A dream is a fantasy of the brain and may, like somnambulism and mesmerism, be considered an emotional state of the mind. It is sometimes capable of being traced to a distinct cause, but at other times arises without any apparent reason. Frequently our dreams are altogether unreal, but on the other hand it is recorded how an Englishman, tired after a day’s shooting, fell asleep in his tent and dreamt that he was attacked by a cobra, with hood raised ready to strike. So vivid was the dream that he thought he was actually bitten and woke terrified, when he saw a snake gliding along within a few feet of his camp-cot. I have also read another story of a man dreaming that a friend, whom he longed to see, came unexpectedly to his house and stayed two or three days with him, and in this case the dream was fulfilled the very next morning. Hence I think that lndulekha’s dream was by no means miraculous. As a matter of fact, two or three years after the close of my story, Gopinath Bannerjee wrote that some of the gang who had plundered Madhavan had been arrested and sentenced to death for murder. One of them was a handsome young man, who, in pleading guilty to many crimes, had confessed that on seventeen occasions he had stabbed, or shot, or poisoned the victims whom he robbed, and had admitted his complicity in the theft of Madhavan’s property. Gopinath Bannerjee added that, if the original plot had failed, the villain would probably have taken Madhavan’s life.
Now to return to our story. When Lakshmi Kutti Amma left lndulekha’s room, she found Panchu Menon anxiously awaiting her at the foot of the stairs. As soon as he saw her, he asked in a whisper, "Well, why did the child cry out?”
"She dreamt that while Madhavan was travelling, some one stabbed him and killed him,” sobbed Lakshmi Kutti Amma. "Her heart was broken and she screamed- and now she is in high fever. I must go back to her.”
Panchu Menon remained for some time standing where he was, lost in thought, and then said:
"Silly, silly, to be so upset by a dream! Is she so fond of Madhavan as all that? Good heavens, I had no idea of it! Does the girl know of the oath I took that day?”
"Yes,” replied Lakshmi Kutti Amma.
"Then that is probably worrying her, too.”
"I think it is worrying her very much.”
"Well it may make her happier if I recall that oath,” said Panchu Menon. "Send for Kesavan Nambudiri, will you, some one? Go back to Indulekha’s room, Lakshmi Kutti, and say I am coming at once. Ask her not be distressed.”
Kesavan Nambudiri speedily appeared, and Panchu Menon, giving way to his feelings, said, "Indulekha has had bad dreams and is in high fever now. I know not what will happen, but I do know this child is my one consolation since my son Kochu Krishnan’s death.”
"Don’t break down like that, don’t,” said Kesavan Nambudiri, weeping himself from sympathy as he spoke.
"Indulekha is ill all on account of her love for Madhavan,” resumed Panchu Menon. "She is simply pining away because I swore that I would not let her marry him. Is there any expiation by which I can recall the oath and be absolved from sin ?”
"I think there is,” replied Kesavan Nambudiri. "I will ask the family priest.”
He accordingly went and consulted Annatira Vadiar, and this dignitary, affirming that if atonement were made, the oath could be broken without sin, informed Panchu Menon, who asked what form the atonement must take.
"The form of gold or silver,” replied the priest. "You must have gold or silver models made of each letter in every word you used when you took your oath. These you must present to Brahmins learned in the Vedas; on the same day you must provide a general feast for Brahmins; and in the temple, you must make offerings of rice and fruit to the deity. Of course if the letters are modelled in gold, the expiation will be most perfect, but if this is impossible, silver will serve.”
"Let them be in gold,” said Panchu Menon.
"Certainly,” commented Kesavan Nambudiri, "gold is better.”
The moment this decision was arrived at, Panchu Menon opened his strong-box and, taking out some gold, weighed it and handed it over to a goldsmith. According to his calculation, the letters which made up the words of his oath amounted to seventy-four but Sankara Menon, his brother suggested a reduction. The priest, however, was against any reduction, and orders were given for each letter to be moulded in a piece of gold the weight of a fanam. Then Panchu Menon went upstairs to Indulekha’s room and, sitting down beside her, told her what he had done.
