Upon learning that Sucharita had some resources of her own and that she was comfortably preparing for an independent life on the strength of those resources, Borodasundari repeatedly expressed her approval, indicating her relief at being freed of the burden she had borne so long and so carefully. But inwardly she developed a reproachful attitude, as if it was wrong of Sucharita to break away from them and become self-sufficient. She had often felt sorry for herself, considering Sucharita a burden on her family, imagining themselves to be Sucharita’s sole recourse. But upon suddenly learning she would be relieved of Sucharita’s burden, she felt no joy within her heart. Anticipating that Sucharita might pride herself on having no urgent need for their protection, that she might feel no obligation to acknowledge her indebtedness to them, Borodasundari condemned her in advance. During this period, she remained especially aloof from Sucharita. Completely dropping her former habit of summoning Sucharita to help with the housework, she now showed her an unnatural degree of respect. Before she left, Sucharita, in her distress, tried to participate even more actively in Borodasundari’s household chores, following her around on various pretexts, but Borodasundari kept her at arm’s length, as if to ensure Sucharita did not suffer any loss of respect. It pained Sucharita most of all that the one who had reared her like a mother should remain hostile when it was time for her to leave. Labanya, Lalita and Leela began to cling to Sucharita. With great enthusiasm they went to decorate her new home, but even that enthusiasm was suffused with unshed tears.
Up until now Sucharita had performed many small errands for Poreshbabu on a variety of pretexts. Arranging flowers in a vase or books on a table, sunning his bedclothes, reminding him when it was time for his bath—neither of them had attached any importance to these habitual daily tasks. But when it was time to leave, abandoning even these unnecessary chores, these tiny acts of service, which someone else can also easily perform, which even if neglected would not greatly matter—it was these acts that became a source of torment for both parties. Now, when Sucharita came into Poresh’s room to perform some trivial task, it would assume great importance in his eyes and he would stifle a sigh. And the thought that this task would shortly be taken over by someone else would bring tears to Sucharita’s eyes.
On the appointed day, when Sucharita and the others were to move into the new house after lunch, Poreshbabu entered his secluded room to pray at dawn and found Sucharita waiting for him in a corner. In front of his prayer mat, she had arranged flowers on the floor. Labanya and Leela had also conspired to be present there, but Lalita had prohibited them. Knowing that Sucharita, when she joined in Poreshbabu’s solitary prayers, seemed to receive a special share of his bliss as well as his blessings, and that she had a special need to glean those blessings this morning, Lalita had not allowed the solitude of today’s prayers to be disrupted. As the prayers ended, tears were flowing from Sucharita’s eyes.
‘Ma, don’t look back,’ Poreshbabu advised her. ‘Advance on the path that lies ahead, without any hesitation. Set forth joyfully, vowing that whatever happens, whatever situation confronts you, you will use all your power to imbibe the best from it. Surrendering yourself completely to Ishwar, make him your sole support. Then, even through mistakes, errors and loss, you can progress in the right direction. And if you divide yourself in two, dedicating part to Ishwar and part to something else, then everything will become very difficult. May Ishwar ensure that you have no further need of our humble shelter.’
After prayers, the two of them emerged to find Haranbabu awaiting them in the outer chamber. Vowing not to harbour any resentment against anybody on this day, Sucharita greeted him politely with a namaskar. At once assuming a rigid posture on his chair, Haranbabu declared, very severely:
‘Sucharita, today you are about to regress from the truth that had sustained you for so long. This is a sad day for us.’
Sucharita offered no reply. But a discordant note entered the music that had filled her heart today with a melodious blend of peace and compassion.
‘Only the One who knows our hearts can say who is making progress and who is falling back,’ answered Poreshbabu. ‘We vainly grow anxious trying to judge things from outside.’
‘Do you mean to say that your heart is free of anxiety?’ demanded Haranbabu. ‘And that you have had no cause for remorse either?’
‘Panubabu,’ Poreshbabu responded, ‘I entertain no imaginary anxieties and I shall only know whether I have cause for remorse when remorse arises in my heart.’
