53

On coming out of prison, Gora found Pareshbabu and Binoy waiting for him at the gate.

One month is not so very long a time. Gora had previously been separated from family and friends for longer than a month while travelling — yet when he came out of the isolation of that one month in prison and saw Paresh and Binoy, it felt to him as though he had been reborn into the familiar world of old companions. There on the open thoroughfare, in the morning light beneath the open sky, when he looked upon Paresh’s calm, affectionate, naturally serene face, he prostrated himself at his feet with a devotional joy he had never known before. Paresh embraced him.

Taking Binoy’s hand, Gora said with a smile, “Binoy, from school onwards we have received all our education together, but in this particular institution I have gone ahead of you by cheating.”

Binoy could neither smile nor say anything. Through the dark mystery of imprisonment, his friend had emerged before him as something far greater than a friend. In deep reverence he remained silent. Gora asked, “How is Mother?”

Binoy said, “Mother is well.”

Pareshbabu said, “Come, my boy — the carriage is waiting for you.”

Just as the three of them were about to board the carriage, Abinash arrived, panting, with a crowd of young men at his heels.

The moment Gora saw Abinash, he moved quickly to climb into the carriage, but before he could do so Abinash stepped forward and blocked his way, saying, “Gaurimohanbabu, wait a moment.”

Even as he spoke, the young men broke into a song with a shout —

The sorrowful night is ended, the dawn has come at last.

The cord of bondage is severed, broken the chains of the past.

Gora’s face flushed crimson; he thundered in his great voice, “Stop!”

The young men fell silent in astonishment. Gora said, “Abinash — what is the meaning of all this?”

From beneath his shawl Abinash produced a thick garland of jasmine wrapped in a banana leaf, and a young boy in his retinue, reading from a sheet of paper printed in gold ink, began to rattle off at great speed — in a thin, wound-up voice like a mechanical organ — an address of welcome on the occasion of the release from prison.

Forcefully refusing Abinash’s garland, Gora said in a voice suppressed with anger, “So now your performance is about to begin? Is it to dress me up as a clown for your theatrical troupe by the roadside that you have been rehearsing for the past month?”

Abinash had been planning this for a long time — he had imagined it would create a splendid sensation. In the period of which we are speaking, such demonstrations were not yet in common practice. Abinash had not even taken Binoy into his confidence; greedy to claim all the glory of this singular occasion for himself alone, he had even written out a detailed account of the proceedings for the newspapers, and had resolved on his return to fill in a gap or two and dispatch it at once.

Stung by Gora’s rebuke, Abinash said with agitation, “You are being unjust. The suffering you underwent during your imprisonment we endured no less. Throughout this one month, every moment of it, our hearts have been scorched in a smouldering fire.”

Gora said, “You are mistaken, Abinash — a single glance will show you that the smouldering husks are all still quite intact, and the ribs of the breast have suffered no mortal loss either.”

Abinash was not deterred; he said, “The officers of the state have dishonoured you, but today, as the voice of all India, we offer this garland of honour —”

Gora cried out, “I can bear no more of this.”

Pushing Abinash and his party aside, Gora said, “Pareshbabu, please get into the carriage.”

Pareshbabu got into the carriage and breathed a sigh of relief. Gora and Binoy followed.

Travelling by steamer, Gora arrived home the following morning. He found a great crowd of his associates gathered in the outer quarters of the house. Managing somehow to extricate himself from their clutches, he made his way to the inner quarters to Anandamayi. She had completed her morning bath and was sitting ready. As soon as Gora came and prostrated himself at her feet, tears began to stream from Anandamayi’s eyes. The tears she had kept in check all these days now refused to be restrained any longer.

When Krishnadayal returned from his ablutions at the Ganges, Gora went to meet him. He made his salutation from a distance, but did not touch his feet. Krishnadayal, ill at ease, sat down on a seat some way off. Gora said, “Father, I wish to perform an act of ritual atonement.”

Krishnadayal said, “I see no necessity for it.”

Gora said, “In prison I gave little thought to any other hardship — but I felt myself to be most grievously impure, and that shame has not yet left me. I must perform the atonement.”

Krishnadayal said anxiously, “No, no — you need not carry matters to such an extreme. I cannot give my assent to it.”

Gora said, “Very well — I shall consult the learned pandits on the matter.”

Krishnadayal said, “There is no need to consult any pandit. I am giving you my ruling: you have no need of atonement.”

That a man as obsessively scrupulous in matters of ritual purity as Krishnadayal should be so unwilling to have Gora accept any form of observance or discipline — not merely unwilling, but actually setting himself stubbornly against it — was something Gora had never been able to understand to this day.

