Gora

  ‘I had no time to chat with all of you today,’ said Poreshbabu. ‘Visit us sometimes, when you have some spare time, baba.’

  As Gora and Binoy prepared to leave, Borodasundari arrived on the scene. They greeted her with a namaskar.

  ‘Are you leaving right away?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Gora replied.

  ‘But Binoybabu, you can’t leave,’ she insisted. ‘You must dine with us tonight. I have something urgent to discuss with you.’

  ‘Yes Ma, don’t let Binoybabu leave!’ cried Satish, springing to his feet and grasping Binoy’s hand. ‘He’ll stay with me tonight.’

  ‘Do you want to take Binoybabu away?’ Borodasundari asked Gora, seeing that Binoy was too embarrassed to reply. ‘Do you need him?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ answered Gora. ‘Binoy, why don’t you stay on? I’ll take my leave.’ He rushed from the scene.

  When Borodasundari asked Gora’s permission for Binoy to remain, Binoy could not help stealing a glance at Lalita’s face. Lalita turned away with a suppressed smile. Binoy could not counter these small barbs she directed at him, yet they pierced him like thorns. As soon as he came inside, Lalita said:

  ‘Better, Binoybabu, if you had managed to escape tonight.’

  ‘Why?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Ma is conspiring to get you into trouble. They’re short of an actor for the performance at the magistrates’ fair. Ma has decided you’re the right person.’

  ‘What a disaster!’ exclaimed Binoy, flustered. ‘I can’t take it on!’

  ‘I’ve already said so to Ma,’ Lalita assured him with a smile. ‘Your friend will never permit you to participate in this performance.’

  ‘Leave my friend alone,’ said Binoy, stung. ‘I’ve never acted in my life, not since I was born. Why me?’

  ‘It’s not as if we have been actors all our lives either, through all our different births!’

  At this moment, Borodasundari entered the room.

  ‘Ma, it’s no use your asking Binoybabu to join the performance,’ Lalita told her. ‘If you can first get his friend to agree …’

  ‘This has nothing to do with my friend’s consent!’ pleaded Binoy. ‘Acting isn’t child’s play. I just don’t have the talent.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Borodasundari assured him. ‘We can train you up. If little girls can act, why can’t you?’

  There was no way out for Binoy.

  ~21~

  Gora walked home slowly in a preoccupied state, abandoning his usual brisk pace. Instead of taking the direct route to his house, he made a detour via the Ganga shore. At that time, the land and water of the Ganga riverside in Kolkata had not yet been assailed by the hideousness of mercantile greed, the river’s edge was not shackled by railway lines, nor the water by bridges. On winter evenings, the city’s dark breath did not blacken the sky so intensely. The river carried a message of peace from the lonely peaks of the remote Himalayas into the dust-filled turmoil of Kolkata.

  Nature had never found a chance to attract Gora. His mind was constantly in upheaval, caused by his own enthusiasm. He had not even noticed stretches of water, land and sky that were not related to his field of activity.

  But today, the sky above the river began to silently stir Gora’s heart, insistently, with its darkness steeped in starlight. No ripple disturbed the river. At the ghaat on the Kolkata rivershore some boats twinkled with lights, while others remained unlit and still. In the dense trees on the opposite shore, an inky blackness had congealed. Above them glowed the planet Jupiter, its unblinking gaze piercing the night like the all-knowing god of darkness.

  Nature, great and silent, seemed to overwhelm Gora’s mind and body tonight. The darkness of the vast night sky began to pulsate to the rhythm of his heart. All this while, Prakriti, the force of Nature, had waited patiently. But now, finding a door to Gora’s heart unlocked, it instantly conquered this unguarded fortress. For so long, Gora had remained very independent, engaged with his own intellect, ideas and activities. But what happened tonight? When did he acknowledge Nature’s presence! And all at once, how did these deep dark waters, this dense black shore, that great black sky, embrace and welcome him! How did Gora surrender to Prakriti tonight?

