32

Binoy set off at once in the direction of Anandamayi’s house. Shame and grief had blended together within him, bearing down upon his heart with heavy oppression. Why had he not gone to Mother all this time? What a grievous error he had made! He had imagined that Lalita stood in particular need of him. God had punished him justly for not having rushed straight to Anandamayi the very moment he arrived in Calcutta, setting aside every other consideration. And now at last he had been forced to hear from Lalita’s own lips the question: ‘Will you not go once to see Gour-babu’s mother?’ That there could exist even a single moment in which the thought of Gour-babu’s mother might loom larger in Lalita’s mind than in Binoy’s own — such a confusion of things! Lalita knew her only as Gour-babu’s mother; but to Binoy she was the one living and visible embodiment of all the mothers in the world.

At that hour Anandamayi had just finished her bath and was seated quietly on a mat spread upon the floor of her room — engaged, perhaps, in silent recitation. Binoy rushed forward and flung himself prostrate at her feet, crying, “Ma!”

Anandamayi passed both her hands over his bowed head and said, “Binoy!”

Whose voice could carry such a quality as a mother’s? At that voice alone, a wave of tenderness seemed to flow through every limb of Binoy’s body. He held back his tears with great effort and, speaking in a choked but unrestrained voice, said, “Ma, I have been too long in coming!”

Anandamayi said, “I have heard everything, Binoy!”

Binoy started and said, “You have heard everything!”

From the lock-up itself, Gora had written to her and sent the letter through the hand of the lawyer. He had evidently anticipated with certainty that he would be sent to prison.

At the end of the letter was written —

’Imprisonment can do your Gora not the slightest harm. But you must not suffer in the least. Your grief is my punishment — no magistrate has the power to punish me any further. Do not think only of your own son, Ma. Many another mother’s son languishes in gaol without fault; I have long wished to stand upon the same ground as their suffering — if that wish is fulfilled this time, do not grieve on my account.

’Ma, I do not know whether you remember — in that year of famine, I had left my purse on the table in my room by the roadside and stepped into another room for five minutes. When I returned, I found the purse had been stolen. In it were eighty-five rupees saved from my scholarship money; I had resolved that once I had saved a little more, I would have a silver vessel made for the water that washes your feet. When the money was stolen and I was consumed with futile rage against the thief, God suddenly gave me a clear thought: I said to myself, the man who has taken my money — on this day of famine, I freely give that money to him. The moment I said this, all the fruitless bitterness in my heart grew calm. Today I have made my mind say the same thing — that I am going to gaol of my own will. There is no sorrow in my heart, no anger towards anyone. I go to accept hospitality in the gaol. There will be hardship in food and living — but on this journey just ended I have accepted hospitality in many houses, and in none of them did I have the comfort that accorded with my own habit and need. Hardship chosen of one’s own free will is no hardship at all; I shall today, of my own will, accept the shelter of the gaol — and for every day I remain there, know for certain that no one holds me there by force.

’While we sat at home in the world and took our ease in eating and in living, the right to move freely under the open sky and in the free air — how vast and immense a right that is — we could not even feel it, so accustomed had we become. At that very moment, countless human beings in the world, guilty and innocent alike, were being denied the God-given inheritance of the earth and were enduring bondage and humiliation — I have never thought of them until now, have kept no connection with them — but now I wish to emerge branded with the same mark as theirs. I do not wish to mingle with the great majority of artificial good men who sit dressed up as gentlemen and preserve their respectability.

‘Ma, this time, having come to know the world, I have received much instruction. God knows, those who have taken upon themselves the burden of judgment are themselves, for the most part, the most deserving of pity. Those who escape punishment and inflict it instead — it is the prisoners in the gaol who are paying the penalty for their sins; many conspire together to create the offence, while these few alone make the atonement. As for those who live comfortably outside the prison walls and in honour — when and where and how the accumulated sin of their lives shall be discharged, I cannot tell. I shall curse that comfort and that honour and come forth branded on my breast with the mark of humanity’s shame. Ma, bless me — do not let your tears fall. Lord Krishna bore forever on His breast the mark of Bhrigu’s kick; wherever arrogance in this world strikes an unjust blow, it but deepens that mark upon the Lord’s bosom. If that mark is His ornament, what need have I to fear, and what cause have you for sorrow?’