‘What about your daughter Lalita arriving alone on the steamer with Binoybabu, is that imaginary too?’ retorted Haranbabu.
Sucharita’s face grew flushed.
‘Panubabu, you are agitated for some reason, so it would be unfair to you to discuss the matter with you now,’ Poreshbabu observed.
‘I never say anything in the heat of emotion,’ declared Haranbabu, head held high. ‘I am sufficiently responsible for whatever I say, don’t worry. What I say to you is not personal, but spoken on behalf of the Brahmo Samaj, and I speak because it would be wrong to remain silent. Had you not been blind, you would have realized from this one instance of Lalita traveling alone with Binoybabu that this family of yours is about to drift away from its moorings in the Brahmo Samaj. This will not only inflict remorse upon you, but also dishonour upon the Brahmo Samaj …’
‘Blame can be ascribed from outside, but to pass judgement one must penetrate the inner reality of things,’ Poreshbabu asserted. ‘Please don’t condemn people on the basis of incidents alone.’
‘Incidents don’t occur randomly,’ Haranbabu insisted. ‘You bring them about through your inner compulsions. You are developing intimate ties with people who wish to take your family away from your own community. Indeed, they have already drawn them away, can’t you see?’
‘Our perspectives don’t coincide,’ replied Poreshbabu, rather annoyed.
‘Your perspective may not coincide, but I call upon Sucharita to testify. Let her say truthfully whether Lalita’s current relationship with Binoy is merely an outward link? Has it not touched their inner selves at all? No Sucharita, you can’t leave, you must answer. It’s very important.’
‘However important, you have no right to discuss it,’ Sucharita retorted harshly.
‘Had I no right, I would not only have held my tongue but refrained from anxiety as well,’ Haranbabu declared. ‘You may disregard the Samaj, all of you, but as long as it exists, the Samaj must judge you.’
‘If the Samaj has deployed you as a judge, then exile from the Samaj is our best recourse,’ pronounced Lalita, storming into the room.
‘Lalita, I am glad you are here,’ said Haranbabu, rising from his chair. ‘The charges against you should be judged in your presence.’
Sucharita’s face and eyes were aflame with fury. ‘Haranbabu, please go to your own home and summon your court there. We can never accept your right to enter a household and insult a family within their own home. Come bhai Lalita, let’s go.’
Lalita would not budge. ‘No Didi, I shan’t run away,’ she insisted. ‘I want to leave only after I have heard everything Panubabu has to say. Go ahead, please say what you will!’
Haranbabu was speechless in surprise.
‘Ma Lalita,’ pleaded Poreshbabu, ‘Sucharita is leaving our home today. I cannot permit any disturbance this morning. Haranbabu, however guilty we might be, you must forgive us for today.’
Haran maintained a grave silence. The more Sucharita spurned him, the more determined he became to hold her captive. He firmly believed he was bound to win by the force of his extraordinary moral power. Not that he had given up even now, but he was tormented by the anxiety that if Sucharita moved into a different house with her mashi, his power would suffer constant rebuffs there. Hence, today, he had come armed with his ultimate weapons, properly honed. He was ready to force a very tough
compromise that very morning. Indeed he had come there shedding all his hesitations that day, but that his opponents could also cast off their inhibitions in this way, that Lalita and Sucharita would also draw arrows from their quiver to suddenly join the fray, was something he had never imagined. He was convinced that when he began shooting his flaming moral shafts with resplendent force, the enemy would suffer abject defeat. Things did not turn out quite that way, and the opportunity was lost. But Haranbabu would not give up. He told himself that the truth was bound to triumph, in other words, that he, Haranbabu, was bound to win. But victory does not come of its own accord. One must fight. Bracing himself, Haranbabu entered the battlefield.
‘Mashi,’ said Sucharita, ‘I shall eat with everybody today. You must not mind.’