Today at the meal Anandamayi had laid Binoy’s seat next to Gora’s. Gora said, “Mother, move Binoy’s seat a little further away.”

Anandamayi said in surprise, “Why — what has Binoy done wrong?”

Gora said, “Nothing has happened to Binoy — it is I who am at fault. I am in a state of impurity.”

Anandamayi said, “Be that as it may — Binoy does not hold to such distinctions of purity and impurity.”

Gora said, “Binoy may not — but I do.”

After the meal, when the two friends sat together in their secluded room on the upper floor, neither could find anything to say. In the course of this one month, the one thing that had grown larger than all else in Binoy’s heart — he could not think how to raise it before Gora. In Gora’s mind too there stirred a question regarding the people of Pareshbabu’s household, yet he said nothing; he was waiting for Binoy to broach the subject. True, Gora had asked Pareshbabu whether all the ladies of the household were well — but that was a question of mere courtesy. Beyond that brief news that all were well, there was in him a keener curiosity to know further and in greater detail.

At that moment Mahim came into the room, settled himself in a seat, and spent a few moments catching his breath after the exertion of climbing the stairs. Then he said, “Binoy, we have waited all this time for Gora to come home. Now there is nothing more to be said. Let us fix an auspicious day and time. What do you say, Gora? You understand what we are talking about, do you not?”

Gora said nothing, but smiled a little.

Mahim said, “You are smiling! You think your elder brother has still not forgotten that matter. But the girl is no dream — I can see quite plainly that she is a real and tangible being. There is no forgetting her! No smiling, Gora — settle things one way or another this time.”

Gora said, “The one who is the authority in this matter is himself present here.”

Mahim said, “Disaster! He himself has no settled mind — and he is to settle things! You have come back; all the responsibility now falls on you.”

Today Binoy sat silent and grave, making no attempt to speak even in his customary vein of jest.

Gora perceived that something was amiss. He said, “I can undertake to send the invitations, I can place the order for sweetmeats, and I am willing to serve at table as well — but I cannot take upon myself the responsibility of ensuring that Binoy will marry your daughter. With the one whose ordinance governs all such matters in this world, I have no particular acquaintance; I have always offered my salutations to him from a respectful distance.”

Mahim said, “Do not imagine that simply because you keep your distance, he keeps his as well. One cannot say when he may suddenly deliver a shock. What his designs are with regard to you I cannot say for certain, but in this fellow’s case I sense a great complication. I tell you plainly — if you leave everything to Prajapati Thakur alone and make no effort yourself, you may yet have cause to repent; this I warn you.”

Gora said, “I am willing to repent for not taking upon myself a burden that is not mine — but it is far harder to repent having taken it. It is from that latter repentance that I wish to be spared.”

Mahim said, “A Brahmin’s son is about to cast away caste, lineage, and honour — and you will sit by and watch? You lose sleep and appetite for the sake of preserving Hinduism among the people of this land, and yet if your own closest friend abandons his caste and contracts a marriage in a Brahmo household, you will not be able to show your face to anyone. Binoy, you may be angry, but a great many people would have said all this to Gora in your absence — they are itching to say it — I have said it openly before you both, which is better for all sides. If the rumour is false, say so and the matter is settled; if it is true, come to an understanding.”

Mahim departed, and Binoy still said nothing. Gora asked, “Well, Binoy — what is this affair?”

Binoy said, “It is exceedingly difficult to convey the true nature of the situation by merely relating a few facts — and so I had intended to explain the whole matter to you gradually and at leisure. But nothing in this world is willing to unfold at our convenience and in our own time. Events, like a hunting tiger, first creep forward stealthily without a sound, and then at one moment leap upon one’s very neck. Their tidings, too, are like fire — smouldering beneath the surface at first, then suddenly blazing up with a roar, and thereafter impossible to contain. It is for this reason that one sometimes feels that the only true liberation for a man would be to renounce all action and sit perfectly still, like a stone pillar.”

Gora laughed and said, “But even if you alone become a stone pillar, what liberation is there in that? Unless the whole world becomes still along with you, why should it allow you to remain so? That would only bring a worse calamity. When the world is in motion, if you yourself cease to act, you will only be perpetually deceived. The thing to ensure, therefore, is that events do not outpace your vigilance — that a situation never arises in which everything else is moving while you alone are unprepared.”

Binoy said, “That is precisely the point. I am never prepared. This time too I was not prepared. I had no idea from which direction things were moving or what was happening. But now that they have come to pass, I must accept the responsibility. What it would have been better had it never happened — that cannot be denied today, however unwelcome the truth.”

