or ornamented with designs of creepers and flowers traced in molten, polished brass; in others it was inlaid with panels of mother-of-pearl and, again, in others spread with silken rugs. The turret walls were crowned on all four sides by a network of fine brass wire, gilded so that it might never tarnish, and studded with silver till it appeared like an unbroken wreath of flowers, and the delicate beauty of these trellised screens seemed more than human mind could conceive. Mosaics of polished white marble gleamed from the walls and at the four corners of the turrets, vases of choice porcelain, set in marble on a foundation of cast iron bloomed with fragrant flowers. Here and there water, brought through copper tubes from a vast depth, gushed and sparkled through many a gargoyle fashioned in marble or crystal, after the shape of lotus, beast and bird, and eye and ear were alike enraptured with the sight and sound.

  But it would be vain to enter into further details because no words of mine can convey any adequate idea of what Madhavan beheld. Enchanted by the vision of turret chambers, ornamental ponds, jewelled beds, libraries, and pleasure gardens, he felt as if he had quit the earth for some realm of bliss hitherto unknown, and he remained for ten days, enjoying the hospitality of Babu Govind Sen, in the paradise of Amaravathi.

  Considerably more than twenty days had elapsed since Govinda Panikker and Govindan Kutti Menon started from Puvarangu, and in case my readers are anxious to hear what befell them, I will give a brief account of their adventures.

  Govindan Kutti Menon had loudly asserted that, with railways and telegraph lines all over India, it would be no difficult matter to trace Madhavan, but his confidence speedily evaporated and he felt completely at fault. Notwithstanding his boast of the facilities which the railway and the telegraph and the steamships gave them, he felt in his inmost heart that no man can succeed in his hopes and desires, unless fortune attends him, and began to give some indication of his sentiments. As soon as they reached Madras, he went and saw Mr. Gilham, who could give no tidings beyond those of his interview with Madhavan. But even these afforded Govindan Kutti Menon and Govinda Panikkar some crumbs of comfort, and they started forth with for Bombay. From Bombay they pursued their inquiries to Benares, and there, as Govinda Panikkar fell ill, they were obliged to remain for ten days. Then Govindan Kutti Menon, for no reason whatsoever, conceived the idea that Madhavan must have gone to England, and accordingly they returned, like a pair of wandering lunatics, to Bombay. After spending five or six days in making minute inquiries in every direction, they ascertained that, some days previously a youth who wore his hair on the front of his head had embarked on one of the steamers. Thereupon they rushed to the Port Office, and scrutinized the list of passengers bound for Europe, but failing to find Madhavan’s name, suspected that he had assumed another. As a matter of fact Madhavan had given his own name when he embarked, but this was entered in the register of passengers who had sailed for Calcutta, and that it did not find a place in the lists of those who had gone to Marseilles or Brindisi en route for Europe is hardly surprising. But man walketh in a vain shadow, and though Madhavan’s name was written clearly in another part of the very same book in which Govindan Kutti Menon was studying the lists, he never thought of turning to the particular place. Unless favoured by fortune, human wisdom is powerless to command success, and, to add to the difficulties of the situation, Govinda Panikkar relapsed into illness soon after his return to Bombay from Benares. This necessitated their halting at Bombay a few days until he had recovered strength, and they next resolved to go to Calcutta, and thence to Burma.

  Among the various measures which Govindan Kutti Menon had thought of, one was to advertise in the newspapers. He had accordingly inserted two or three notices concerning the false rumours which had been spread regarding lndulekha, but at the time they appeared, Madhavan must have been lying racked with anguish on board the Mary Anne. Whether he was or not, it is at any rate beyond all doubt that he did not see any of the papers in which those notices were published.

  Chapter 17

  After passing ten days at the mansion of Amaravathi, the type of its celestial namesake, entertained hospitably by Babu Govind Sen, the compeer of Kuberan, the god of wealth, Madhavan took his leave. Four days previously, Govind Sen’s son, Kesava Chandra Sen, had returned to Bombay at the end of his holidays, and at the same time, Bapu Gopinath Bannerjee had started for a place where a branch of the firm was established and where he permanently resided. As Madhavan had declared his intention of not returning to Malabar for the present, but of spending the next two months in visiting Burma, Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, Lahore and other places, Kesava Chandra Sen and Gopinath Bannerjee made him promise that before quitting that part of the country, he would pay the latter a visit at his house and, on his way home, stay with the former for a couple of days in Bombay.

  Babu Govind Sen was a man not only respected for his wealth, but honoured above all for his modesty, liberality and true kindness of heart. In the pages of this book Panchu Menon and the Murkillatha Nambudiripad figure as types of wealthy men, and the latter has been likened to the god of riches. Now Babu Govind Sen receives the same title; but my readers must be on their guard against thinking that all three men were on the same level. The rich man of Bengal stands on a very different platform from the rich man of this Presidency, and the difference is one of comparison. In Madras, the lord of five lakhs or half a million of rupees is considered a worthy of the first magnitude, while in Bengal, where the first class is composed of the owners of five crores or fifty millions of rupees, he would be relegated to the fourth class. If then, a man of Bengal is to be mentioned in the s
ame breath as the god of riches, his fortune must nor fall short of fifteen crores, and Babu Govind Sen and his brother Chitra Prasadh Sen, with more than this sum at their command, headed the roll of millionaires in their province.

  When the hour for Madhavan’ departure came, Govind Sen was greatly distressed. "We have become such friends now," he said, "and I am more sorry than I can tell you to have to say good-bye. But there is no help for it. From all I see of your good qualities and ability and worth, I am confident that you will rise high in the service of the Madras Government. There is some idea of selecting my son for the Civil Service next year, and though I do not particularly care about his entering public employ, yet his heart is set on it. Domestic occupation and trade and mercantile pursuits are not much to his taste. I pray to the Almighty God that your load of trouble may be taken off your shoulders, and that you and my son may be admitted into the Civil Service in one and the same year, and that I may soon hear of your safe return to your home and your people."

  With these words he embraced Madhavan affectionately, and giving him as parting gifts a gold watch and chain, a suit of silken clothes and a handsome desk inlaid with ivory and silver, drove him to the station whence he was to start for the district in which Gopinath Bannerjee presided over the branch house of the firm. Arrived at the station they looked at each other with tearful eyes, and Madhavan said, "I cannot conceive what I have done to meet with such kindness and favour at your hands. I shall always, as long as I live, look upon it as the greatest good fortune that could befall me. What return can an insignificant creature like myself make to you, who are already blessed with all earthly prosperity? None; and I would not wish it to be otherwise. But I pray you to believe that I shall always dearly prize the friendship you have lavished on me and that as long as I draw breath, I shall never forget your affection towards me. If I return safe home after my wanderings, I will write to you fully, and I implore you to remember me as one who looks up to you with the utmost love and respect."