Harimohini remained silent. She had privately assumed that Sucharita was entirely devoted to her. Now that Sucharita was free to live independently on the strength of her own property, Harimohini had thought that no further constraints were necessary, for she could now act entirely as she pleased. Hence, when Sucharita once again disregarded the laws of purity and proposed to eat with everyone else, Harimohini was displeased. She remained silent.
‘Thakur will be pleased at this, I can assure you,’ Sucharita told her, sensing her attitude. ‘The same all-knowing Thakur of mine has ordered me to eat with everybody today. If I don’t obey, He will be angry. I fear His anger more than yours.’
As long as Harimohini faced humiliation from Borodasundari, Sucharita had accepted her rituals to share her plight, but now it was time to be free of that humiliation, Sucharita had no hesitation in dissociating herself from restrictions concerning purity. Harimohini had not quite anticipated this. She had not understood Sucharita completely, and it was difficult, indeed, for her to do so. She did not openly forbid Sucharita but privately, she was annoyed. ‘Oh ma,’ she thought, ‘I can’t imagine how people might develop such tendencies. She was born into a Brahman home, after all!’
‘Let me tell you something, bachha,’ she said, ‘do as you please, but don’t accept water served by that bearer of yours.’
‘Why Mashi,’ protested Sucharita, ‘it’s Ramdeen the bearer who milks his own cow to supply you with milk!’
‘You amaze me’ exclaimed Harimohini, wide-eyed, ‘is milk the same as water?’
‘Tell me Mashi,’ smiled Sucharita, ‘let me not drink water touched by Ramdeen today. But if you forbid Satish, he is bound to do exactly the opposite!’
‘Satish is a different matter,’ said Harimohini.
Harimohini knew that when it came to the male sex, lapses in discipline must be forgiven.
~44~
Haranbabu entered the battlefield.
It was now fifteen days since Lalita had arrived on the steamer with Binoy. The rumour had reached a few ears, and little by little, it had been trying to gain ground. But in the last two days, the news had spread like wildfire.
Haranbabu had persuaded many people that it was one’s duty to curb such misdemeanour to safeguard the morals of the Brahmo family. It was not hard to convince others of such things. When we respond to the ‘call of truth’ and the ‘call of duty’ by condemning and punishing the blunders of others, it is not too difficult to meet the demands of truth and duty. Hence when Haranbabu proclaimed the ‘bitter’ truth to the Brahmo Samaj and proceeded to perform a ‘harsh’ duty’, most people were not averse to joining him enthusiastically, awed by the magnitude of such bitterness and harshness. Well-wishers of the Brahmo Samaj visited each other by hired cab or palki to declare that now such things had begun to happen, the future of the Samaj looked bleak indeed. Alongside, news also spread that Sucharita had become a Hindu, and having taken refuge in her Hindu mashi’s house, was devoting her days to sacrificial rituals, meditation, and idol worship.
For a long time, a battle had raged in Lalita’s heart. Every night, before going to bed, she would tell herself, ‘I shall never admit defeat,’ and every morning, when she awoke, she would sit up in bed and declare, ‘I shall never admit defeat under any circumstances.’ Thoughts of Binoy obsessed her; the awareness that he was chatting with people in the room downstairs would make her heart race; if he failed to visit their house for a couple of days, her heart would seethe with suppressed reproach; every now and then, on various pretexts, she would incite Satish to visit Binoy’s house, and when he returned, she would try to extract a detailed account of Binoy’s activities and their conversation from Satish. The more unavoidable this became for Lalita, the more she fretted at the degradation of defeat. Sometimes, she was even angry with Poreshbabu, for not opposing her interaction with Binoy and Gora. But she was determined to fight to the end, to die rather than concede victory. As for how she would pass the rest of her life, all sorts of possibilities drifted through her imagination. The biographies she had read, relating the exploits of female welfare workers in Europe, began to appear possible and achievable.
One day she went to Poreshbabu and said: ‘Baba, can’t I take up a teaching post in some girls’ school?’
Glancing at his daughter’s face, Poreshbabu saw her eyes, full of the anguish of a yearning heart, gazing at him beseechingly like a destitute.