"Now, my dear, there’s nothing to make you sad,” he said. "Your wedding shall take place as soon as Madhavan arrives,” but Indulekha was barely able to acknowledge his kindness. For two days she was prostrated by fever, and when it abated, she continued, in spite of all remedies, to suffer for some days more from cough and faintness and pain in all her limbs. At last the golden letters of his oath were ready, and Panchu Menon, determined that Indulekha should see them, placed them in a tortoise-shell box and took them up to her room. When he opened the box, Indulekha, weak and wearied with pain as she was, smiled.
"That’s right, my dear,” said her grandfather. "You are beginning to be happy now, and you’ll soon get all right.”
"I think so, grandfather,” replied Indulekha. "I am much happier now, and only pray that everything may turn out as you wish.”
While she was speaking, Lakshmi Kutti Amma, Kesavan Nambudiri, Sankara Menon and others hastened into the room with the messenger who had been posted at the railway station, and as soon as Indulekha saw him, she sat upright which, owing to exhaustion, she had hitherto been unable to do without help.
"A telegram?” she cried. "Is it a telegram ?”
"Yes, my dear, here it is,” replied her mother, handing her the message. "The station master seems to have said it is good news.”
Indulekha tore the cover open, and read aloud the following message from Bombay:
"Met Madhavan here today. Quite well, all starting home by train tomorrow.”
There was not a soul in that assembly which was not filled with gladness by these tidings. Indulekha’s joy was supreme, and her cough and faintness and bodily pains vanished altogether. Panchu Menon turned to Kesavan Nambudiri and said, "See now, your reverence, the trouble which my oath caused, and how happiness came even while the letters were got ready for expiating it?”
"Quite so,” answered Kesavan Nambudiri. "Everything is due to the favor of God and the blessings of the Brahmins.”
On this Indulekha laughed, because she saw no connection between the expiation of the oath and the arrival of the telegram, but all the others, with perhaps the exception of Lakshmi Kutti Amma, agreed with Panchu Menon, who distributed the golden letters to the Brahmins that same day. Seven or eight fell to the share of Annatira Vadiar the family priest, and our friend Sankara Sastri received four or five. Then, after the Brahmins had been duly feasted and the other prescribed ceremonies performed, Panchu Menon went to Indulekha and found her health greatly improved; her appetite had returned, she was free from cough and faintness and pain, and had nearly regained her strength. The patriarch was overjoyed, and inconsequently ascribing, her recovery to the expiation of his oath, sat down and spent some time in happy conversation with her.
Chapter 20
Govinda Panikkar, Madhavan and Govindan Kutti Menon proceeded first to Madras from Bombay, and Madhavan, calling on Mr. Gillham, related all his adventures. Mr. Gillham found much food for laughter therein, and sent Madhavan away delighted beyond measure with the news that he would shortly find himself gazetted to the Civil Service. Then starting with his father and Govindan Kutti Menon for Malabar, Madhavan reached home the next day, and who can describe Indulekha’s joy when she heard of his arrival ?
His mother was the first person Madhavan went to see, and from her he learned all that had happened and how Panchu Menon had rescinded his oath. Then after visiting the patriarch, he hastened to Indulekha’s room and from the foot of the stairs saw Lakshmi Kutti Amma at the top who smiled and, turning back to tell InduIekha that he had come, called him to come up. Madhavan sprang
up the stairs and halted at the threshold of the room, while Lakshmi Kutti Amma beaming with joy, passed on. Indulekha now spoke to him from within and said, "You must come in: I have no strength to come and meet you."
Madhavan entered softly and was shocked by Indulekha’s appearance. Overcome with emotion, he advanced to the sofa on which she lay, and both the lovers mingled their tears together as they asked after each other’s welfare.
