As evening fell the boy’s mother grew anxious and sent people out to search with lanterns. When they reached the river-bank, they found Raicharan wandering over the fields like a midnight storm-wind, sobbing, ‘Master, my little master!’ At last he returned home and threw himself at his mistress’s feet, crying in reply to all her questions, ‘I don’t know, Mā, I don’t know.’
Although everyone knew in their hearts that the Padma was the culprit, suspicion fell on a group of gypsies encamped at the edge of the village. The mistress of the house even began to suspect that Raicharan had stolen the boy – so much so that she called him and entreated, ‘Bring back my child! I’ll give you whatever money you want.’ But Raicharan could only beat his brow, and she ordered him from her sight. Anukul Babu tried to dispel his wife’s unfounded suspicion: what motive could Raicharan have had for so vile an act? ‘What do you mean?’ said his wife. ‘The boy had gold ornaments on him.’
II
Raicharan went back to his home village. His wife had not borne him a child, and he had long ceased to hope for one. But it so happened that before the year had ended his ageing wife gave birth to a son – and then soon afterwards died.
At first Raicharan had nothing but hatred for the newly born child, who he felt had somehow taken the little master’s place by deceit. It seemed a deadly sin to delight in his own son after allowing his master’s only son to be washed away. If his widowed sister had not been there, the child would not have breathed Earth’s air for long.
Amazing it was, but after a few months the child began to crawl over the door-sill and show a merry ability to evade all sorts of restrictions. He chuckled and wailed just as the little master had done. Sometimes when Raicharan heard him cry his heart missed a beat; it was just as if the little master were crying somewhere for his lost Raicharan. Phelna – that was what Raicharan’s sister called the boy – began in due course to call her ‘Pishi’. When Raicharan heard that familiar name one day, he suddenly thought, ‘The little master cannot do without my love: he has been born again in my house.’
There were several convincing proofs in favour of this belief. First, there was the short interval between the death and the birth. Second, his wife could not, at so advanced an age, have conceived a son merely through her own fecundity. Third, the child crawled, toddled and called his aunt ‘Pishi’ just as the little master had done. There was much to indicate that he too would grow up to become a judge. Raicharan then remembered the strong suspicions the mistress of the house had had, and he realized with astonishment that her maternal instinct had rightly told her that someone had stolen her son. He now felt deeply ashamed of the way he had neglected the child: devotion took hold of him again. From now on he brought him up like a rich man’s son. He bought him satin shirts and a gold-embroidered cap. His dead wife’s ornaments were melted down to make bangles and bracelets for him. He forbade him from playing with the local children; all day long he himself was the child’s sole playmate. Whenever they got the chance, the local boys would mock Phelna for being a ‘prince’, and the villagers marvelled at Raicharan’s odd behaviour.
When Phelna was old enough to go to school, Raicharan sold his land and took the boy to Calcutta. With great difficulty he found a job, and sent Phelna to a high-class school. He skimped and scraped to get the boy good food and clothing and a decent education, saying to himself, ‘If it was love for me that brought you into my house, dear child, then you must have nothing but the best.’
Twelve years passed in this way. The boy did well at his studies and was fine to behold: sturdily built, with a dark, glossy complexion. He took great trouble over his hair; his tastes were refined and cultured. He could never think of his father quite as his father, because Raicharan treated him with a father’s affection but a servant’s devotion. To his discredit, Phelna never told anyone that Raicharan was his father. The students in the hostel where Phelna lived were always making fun of the rustic Raicharan; and it cannot be denied that when his father was not present Phelna joined in the fun. But everyone was fond of the mild, doting Raicharan, and Phelna also loved him – but (to repeat) not quite as his father: affection was mixed with condescension.
Raicharan grew old. His employer was perpetually finding fault with him. His health was deteriorating, and he could not concentrate on his work: he was getting forgetful. But no employer who pays full wages will accept old age as an excuse. Moreover, the cash that Raicharan had raised by selling off his possessions was nearly at an end. Phelna was always complaining now that he was short of proper clothes and luxuries.
III
One day Raicharan suddenly resigned from his job, and giving Phelna some money said, ‘Something has happened – I need to go back to the village for a few days.’ He then set off for Barasat, where Anukul Babu was now munsiff.