‘Why not, ma?’ he replied tenderly. ‘But where can we find such a girls’ school?’
We speak of a time when schools for girls were scarce; there were only ordinary pathshalas, and women of bhadra families had not yet advanced into the field of education.
‘Is there no such school, Baba?’ asked Lalita in agitation.
‘Indeed I haven’t seen one.’
‘Tell me, Baba, can’t we start a girls’ school?’
‘It’s a very expensive proposition and would require help from many people.’
Lalita knew it was hard to even arouse the will to do benevolent deeds, but she had never imagined accomplishing them might pose so many obstacles. After a short silence she slowly arose and left. What was the source of his favourite daughter’s heartache, Poreshbabu wondered thoughtfully. He was reminded, too, of Haranbabu’s insinuations about Binoy. Sighing, he asked himself: ‘Have I done something unwise?’ Had it concerned one of his other daughters, there would be no special cause for worry, Lalita saw her life only too literally; with her, there could be no half-measures; joy and sorrow were not half-truths to her.
How would Lalita live, bearing false condemnation every day of her life? She could see no stability, no positive outcome ahead. It was not in her nature to drift along helplessly like this. That very afternoon, she arrived at Sucharita’s house. The house was sparsely decorated. A wall-to-wall mat covered the floor on which Sucharita’s bed had been laid out at one end. Harimohini’s was at the opposite end. Because Harimohini did not sleep on a bed, Sucharita had also arranged to sleep on the floor, in the same room. On the wall hung a picture of Poreshbabu. In a small adjacent room, Satish’s bed had been placed, and beside it, on a small table, ink, pens, notebooks, books and papers lay randomly scattered. Satish was in school. The house was silent.
After their meal, Harimohini prepared to sleep on the madur, and on her own mat, Sucharita sat immersed in her reading, open tresses outspread across her back, a pillow on her lap. A few more books lay in front of her. Seeing Lalita suddenly enter the room, Sucharita first closed her book in apparent embarrassment, then opened it as before, even more embarrassed. She was reading the collected works of Gora.
‘Come, come, ma,’ called Harimohini, sitting up. ‘Come in, Lalita. I know what Sucharita is feeling, having left your house. Whenever she is upset, she takes up those books. Just now, lying here, I was thinking how nice it would be if one of you came by, and here you are. You will have a long life, ma!’
Settling beside Sucharita, Lalita at once broached the subject on her mind. ‘Suchididi,’ she proposed, ‘what if we were to open a school for girls in our neighbourhood?’
‘Just listen to her!’ exclaimed Harimohini. ‘How can you start a school, the two of you?’
‘Tell me, how would we accomplish it?’ Sucharita asked. ‘Who would help us? Have you told Baba?’
‘The two of us can teach, after all,’ Lalita declared. ‘Borodidi might also agree.’
‘But it’s not simply about teaching after all,’ Sucharita reminded her. ‘We must formulate rules for the running of the school, locate a building, acquire students, and find the funds. How much of this can the two of us accomplish, as women?’
‘Didi, you can’t say that!’ Lalita protested. ‘Just because I was born a woman, must I remain confined at home, dashing my brains against the walls? Can I be of no use to the world?’
The anguish in Lalita’s words resonated in Sucharita’s heart. She began to think, without offering any reply.
‘There are many girls in the neighbourhood, aren’t there?’ Lalita persisted. ‘If we want to teach them free of cost, their parents would actually be pleased. Let it suffice for us to teach as many of them as possible, here in this house of yours. What would it cost us?’
At this proposal to gather innumerable girls from unknown families, to teach them here under this roof, Harimohini grew very agitated. She wanted to remain pure and unsullied, busy with her prayers and holy offerings in seclusion. She began to resist the possibility of disruption.
‘Have no fear, Mashi,’ Sucharita assured her. ‘If we manage to procure pupils we shall deal with them in the rooms downstairs. We shall not disturb you upstairs. So, bhai Lalita, if we can find pupils, I am willing.’
‘Very well, let’s give it a try,’ said Lalita.