"My darling, how wasted you are", exclaimed Madhavan at length. "But I have heard all, and now surely our troubles are at an end."
‘Oh I hope so,' replied Indulekha. "Have you seen grandfather ?"
"Yes," answered Madhavan "He told me everything and seemed so glad. I heard of all he had done for us lately, and my father urged me, so I fell at his feet and implored his pardon. Now he is thoroughly satisfied."
"I like to hear of this better than anything," said Indulekha. "Grandfather is really kind and true-hearted, and you were quite right to fall at his feet. Because we were sincere and constant, everything has ended happily."
The lovers passed the whole of that day in sweet intercourse with each other, and when Panchu Menon came in the evening to enquire about Indulekha’s health, he was rejoiced to find her well and happy. On the seventh day after Madhavan’s return, Indulekha gave him her hand in marriage. The union was truly of her own free will and choice, and hence the phrase that she "gave her hand" is surely appropriate. On the day of the wedding, Panchu Menon provided a magnificent feast for the Brahmins; on the same day came a parcel for the bride and bridegroom from Babu Govind Sen, containg gifts far more costly and precious than any he had bestowed before, and hardly a month had elapsed after Indulekha’s espousal when Madhavan was informed that he had been selected for the Civil Service. After this, Indulekha and Madhavan, with his father and mother, went to Madras, where they lived happily. Now my story is ended.
All the characters mentioned in this book are still alive. Madhavan has now attained a high rank in the Civil Service and he and Indulekha are blessed with two children, one a daughter and the other a son, both beautiful as the harvest moon. Madhavan, by his industry, uprightness and ability and Indulekha by her devotion to her children and her husband, have reached the summit of human happiness and now may God bless us and all who read this tale.
In my preface I have recorded the reasons which led me to write this book, and the point which I wish chiefly to impress on my fellow-countrymen by means of it is the advantage which would accrue if the women of India were given the same privileges of education that are enjoyed by the men. Although Indulekha was only a sensitive, delicate girl, who had been left helpless by the untimely death, first of her father and then of her uncle who had nurtured her so tenderly, and although the grandfather under whose care she lived was a man of unbridled anger and sternly opposed the choice of husband she had made, yet the firmness and strength of mind she had acquired through education enabled her to attain the object she had in view. My readers will have perceived that it was through his affection for Indulekha that Panchu Menon yielded to her wishes, but at the same time they will readily infer that, even if he had been of a really cruel and obdurate temper, Indulekha would nevertheless have refused to forsake the man on whom her heart was fixed and accept the suitor he selected. Moreover, the women of India should realise that if they are ignorant and illiterate, men will not only despise them but show by their conduct the contempt they feel. Kalliani Kutti was seized and given to the Nambudiripad by Panchu Menon just as if she had been a kitten about the house. My beloved country-women, are you not ashamed of this? Some of you have studied Sanskrit, and some music, but these attainments are not enough. If you wish to really enlighten your minds, you must learn English, whereby alone you can learn many things which you ought to know in these days and by such knowledge alone can you grasp the truth that you are of the same creation as men, that you are as free agents as men, that women are not the slaves of men.
To those women who have no means of learning English, men who have a knowledge of English should impart as much instruction as lies in their power. There are in Malabar many Malayalis who can elucidate, by books written in Malayalam, arts and accomplishments derived from the English people and it is a matter for deep regret that they neglect their opportunity. It is the study of English that gives knowledge, and though I do not say that without English there is no knowledge, yet my opinion is that, in the present day, no study is so productive of moral and mental excellency as is the study of English.
Someone has written a book in Northern India to show that if the women of this country learn English, there is the greatest danger of their being vitiated by adopting English habits and customs; but if English education would make our women as intelligent and clever and cultivated as are the English women, then I for one am ready to do my utmost to precipitate that danger. I do not mean to contend that all women will abandon profligacy and vice and become models of virtue simply by the study of English. Profligacy and vice are to be found everywhere in the world, and as numbers of men, who have learned English, are nevertheless sunk in depravity, so must we expect some women still to be depraved. But no one will argue that because some men who have studied English are morally corrupt, therefore no man ought to be taught English, and my most earnest prayer is that my compatriots may have their daughters. no less than their sons, educated in English language.