  From the roadside, the delicate fragrance of some unknown flower wafted across from a foreign vine in the garden surrounding a commercial office, seeming to gently stroke Gora’s agonized heart. The river diverted his attention from the tireless workspaces of human habitation, pointing towards some indistinct, far-off place; there, upon the solitary shore, what blossoms those interlocking tree-branches produced! What shadows those trees had cast! There, beneath the pure blue sky, the days resembled someone’s wide-eyed gaze, and the nights were like the shade of her bashfully lowered lashes. Never before had Gora experienced anything like the attraction of the unfathomable eternal force that swept him away suddenly, engulfing him in a whirlwind of sweetness. It simultaneously seared his mind with extremes of pain and joy. On this cool Hemanta night, on the rivershore, amidst the city’s inarticulate babble and the indistinct starlight, Gora forgot himself as he stood before a veiled enchantress whose presence filled the whole universe. Because he had not previously greeted this empress with bowed head, the magic web of her authority suddenly bound Gora tonight, its multicoloured strands fastening him to land, water and sky. Amazed at himself, Gora sank down to one of the steps of the solitary ghaat. Repeatedly he asked himself what this new apparition signified, and why it was necessary to his life! Where was its place in the resolve by which he had always determined and mentally arranged his life? Was it opposed to such a resolve? Must he struggle to vanquish it? With these thoughts, as Gora clenched his fists, he saw in his mind’s eye the questioning gaze of a pair of moist eyes, bright with intelligence, tender with modesty. The fingers of a flawlessly beautiful hand disrupted his reflections with the promise of the untasted heavenly nectar of their touch. Rapture streaked like lightning through Gora’s entire body. In the solitary darkness, this profound experience demolished all his questions and hesitations. He began to enjoy this new sensation with all his mind and body, reluctant to relinquish it.

  ‘You’re so late baba, your food has gone cold!’ Anandamoyi remarked when Gora came home late at night.

  ‘I don’t know, Ma, what got into me tonight,’ replied Gora. ‘I spent a long time at the Ganga ghaat.’

  ‘Binoy was with you, I suppose?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I was alone.’

  Anandamoyi was secretly rather surprised. Never before had Gora unaccountably lingered at the ghaat so late, lost in his thoughts. It was not his nature, at all, to brood in silence. As he ate absentmindedly, Anandamoyi noticed a strange, animated glow on his face.

  ‘You went to Binoy’s house, I suppose?’ she asked him gently, after a short silence.

  ‘No, both of us went to Poreshababu’s place today,’ Gora replied.

  Anadamoyi reflected in silence for a while.

  ‘Have you got to know all of them?’ she now wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Their daughters come out to meet everyone, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, they follow no restrictions.’

  Seeing no sign of the intense emotion that would normally have accompanied such an answer, Anandamoyi again lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

  When he got up the next morning, Gora did not immediately proceed to wash and dress for work, as on other days. Absently, he opened the bedroom door facing east, and stood there for a while. Their alley opened onto a major road, at the east end of which was a school. Above an ancient jamun tree in the school grounds floated a wisp of white mist, and behind it one could see the rosy haze of approaching dawn. Slowly, as Gora watched in silence, the fragile mist evaporated, bright sunshine penetrating the tree-branches like so many glittering bayonets, and in no time, the streets of Kolkata filled with crowds and babble. Just then, seeing Abinash and some other students approach his house from t
he corner of the alley, Gora ripped the magic web in a single violent move.

  ‘No, all this means nothing. It won’t do, at all!’ he told himself, striking a great blow at his own heart.

  He rushed out of his bedroom. For Gora’s gang to arrive at his house and not find him ready well in time, was unprecedented. This minor lapse struck Gora as utterly contemptible. He privately resolved not to visit Poreshbabu’s house anymore, and to try putting a stop to more such discussions by avoiding Binoy for a few days as well.

  When he went downstairs, it was determined after mutual consultation that Gora, accompanied by two or three others, would proceed on a walking tour on the Grand Trunk Road. He would carry no funds, accepting the hospitality of homes along the way. Armed with this wonderful resolve, Gora felt a sudden surge of extreme enthusiasm. He was gripped by a powerful exhilaration at the prospect of breaking all bonds to set out on the open road like this. He felt as if the very idea of his setting forth had ripped the web in which his heart had secretly become entangled. Reminding himself resonantly that such emotional obsessions were merely illusory and that duty alone was real, Gora rushed from the ground floor sitting room like a schoolboy after class, to prepare himself for the journey.

