25

On a Sunday morning, Anandamayi was preparing betel, and Shashimukhi sat beside her cutting areca nut and piling it up. Just then Binoy came and entered the room, whereupon Shashimukhi, scattering the areca nut from the fold of her sari, rushed out of the room and fled. Anandamayi smiled faintly.

Binoy was a man who could make friends with everyone. For a long while he had been on terms of genuine warmth with Shashimukhi. There had been much mutual teasing on both sides. Shashimukhi had discovered a way of hiding Binoy’s shoes and extorting stories from him. Binoy, taking one or two trivial episodes from Shashimukhi’s life as his material and embellishing them considerably, had composed a story or two and held them in reserve. When he brought these out, Shashimukhi was perfectly confounded. At first she would attempt to counter the storyteller with a loud accusation of falsehood; when she was defeated in that she would flee the room. She had herself tried to fabricate a retaliatory story by distorting the record of Binoy’s life — but since she was no match for him in the art of composition, she had not met with much success in this endeavour.

Be that as it may, whenever Binoy came to this house, Shashimukhi would drop everything and come running to make mischief with him. On some days she was such a nuisance that Anandamayi would rebuke her — but the fault was not hers alone; Binoy would provoke her so thoroughly that restraint on her part became impossible. Now, when this very Shashimukhi fled the room hurriedly at the sight of Binoy, Anandamayi smiled — but it was not a smile of happiness.

Binoy too was struck by this small incident so strongly that he sat silent for some time. How very incongruous the prospect of his marrying Shashimukhi was — this became apparent in just such little ways. When Binoy had given his consent, he had thought only of his friendship with Gora; he had not experienced the matter imaginatively. Moreover, Binoy had written many articles in the newspapers taking pride in the fact that marriage in our country is not primarily a personal matter but a family matter; he had not admitted any personal wish or aversion into his mind on this account. Now that Shashimukhi had bitten her tongue and fled at the sight of Binoy, taking him for her own betrothed, a certain picture of his future relation with Shashimukhi presented itself before him. In an instant his entire being rose in revolt. The thought of how far Gora had been leading him against his own nature made him angry with Gora, filled him with self-reproach, and — recalling that Anandamayi had opposed this marriage from the very beginning —

the wonder of her discernment filled his mind with an admiration mingled with reverence.

Anandamayi understood the state of Binoy’s mind. To draw his thoughts in another direction she said, “Binoy, I received a letter from Gora yesterday.”

Binoy replied, somewhat absently, “What has he written?”

Anandamayi said, “He has given no great account of himself. He has written in sorrow about the suffering of the common people in the villages. He describes certain wrongs committed by the Magistrate in a village called Ghoshpara.”

Provoked by a feeling of antagonism towards Gora, Binoy burst out impatiently, “Gora’s gaze is ever turned outward, towards others — while the daily tyrannies we commit, sitting upon the breast of society, are to be continually pardoned, and we must say there is no more virtuous deed than this.”

Anandamayi smiled to see Binoy thus suddenly take up the opposite side and set himself against Gora.

Binoy said, “Mother, you are smiling — you are thinking, why has Binoy suddenly flared up in this fashion? Let me tell you why I am angry. Sudhir took me one day to a friend’s garden at Naihati station. Just as we left Sealdah, the rain began. When the train stopped at Sodepur station, I saw a Bengali man dressed in English clothes, himself holding a fine umbrella over his own head, helping his wife down from the carriage. His wife held a small child in her arms; wrapping the child as best she could in a thick shawl, she stood at the side of the exposed platform, huddled with cold and shame, getting soaked — while her husband, umbrella over head, made a great commotion over the luggage. In that moment there came to me the memory that throughout all of Bengal, in sun or rain, whether among the gentry or the common people, no woman holds an umbrella over her head. When I saw the husband shamelessly holding his umbrella over himself while his wife wrapped herself in a shawl and stood drenched in silence — not reproaching this treatment even inwardly — and that no one on the entire platform found this in the least degree wrong — from that moment I made a resolve. We claim to hold women in the highest regard — we call them Lakshmi, we know them as goddesses — all these empty poetic phrases I shall never utter again. We call our country a motherland, but if we do not perceive the glory of that feminine ideal in the actual women of our country — if we do not see our women fully matured, vital and strong in their intelligence, their strength, and the generosity of their sense of duty — if within our homes we see only weakness, narrowness, and immaturity — then the vision of our country will never become vivid and luminous for us.”

Suddenly embarrassed by his own vehemence, Binoy said in a natural tone, “Mother, you are thinking that Binoy now and again delivers himself of great speeches like this — that today he has been seized by the spirit of address. My words fall into the shape of a speech from force of habit; but today this is not a speech. How much the women of the country are part of the country itself — this I had never clearly understood, never even thought about. Mother, I shall not go on much longer. No one believes what I say to be the utterance of my own heart because I say so many things. From now on I shall say less.”

With these words, Binoy, without further delay, departed with a heart full of resolve.

Anandamayi summoned Mahim and said, “My dear, the marriage between Binoy and our Shashimukhi will not take place.”

Mahim: Why? Do you have an objection?

Anandamayi: My objection is that this matter will not hold to the end — for that reason, and for no other, do I object.

Mahim. Gora has agreed, Binoy has agreed too — why then should it not hold? Of course, I know that if you withhold your consent, Binoy will not do this thing.

Anandamayi. I know Binoy better than you do.

Mahim. Better than Gora too?

Anandamayi. Yes, better than Gora too — and that is precisely why, having weighed all sides, I cannot give my consent.

Mahim. Very well, let Gora return first.

Anandamayi. Mahim, hear me. If you press the matter too hard, there will be trouble in the end. It is my wish that Gora say nothing to Binoy on this account.

Saying “Very well, we shall see,” Mahim popped a betel leaf into his mouth and left the room in a huff.