NOTES
NAIRS, NAMBUDIRIS, AND PATTARS
The Nairs and the Nambudiris, from whose ranks the characters in Indulekha are chiefly taken, form two of the principal divisions of the Hindu community in Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, the Nairs being non-Brahmins and the Nambudiris being Brahmins. Neither of these classes is indigenous, but both were brought to the West Coast by successive waves of immigration, and the Nairs preceded the Nambudiris.
Of the origin of the Nairs little is known, but they appear to have entered Malabar from the North. "All that can be predicated of them with any degree of certainty is that they were serpent worshippers, that they practised polyandry, and that their land tenures in common with their other customs point to a distinctly military organization.” (Wigram’s Commentary on Malabar Law and Custom.) In two important features the institutions of the Nairs differ greatly from those of other Hindus, and one of these is the status of women. Elsewhere in India, women are considered to be under perpetual tutelage, but in Malabar not only is the senior female member of a family theoretically the head of the house, but in more than one case, the custom of female management has been judicially recognized. Such management is, no doubt, the exception, but it nevertheless indicates the theory. Closely connected with this is the second peculiarity, which lies in the system of inheritance in the female line. This system is called in Malayalam "Maru-makkatayam,” meaning "succession by the sister’s son,” and is considered to have "originated from a type of polyandry resembling free love.” It certainly was the custom until recently for the wife to live independently and apart from her husband in her ancestral home (as in the case of Madhavan’s father and mother), but now, in the majority of instances, husband and wife live together in the same house. Although the union can be terminated at pleasure, although the children have rights only in the property of their mother’s family, and no claim whatever to that of their father, and although the father has legally no control over the children, the union is nevertheless a marriage. The assertion lately made in an English periodical, that if a Nair lady ‘gets tired of her husband she dismisses him’, is not less inaccurate than is the definition of Nairs as ‘the landholders of the Western Coast,’ and men who know the subject have written that "nowhere is the marriage tie- albeit informal- more rigidly observed or respected than it is in Malabar; nowhere is it more jealously guarded or its neglect more savagely avenged.” Mr. Wigram, from whose commentary I have already quoted, defines the Nair marriage as a "contract based on mutual consent and dissoluble at will.” The question, whether the liberty of divorce was not instrumenta
l in destroying polyandry among the Nairs just as it tended to bring about the change from polygamy to monogamy among Western nations, is not one which can be discussed here. But it appears true that the incidents of the Nair marriage are identical with those of the Newer Roman marriage by which, according to Sir Henry Maine "the relation of husband and wife became a voluntary conjugal society terminable at the pleasure of either party by divorce,” while this state of conjugal relation "to the last remained the basis of the Roman legal conception of marriage and to a certain extent colours even the canon law, founded though it be, on the whole, on the sacramental view of marriage.”
The joint family among Nairs is called the Tarvad, and, as a general rule under Malabar law, almost supreme control of its affairs is vested in the senior male member who is called the Karanavan. He is the natural guardian of every member within the family, is entitled to the entire possession of the family property and is absolute in its management. The junior members of the family are styled Anandaravans; all, male and female, have a right to be supported in the family house, and the males have a right to succeed to the headship by seniority. In passing it may be noted that each member of a family may also be called Karanavan or Anandaravan in relation to his juniors or seniors. It has been ruled judicially that the position of the members of a Tarvad is precisely analogous to that of the members of a Roman family under the ‘patria potestas’; the Karanavan occupying the place of the ‘pater familias’. In this connection however it must be remembered that a woman in Malabar does not pass by marriage to her husband’s family as under the Roman law, but with her children remains and is entitled to maintenance in her own family.
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