  At that moment, Krishnadayal was returning from his bath in the Ganga, his small round ghoti filled with Ganga water, shoulders wrapped in a namavali inscribed with the deity’s name, chanting the holy mantra to himself. Gora all but collided with him. Embarrassed, Gora hastily greeted him with a pranam. ‘Never mind, never mind!’ cried Krishandayal, flustered, and hastened away awkwardly. Gora’s touch had erased the purifying effect of his bath in the Ganga before his daily puja. Gora did not quite realize it was his touch that Krishnadayal particularly tried to avoid. He thought it was an obsession with purity that made it Krishnadayal’s sole aim, always, to avoid all contact with everybody. After all, he spurned Anandamoyi as a non-believer, and Mahim being a working man, Krishnadayal hardly had the opportunity to interact with him. Mahim’s daughter Shashimukhi was the only family member he sought out, to teach her Sanskrit stotras and initiate her into the rituals of prayer.

  After Krishnadayal had escaped in dismay at Gora having touched his feet, the cause of his embarrassment dawned upon Gora, who felt privately amused. In this manner, his ties to his father had been virtually severed, and for all his criticism of her lack of orthodoxy, Gora worhipped his unconventional mother with full devotion. After his morning meal, Gora came to his mother, carrying a small bundle of clothing on his back as British travelers do.

  ‘Ma, I’m going away for a few days.’

  ‘Where are you going, baba?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure.’

  ‘Do you have some task to accomplish?’

  ‘Nothing that would qualify as a task. This journey is a task in itself.’ Then, seeing that Anandamoyi was silent, Gora pleaded: ‘Please, Ma, you can’t forbid me. You know me after all. There is no fear of my becoming a sanyasi. I can’t stay away from my mother for long.’

  Never before had Gora articulated his love for his mother in this way. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt embarrassed.

  ‘Binoy will go with you, I suppose?’ asked Anandamoyi, hastily concealing her delight.

  ‘No, Ma, he won’t be going with me,’ Gora told her. ‘Just look—Ma is immediately worried, wondering who will protect her Gora on the way! If you consider Binoy my bodyguard, that’s your blind faith. If I come back safe this time, I’ll dispel that false belief of yours.’

  ‘I’ll hear from you every now and then, won’t I?’ Anandamoyi inquired.

  ‘Assume that you won’t. Then you’ll be pleased if you do hear from me. There’s nothing to fear; nobody will snatch away your Gora. Ma, nobody values me as you do. But if anyone fancies this bundle, I’ll hand it to him and come away. I shan’t stake my life trying to safeguard it, that’s for sure!’

  Gora touched Anandamoyi’s feet. She stroked his head and kissed the hand with which she had blessed him, without forbidding him in any way. Anandamoyi never forbade anyone anything simply because she herself might suffer, or from any imaginary misgivings. Having overcome many obstacles and mishaps in her own life, the outer world was not unknown to her and fear was alien to her mind. She had not entertained any apprehensions that Gora might come to some harm. But since the previous day, she had been wondering what revolution had taken place in Gora’s heart. Today, hearing that Gora was off on a tour for no reason, her anxiety increased.

  Gora had barely stepped out into the street, bundle on his back, when he met Binoy, carefully carrying a pair of blood-red Basra rosebuds.

  ‘Binoy, now we can test whether seeing your face augurs well or ill for my journey,’ Gora remarked.

  ‘Are you going away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘“Where?” the echo replies.’

  ‘Is there no better answer than an echo?’

  ‘No. Go to Ma, she’ll tell you everything. I’m off.’

  Gora rushed away.

  Entering the interior space of the antahpur, Binoy greeted Anandamoyi with a pranam and placed the roses at her feet.

  ‘Where did you find these, Binoy?’ she asked him.

  ‘When one obtains something of value, one’s first desire is to offer it to one’s mother in devotion,’ he replied evasively. Then, settling on Anandamoyi’s taktaposh, her wood-plank bed, he observed: ‘Ma, I must say you are preoccupied.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You’ve completely forgotten to offer me the usual paan.’