Gora said, “Without knowing what the event is, it is difficult for me to join in this philosophical discussion about it.”

Binoy sat upright and declared, “By a train of unavoidable circumstances, my relationship with Lalita has arrived at such a point that if I do not marry her, she will be forced to endure unjust and unfounded dishonour in society for the rest of her life.”

Gora said, “Let me hear how things have come to such a pass.”

Binoy said, “It is a long story. I shall tell you everything in due course, but for now simply accept that much as given.”

Gora said, “Very well, I accept it. My position on this matter is as follows: if the circumstances are truly unavoidable, then so too is the suffering they bring. If Lalita must indeed endure social disgrace, there is nothing to be done about it.”

Binoy said, “But the power to prevent it lies in my hands.”

Gora said, “If it does, well and good. But one cannot assert such a thing by sheer force of will. A man driven by necessity may steal, or even kill — these things lie within his power as well — but is that truly a power he possesses? You wish to fulfil your duty to Lalita by marrying her, but is that your supreme duty? Have you no duty to society?”

Binoy did not say that it was precisely out of a sense of duty to society that he had declined to consent to a Brahmo marriage — his temper rose instead. He said, “I suspect we shall not agree on this point. I am not arguing against society in favour of the individual. What I am saying is that there exists a moral law which stands above both the individual and society, and it is by that law that one must guide one’s conduct. Just as preserving an individual life is not my supreme duty, neither is preserving society my supreme duty — the preservation of righteousness alone is my supreme good.”

Gora said, “A righteousness that exists without the individual and without society — such a righteousness I do not acknowledge.”

Binoy’s obstinacy mounted. He said, “I do. Righteousness is not founded upon the individual and society; rather, the individual and society are founded upon righteousness. If whatever society desires must be accepted as righteousness, then it is society itself whose authority is undermined. If society obstructs any liberty of mine that is just and righteous, then to transgress that unjust obstruction is itself to fulfil one’s duty to society. If marrying Lalita is not wrong for me — if, indeed, it is right — then to draw back from it simply because society is opposed would be a moral failure on my part.”

Gora said, “Is the question of right and wrong confined to you alone? Will you not consider where this marriage would place your future children?”

Binoy said, “It is by reasoning in precisely that manner that men perpetuate social injustice. Why do you blame the clerk who endures a sahib master’s kicks and bears that humiliation all his life? He too is thinking of his children.”

In the course of his debate with Gora, Binoy had arrived at a position he had not previously held. Only a little while before, the very prospect of a rupture with society had caused his whole spirit to contract. He had not argued with himself on this matter at all, and had the dispute with Gora not arisen, Binoy’s mind would, following its habitual and long-established disposition, have moved in a direction contrary to the impulse now before him. But as the argument continued, his inclination, having enlisted his sense of duty as its ally, began to grow stronger and more insistent.

The debate with Gora grew heated. In such discussions Gora rarely troubled himself with the deployment of argument — he stated his view with great force. Few men possess such force as he. By this force alone he now endeavoured to thrust aside everything Binoy said and carry on, but today he encountered resistance. So long as the contest had been Gora’s views on one side and Binoy’s views on the other, Binoy had yielded. But today there was a living human being on each side — today Gora was not parrying one arrow of air with another; where his shafts fell today, they struck a human heart filled with pain.

At last Gora said, “I have no wish to bandy words with you. There is little in this that truly belongs to argument; what it calls for is an understanding reached through the heart. The thing that grieves me most deeply is that by marrying a Brahmo woman you wish to separate yourself from the great mass of your countrymen. This is something you are capable of doing — I am not capable of it in any measure whatsoever — and that is the difference between you and me. It lies not in learning, not in intellect. My love is not where yours is. Where you wish to cut yourself free with a knife, you feel nothing. There it is that I feel the pull of the life-cord. I want my India — however much you find fault with her, however much you revile her, it is she alone I want; I do not hold myself or any other man dearer than her. I do not wish to do the smallest thing that would cause even a hair’s-breadth of separation between me and my India.”

Just as Binoy was on the point of making some reply, Gora said, “No, Binoy, you argue with me in vain. The India that all the world has forsaken, that all the world dishonours — I wish to take my place beside her in that same dishonour. My India of caste distinctions, my India of superstitions, my India of idol-worship. If you choose to stand apart from her, you will stand apart from me as well.”

Saying this, Gora rose, left the room, and began to pace the rooftop terrace. Binoy sat on in silence. A servant came and informed Gora that a number of gentlemen were waiting outside to see him. Gora felt a sense of relief at having found a pretext for escape, and he went out.