Anukul had had no other child. His wife still grieved for her son.
One evening Anukul was resting after returning from the court, while his wife, at great expense, purchased from a sannyāsī a holy root and a blessing that would bring her a child. A voice was heard in the yard: ‘Greetings, Mā.’
‘Who’s there?’ said Anukul Babu.
Raicharan appeared. ‘I am Raicharan,’ he said, taking the dust of his former master’s feet.
Anukul’s heart melted at the sight of the old man. He asked him numerous questions about his present circumstances, and invited him to work for him again.
Raicharan smiled weakly and said, ‘Let me pay my respects to Māthākrun.’
Anukul Babu took him through to the inner rooms of the house. His wife was not nearly so pleased to see Raicharan, but Raicharan took no notice of this and said with clasped hands, ‘Master, Mā, it was I who stole your son. It was not the Padma, it was no one else, it was I, ungrateful wretch that I am.’
‘What are you saying?’ said Anukul. ‘Where is he?’
‘He lives with me,’ said Raicharan. ‘I’ll bring him the day after tomorrow.’
That was Sunday, and the courts were closed. Husband and wife watched the road anxiously from dawn. At ten o’clock, Raicharan arrived with Phelna.
Anukul’s wife without thought or question drew him on to her lap, touched him, sniffed him, eyed his face intently, cried and laughed nervously. Truly, the boy was fine to look at – nothing in his looks or dress suggested a poor background. There was a very loving, modest, bashful expression in his face. At the sight of him, Anukul’s heart too swelled with love. But keeping his composure, he asked, ‘What proof have you?’
‘How can such an act be proved?’ said Raicharan. ‘Only God knows that I stole your son; no one else in the world knows.’
Anukul thought the matter over and decided that since his wife had embraced the boy as her own with such fervour it would not be appropriate to search for proof now; whatever the truth might be, it was best to believe. In any case, how could Raicharan have acquired such a boy? And why should the old servant wish to mislead them now? Questioning the boy, he learnt that he had lived with Raicharan from an early age and had called him Father, but that Raicharan had never behaved towards him like a father – he had been more like a servant. Driving all doubt from his mind, Anukul said, ‘But, Raicharan, you must not darken our door again now.’
With clasped hands and quavering voice Raicharan replied, ‘I am old now, master. Where shall I go?’
‘Let him stay,’ said the mistress of the house. ‘I have forgiven him. Let our son be blessed.’
‘He cannot be forgiven for what he has done,’ said the righteous Anukul.
‘I didn’t do it,’ cried Raicharan, embracing his master’s feet. ‘God did it.’
Even angrier now that Raicharan should lay the blame for his own sin on to God, Anukul said, ‘One should not place trust in someone who has betrayed trust so heinously.’
Rising from Anukul’s feet, Raicharan said, ‘It was not I, Master.’
‘Then who was it?’
‘It was my Fate.’
> No educated man could be satisfied by such an explanation.
‘I have no one else in the world,’ said Raicharan.
Phelna was certainly rather annoyed that Raicharan had stolen him – a munsiff’s son – and dishonourably claimed him as his own. But he said generously to Anukul, ‘Father, please pardon him. If you won’t let him stay in the house, then give him a monthly allowance.
Raicharan, saying nothing, looked once at his son and made an obeisance to all; then he went out through the door and disappeared into the world’s multitude. At the end of the month, when Anukul sent a small sum to Raicharan at his village address, the money came back. No one of that name was known there.
The Divide
Genealogical investigation would reveal that Banamali and Himangshumali were actually distant cousins: the relationship was complicated, but possible to trace. Their families, however, had been neighbours for a long time, with only a garden dividing them; so however remote their blood-relationship, they knew each other very well.
Banamali was much older than Himangshu. Before Himangshu had cut his teeth or could talk, Banamali would carry him around in the garden to enjoy the morning or evening air; he would play with him, dry his tears, lull him to sleep; indeed he did everything an intelligent grown-up person is supposed to do to entertain a child – shaking his head at him, shrieking with dismay, expressing babyish excitement or fearsome enthusiasm. He had little education: he liked to garden, or be with his young cousin. He nurtured him like a rare and precious creeper, which he watered with all his love; and as the creeper grew, pervading the whole of his inner and outer life, Banamali counted himself blessed.