  Embarrassed, Anandamoyi fetched some paan for Binoy. They spent the afternoon chatting, the two of them. Binoy could shed no clear light on Gora’s random travels.

  ‘Yesterday you went to Poreshababu’s with Gora, I believe?’ asked Anandamoyi, conversationally.

  Binoy recounted all that had taken place the previous day. Anandamoyi drank in all his words.

  ‘Ma, now my puja is over, may I reverentially carry away the flowers that your feet have blessed?’ said Binoy, while taking his leave.

  Anandamoyi handed the roses to Binoy with a smile. These roses are valued for more than their beauty, she thought: surely they conceal some truths too deep for botany to define.

  In the evening, after Binoy had left, she grew very thoughtful. Again and again she prayed to the Almighty that Gora should not be unhappy, and that nothing should separate him from Binoy.

  ~22~

  Those roses have a history.

  The previous night, Gora had come away from Poreshbabu’s house, but Binoy had to suffer an ordeal regarding his proposed participation in the performance at the magistrate’s house. Not that Lalita was particularly enthusiastic about this performance; rather, she had a distaste for such occasions. But she seemed stubbornly determined to involve Binoy in this performance, somehow. She was bent on making Binoy do things that were against Gora’s wishes. Why she found Binoy’s devotion to Gora so intolerable, Lalita herself could not understand. As if breaking all bonds to liberate Binoy would bring her great relief.

  ‘Why, sir, what’s the harm in acting?’ Lalita demanded, tossing her braids.

  ‘There may be no harm in acting,’ Binoy replied, ‘but the thought of performing at that magistrate’s house makes me uneasy.’

  ‘Are those your thoughts, or someone else’s?’

  ‘It’s not my brief to speak for others and in any case that would be difficult. You may not believe me, but it’s my own thoughts I express, sometimes in my own words, sometimes in others’.’

  Lalita smiled faintly, offering no reply. ‘Your friend Gourbabu probably considers it extremely heroic to ignore the magistrate’s invitation, as effective as fighting the British,’ she observed after a while.

  ‘My friend may not think so, but I do!’ declared Binoy heatedly. ‘What is it, but a form of battle? If a man treats me with utter disregard, thinking I’d be grateful if he just beckoned me w
ith his little finger, then how can I preserve my self-esteem unless I return his contempt?’

  The injured pride in Binoy’s words appealed to Lalita, herself proud by nature. But for that very reason, realizing the weakness of her own argument, Lalita began to inflict Binoy with the sharpness of her unwarranted sarcasm at the slightest provocation.

  ‘Look, why are you arguing with me?’ Binoy ultimately protested. ‘Why don’t you say, “I want you to join our performance”? Then I would have the pleasure of sacrificing my own convictions to keep your request.’

  ‘Wah, why should I say any such thing? If you truly have convictions of your own, why should you sacrifice them at my request? But they must be true convictions.’

  ‘Very well, let that be so. I have no true convictions. I agree to perform, not at your request, but because you have defeated me in argument.’

  At this moment, Borodasundari entered the room. Rising at once, Binoy went up to her.

  ‘Please tell me how I must prepare for the performance,’ he said.

  ‘Have no worries on that score,’ replied Borodasundari proudly. ‘We’ll get you into shape. But you must come regularly for practice every day.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll take leave of you now.’

  ‘That’s out of the question! You must dine with us.’

  ‘Not tonight, let it be.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not possible.’

  Binoy stayed for dinner, but lacked his usual cheerfulness. Sucharita, too, was strangely silent and preoccupied. She had been pacing the veranda while Lalita and Binoy were engaged in their war of words. Tonight, the conversation flagged.

  ‘I failed to please you, even after admitting defeat,’ Binoy remarked, observing Lalita’s grave expression when it was time for him to leave.

  Lalita walked away, without offering any reply. She was not given to weeping, but tonight her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. What was the matter? Why did she provoke Binoybabu repeatedly, hurting her own self? As long as Binoy remained averse to joining the performance, Lalita’s obduracy had kept increasing, but as soon as he consented, all her enthusiasm disappeared. All the arguments against his participation in the show now gathered strength in her heart.