Going outside, he saw that Abinash had come along with various other visitors. Gora had assumed that Abinash was offended. But no sign of offence appeared. On the contrary, Abinash was recounting yesterday’s episode of rejection to everyone present with an overflow of praise. He said, “My devotion to Gauramohanbābu has increased enormously; all these years I knew him to be an extraordinary man, but yesterday I came to know that he is truly a great soul. We had gone to pay him honour — and the manner in which he publicly spurned that honour — how many men in this day and age are capable of such a thing! Is this a small matter!”

Gora’s mind was already unsettled, and Abinash’s effusions now set him burning with irritation. He said with impatience, “Look, Abinash — it is through their very devotion that you people insult a man. If I am capable of refusing to be made a spectacle of and paraded through the streets, you might at least credit me with that small measure of dignity and not expect otherwise! And you call this the mark of a great soul! Do you people regard this land of ours as nothing but a travelling theatrical troupe? Everyone is forever dancing about trying to win a prize! Not a soul is doing any real work! If you wish to join in, well and good; if you wish to quarrel, that too is well — but for heaven’s sake, stop this applause.”

Abinash’s devotion rose higher still. With a smiling face he looked around at those assembled, and his manner conveyed that he was drawing everyone’s attention to the extraordinary quality of Gora’s words. He said, “Bless us, that we may dedicate our lives to the preservation of India’s eternal glory with the same selflessness as yours.”

So saying, Abinash extended his hand to take the dust of Gora’s feet — whereupon Gora stepped aside.

Abinash said, “Gauramohanbābu, you will accept no honour from us. But you cannot be unwilling to give us joy. We have resolved among ourselves to gather together one day and dine with you — in this you must consent.”

Gora said, “I cannot sit down to eat with all of you without first performing a rite of expiation.”

Expiation! Abinash’s eyes lit up. He said, “This had not occurred to any of us — but no ordinance of the Hindu faith can ever escape Gauramohanbābu’s attention.”

All agreed — capital, quite the thing. The expiation would serve as the occasion for everyone to dine together. Great scholars and pandits of the country must be invited for the occasion; through Gauramohanbābu’s rite of expiation, it would be proclaimed to all how vital and living the Hindu faith remained to this day.

The question arose as to when and where the ceremony of expiation should be convened. Gora said this house would not serve the purpose. One of his devotees proposed that the ceremony be performed in his garden by the Ganges. It was settled that the expenses would be borne collectively by the members of the group.

At the time of departure, Abinash rose to his feet, gestured in the manner of a public speaker, addressed all those present, and declared, “Gauramohanbābu may be displeased — but now that my heart is full to overflowing, I cannot hold back these words: just as an avatar was born in this sacred land to restore the Vedas, so too have we today been given this avatar to restore the Hindu faith. It is our land alone in all the world that has six seasons; it is in our land alone that avatars have descended age after age, and shall descend again. We are blessed that this truth has been made manifest before us. Say, brothers — victory to Gauramohān!”

Stirred by Abinash’s eloquence, all joined together in a shout of victory to Gauramohān. Gora, pierced to the core, fled the place.

On this day of his release from gaol, a great weariness descended upon Gora’s spirit. All through the days of his imprisonment he had cherished the vision of emerging to work for his country with renewed ardour. Now he could only ask himself: “Alas, where is my country? Does the country exist for me alone? My friend of earliest childhood, with whom I have discussed every resolve of my life, is today — after all these years — ready to cut himself off in an instant, so ruthlessly, from all his country’s past and future, and for no greater occasion than the marriage of a woman. And those whom everyone calls my own people — even after all this time spent in trying to enlighten them, they have now concluded that I was born an avatar solely for the purpose of recovering Hinduism! That I am merely a personification of scriptural texts! And India — India has found no place at all! The six seasons! India has six seasons! If the conspiracy of those six seasons has borne fruit of the kind that Abinash represents, then one or two seasons the fewer would have been no great loss.”