There may not be many, but there are some people who will easily sacrifice themselves completely to a small fancy or a little child or an undeserving friend. Their love may be tiny compared to the vastness of the world, but it is to them a business in which they happily sink all that is vital to them. They will then live contentedly on a pittance, or else one morning sell their remaining property and take to begging in the streets.
As Himangshu grew, he formed a firm friendship with Banamali, despite their difference in age and remoteness of blood-relationship. Age seemed of no consequence. There was a reason for this. Himangshu learned to read and write, and had by nature a strong desire for knowledge. He would sit and read any book that came his way: he would read many worthless books, no doubt, but his mind matured in all directions as a result of his reading. Banamali listened to him with great admiration. He took his advice, discussed every problem with him, small or large, never ignored him on any subject just because he was a child. Nothing is more cherished in this world than a person whom one has brought up with utmost love, and whose knowledge, intelligence and goodness inspire respect.
Himangshu also loved gardening. But there was a difference here between the two friends. Banamali loved it with his heart; Himangshu with his intelligence. For Banamali, raising plants was an instinctive occupation: they were like children to him, only more so, in their softness and unawareness, in the way they never asked to be cared for but would grow up like children if given loving care.1 For Himangshu, plants were a subject of curiosity. The sowing of seeds, the sprouting of seedlings, the buds, the blooms all aroused his attention. He was full of advice about planting, grafting, manuring, watering and so on, and Banamali gladly followed it. Whatever nature or nurture could do, in the combining or separating of plants, was achieved by the two friends in that modest patch of garden.
There was a small cement patio just inside the gate to the garden. At four o’clock Banamali would come there, lightly dressed, with a crimped chadar round his shoulders, and sit in the shade with his hookah. He was quite alone, and had no book or newspaper with him. He would sit and smoke, with a distracted meditative air, glancing with half-closed eyes to right or to left, letting time float by like coils of smoke from the hookah as they slowly drifted and broke and disappeared, leaving no trace.
At last Himangshu returned from school, and after a snack and a wash came into the garden. Banamali immediately dropped the stem of the hookah and stood up. His eagerness made it perfectly plain whom he had been patiently waiting for all this time. Then the two of them strolled in the garden, talking. When it became dark they sat on a bench, while the southern breeze stirred the leaves in the trees. On some days there was no wind: the trees would be as still as a picture, and the sky above would be full of brightly shining stars.
Himangshu talked, and Banamali listened quietly. Even what he did not understand, he enjoyed. Things that would have irritated him greatly coming from anyone else were amusing when spoken by Himangshu. Himangshu’s powers of expression, recollection and imagination gained from having such an admiring, grown-up listener. He sometimes spoke of things he had read, sometimes things he had thought, sometimes whatever came into his head – supplying with his imagination whatever his knowledge lacked. He said much that was correct and much that was not correct, but Banamali listened solemnly. Sometimes he put in a word of his own, but accepted any objections that Himangshu made; and next day, sitting in the shade again, puffing at his hookah, he would ponder over what he had heard, marvelling at it.
Meanwhile a dispute had arisen. Between Banamali’s garden and Himangshu’s house there was a drainage ditch; at a point along this ditch a lime tree had grown. When the fruits ripened, Banamali’s family servant tried to pick them, while Himangshu’s family servant stopped him – and they began to argue so fiercely that if the insults they rained on each other had been made of something material, the whole ditch would have been choked with them. From this, a heated quarrel developed between Banamali’s father Harachandra and Himangshu’s father Gokulchandra, and they went to court over the ownership of the ditch. A long verbal war began between champion lawyers and barristers fighting on one side or the other. The money that was spent on each side exceeded even the floods that flowed through the ditch during the month of Bhādra.
In the end Harachandra won; it was proved that the ditch was his and no one else had a claim to the fruit of the lime tree. There was an appeal, but the ditch and the lime tree remained with Harachandra.
While the court-case was going on, the friendship between Banamali and Himangshu was not affected. Indeed, so anxious was Banamali not to let the dispute cast a shadow over either of them, that he tried to bind Himangshu ever more closely to him, and Himangshu showed not the slightest loss of affection either.