Upon receiving this letter, Anandamayi had tried to send Mahim to Gora’s side. Mahim declared that he had office duties and that the sahib would on no account grant him leave — and then proceeded to heap sufficient abuse upon Gora’s imprudence and insolence, saying that one day Gora would cost him his very employment. Anandamayi felt there was no need to speak of the matter to Krishnadayal. Regarding Gora, she nursed a deep and wounding sense of grievance against her husband; she knew that Krishnadayal had never given Gora the place of a son in the recesses of his heart — that, indeed, he harboured a feeling of opposition towards Gora. Gora stood between Anandamayi and her husband’s love like the Vindhya mountains dividing one land from another. On one side, with his scrupulously pure observances, Krishnadayal stood alone — and on the other side, Anandamayi stood alone with her outcast Gora. Between those two who alone in all the world knew the history of Gora’s life, the path of coming and going seemed to have been sealed shut. For all these reasons, Anandamayi’s love for Gora in this household was her entirely solitary treasure. She strove in every way to make Gora’s irregular presence in this family as light a burden as possible. Her constant anxiety was lest someone should say: ‘Your Gora has brought about this disaster’ or ‘Your Gora has made us hear such words’ or ‘Your Gora has caused us this loss.’ All of Gora’s liabilities were hers to bear. And yet her Gora was no ordinary wayward boy. Wherever he was, to keep his existence concealed was hardly a simple matter. This wilful Gora of her bosom — she had reared him to such stature over all these years, day and night, in the midst of this unwelcoming household. She had endured many words to which she had returned no answer; she had borne many sorrows of which she could share no portion with another.

Anandamayi sat silently near the window — she saw Krishnadayal, having finished his morning bath, pressing the sacred clay of the Ganges upon his brow, his arms, his chest, and entering the house while reciting his prayers, and she could not go to him. Prohibition, prohibition, prohibition — prohibition everywhere! At last, drawing a long breath, Anandamayi rose and went to Mahim’s room. Mahim was seated on the floor reading a newspaper, and his manservant was rubbing oil into his body before his bath. Anandamayi said to him, “Mahim, give me one man to accompany me — I wish to go and see what has become of Gora. He has made up his mind to go to gaol; if he is imprisoned, may I not see him once before it happens?”

Whatever Mahim’s outward manner might be, he bore for Gora a kind of genuine affection. He thundered aloud, “Let the good-for-nothing go to gaol then — it is a wonder he has stayed out of it this long.” But in the very next moment he called their trusted man Paran Ghosal, pressed into his hand a sum of money for the lawyer’s fees, and dispatched him immediately — and resolved that he himself would also go there, should he obtain leave from the sahib at the office and should his wife consent.

Anandamayi too knew that Mahim was incapable of leaving nothing done on Gora’s behalf. Hearing that Mahim had made whatever arrangements were possible, she returned to her own room. She knew full well that in that unfamiliar place, at this hour of crisis, there was not a single person in this household who would take her along, to face the curiosity, the eager questioning, and the talk of strangers. She sat with the shadow of silent grief behind her eyes, lips pressed firmly together. When Lachhmiya began to wail loudly, Anandamayi reproved her and sent her to another room. It was her lifelong habit to digest all anxiety in utter stillness. Both joy and sorrow she received with equanimity; the outcry within her heart was known to the Indweller alone.

Binoy could find no words with which to console Anandamayi. But Anandamayi had no need of another’s consoling words; when others came to discuss with her a grief for which there was no remedy, her nature drew inward. She gave Binoy no opportunity to raise any further subject, saying to him, “Binu, I see you have not yet bathed — go now, bathe quickly — it has grown quite late.”

When Binoy had bathed and returned and sat down to eat, Anandamayi, seeing Gora’s place vacant beside him, felt a cry rise within her breast; Gora today was eating the prison’s food — food made bitter by pitiless authority, not made sweet by a mother’s care — and at this thought Anandamayi too was compelled to find some pretext and rise and leave the room for a while.