A servant came and informed him that his mother was calling for him. Gora seemed to start as though awakened from a reverie. Within himself he said: “Mother is calling!” He heard this news as though endowed with a new meaning. He said: “Whatever else may be, I have my mother. And it is she who calls me. She will unite me with everyone; she will allow no estrangement to remain between me and any soul. I shall find that those who are truly mine are seated in her house. In the gaol too Mother called me, and there I found her presence. Outside the gaol too Mother calls me — and thither I now set forth to seek her.” So saying, Gora looked out towards the sky of that cold midday. The discord that had arisen from the direction of Binoy on one side and Abinash on the other shrank to insignificance and fell away. In the light of this noon sun, India seemed to open wide her arms. Her rivers and mountains and habitations stretching from sea to sea spread themselves before Gora’s vision, and a pure, unclouded radiance descending from the infinite seemed to illumine India everywhere with light. Gora’s breast swelled full; his eyes burned with brightness; not the smallest trace of despair remained anywhere within his spirit. For the endless labour that is India’s work, the work whose fruit lies in the far distance, his whole nature prepared itself with joy — the thought that he might not live to see with his own eyes that glory of India which he had beheld in vision caused him not the least affliction. Again and again, within his heart, he repeated the words: “Mother calls me — I go where Annapurna is enthroned, where Jagaddhatri sits — in that distant future that is also this very instant, in that far shore beyond death that is also within this present life — that magnificent destiny which today illumines and gives full meaning to my poor and humble present — I go thither. In that far distance, in that utmost nearness, Mother calls me.” In the midst of this joy, it seemed to Gora that Binoy and Abinash had come into fellowship with him, that they were no longer estranged from him — and all the petty conflicts of the day dissolved somewhere into one great fulfilment.

When Gora entered Anandamayee’s room, his face was radiant with an inner light, and his eyes seemed to behold behind all visible things some other, ineffable form. At first, upon entering so suddenly, he could not quite make out who was sitting beside his mother in the room.

Sucharita rose to her feet and offered Gora her salutation. Gora said, “Ah — you have come. Please sit down.”

The way in which Gora said “you have come” was such that Sucharita’s arrival seemed no ordinary event — it seemed, rather, a singular and especial manifestation.

There had been a time when Gora had fled from Sucharita’s company. Through all the days that he had spent travelling amid hardship and work, he had been able to keep her to a considerable remove from his thoughts. But during his confinement in gaol he had been wholly unable to keep the memory of Sucharita at bay. There had once been a time when the very existence of women in India had not entered Gora’s mind. This truth he had now newly discovered, and discovered in Sucharita. In the span of a single moment, having suddenly to receive so vast and so ancient a fact, his whole robust nature had trembled under its impact. When, in gaol, the world of sunlight and free air beyond the walls caused him pain, he did not see that world merely as his field of action, nor as a world inhabited solely by men; however he turned his thoughts, in that beautiful world of ordinary life outside, he could see the faces of but two presiding presences upon whose countenances the light of sun and moon and stars seemed to fall with peculiar brightness, and around whose faces the soft and azure sky seemed to gather itself — one face was that of his mother, known to him from birth; the other, a gentle and beautiful face suffused with intelligence, with which his acquaintance was new.

In the cheerless confinement of gaol, Gora had been unable to contend against this remembered face. The quiet joy of this vision would bring to him, within the walls of his imprisonment, a deeper liberation. The hard bonds of the prison would become, before him, like the shadowy illusions of a dream. The subtle, imperceptible waves of his throbbing heart would pass freely through all the prison walls, mingle with the open sky, and ripple through the foliage and blossoms out there, and move in gentle play across the world’s field of labour.

Gora had told himself that there was no reason to be afraid of an imagined presence. For that reason, for a full month he had given it entirely free rein. He knew that the only things truly worth fearing were real and tangible.

No sooner had Gora emerged from gaol and seen Pareshbabu than his heart had overflowed with joy. It was not only the joy of seeing Pareshbabu; how much of the imagination that had been his companion through these weeks of imprisonment had mingled its own enchantment into that feeling — this Gora had not at first understood. But he came to understand it gradually. As he journeyed on the steamboat, he perceived quite clearly that it was not Pareshbabu’s own qualities alone that drew him with such force.

After so long, Gora now girded himself once more. He said, “I shall not yield.” Seated upon the steamboat, he made his resolve firm — he would go far away again; he would not allow his mind to be bound by any fine and subtle fetter.

Just then the dispute with Binoy had broken out. After the separation of so many months, a first meeting with a friend would not ordinarily have led to so fierce a quarrel. But today within this argument there was also a quarrel with himself. Through this debate, Gora was clarifying his own ground of conviction even to himself. It was for this reason that he had spoken today with such particular vehemence — that very vehemence was something he himself stood in especial need of. When his force of today had succeeded only in rousing an opposing force in Binoy — when Binoy was rebutting his words within himself and his whole spirit had risen in rebellion, feeling Gora’s insistence to be unjust rigidity — Binoy had not imagined that had Gora not been wounding himself, his blows might not have fallen so heavily today.

After the debate with Binoy, Gora resolved that he must not quit the field of battle. If he abandoned Binoy out of concern for his own heart’s peace, Binoy would not be saved.