On the day that Harachandra won the case, there was great rejoicing in his house, especially in the women’s quarters; but Banamali lay sleepless that night. The next afternoon, when he took his place on the patio in the garden, his face was sad and anxious, as if he alone had suffered an immense defeat that meant nothing to anyone else.
The time when Himangshu usually came elapsed; at six o’clock there was still no sign of him. Banamali sighed heavily and gazed at Himangshu’s house. Through the open window he could see his friend’s school-clothes hung up on the ālnā; many other familiar signs showed that Himangshu was at home. Banamali left his hookah and paced up and down, looking dejectedly towards the window again and again, but Himangshu did not come into the garden.
When the lamps were lit in the evening, Banamali slowly walked up to Himangshu’s house. Gokulchandra was cooling himself by an open door. ‘Who is it?’ he said.
Banamali started. He felt like a thief who had been caught. ‘It’s me, Uncle,’ he said nervously.
‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘There’s no one at home.’
Banamali returned to the garden and sat mutely there. When it was dark, he watched the window-shutters of Himangshu’s house being closed for the night one by one. Lamplight inside the house shone through cracks round the doors; later, most of the lamps were extinguished. In the darkness of the night, Banamali felt that the doors of Himangshu’s house were totally closed to him, and all he could do was remain alone in the darkness outside.
The next day he went again and sa
t in the garden, hoping that today Himangshu might come. His friend had come every day for so long that he never imagined that he might not come again. He never supposed that the bond between them could be torn; he had taken it so much for granted, that he had not realized how totally wrapped up in it his life had become. He had learnt now that the bond had indeed been torn, but so sudden a disaster was quite impossible to take in.
Every day that week he went on sitting in the garden at his usual time, in case Himangshu chanced to come. But alas, the meetings that used to occur by agreement failed to recur by chance. On Sunday he wondered if Himangshu would come to his house in the morning for lunch, as he had always done in the past. He did not exactly believe that he would, but he could not stop hoping. Mid-morning came, but Himangshu did not. ‘He’ll come after lunch,’ said Banamali to himself – but he did not come after lunch. So he thought, ‘Today perhaps he is taking a siesta. He’ll come when he wakes up.’ Whatever time Himangshu might have woken from his siesta, he did not come.
Evening fell again, then night; Himangshu’s doors closed one by one, and the lights in his house went out one by one.
When Fate had taken each of the seven days from Monday to Sunday away from Banamali, leaving no day on which to pin his hopes, he turned his tearful eyes towards Himangshu’s shuttered house, appealed to it from the depths of his distress. ‘Dear God,’1 he cried, gathering all his life’s pain into the words.
Taraprasanna’s Fame1
Like most writers, Taraprasanna was rather shy and retiring in nature. To go out amongst other people was an ordeal for him. Sitting at home and writing all the time had weakened his eyesight, bent his back, and given him little experience of the world. Social pleasantries did not come easily to him, so he did not feel very safe outside his home. Others thought him a bit stupid, and they could not be blamed for this. A distinguished gentleman on first meeting Taraprasanna might say warmly, ‘I cannot tell you what pleasure it gives me to meet you.’ Taraprasanna would not respond: he would stare, tongue-tied, at his right palm, as if to imply, ‘It is possible that you are very pleased, but I wonder how I can be so false as to say that I am pleased.’ Or he might be invited to someone’s house one afternoon: his wealthy host might – as dusk fell and food was served – deprecate his own hospitality with such words as ‘Nothing special – just our ordinary humble fare – a poor man’s crust – not worthy of you at all, I’m afraid.’ Taraprasanna would say nothing, as if it were impossible to disagree with what his host was saying. Sometimes some good-natured person averred that scholarship as profound as Taraprasanna’s was rare in this age, that Sarasvati had deserted her lotus-seat to dwell in Taraprasanna’s throat. He made no objection to this – choked, so it seemed, by Sarasvati’s presence in his throat. He should have known that those who praise a man to his face, and disparage themselves, deliberately exaggerate because they expect to be contradicted. If the person they are speaking to takes in everything without blenching, they feel let down. They are pleased to be told that their statements are false.
Selected Short Stories Page 9