I
Brindaban Kundu came to his father in a rage and said: 'I am off this
moment.'
'Ungrateful wretch!' sneered the father, Jaganath Kundu. 'When you
have paid me back all that I have spent on your food and clothing, it
will be time enough to give yourself these airs.'
Such food and clothing as was customary in Jaganath's household could
not have cost very much. Our _rishis_ of old managed to feed and
clothe themselves on an incredibly small outlay. Jaganath's behaviour
showed that his ideal in these respects was equally high. That he
could not fully live up to it was due partly to the bad influence of
the degenerate society around him, and partly to certain unreasonable
demands of Nature in her attempt to keep body and soul together.
So long as Brindaban was single, things went smoothly enough, but
after his marriage he began to depart from the high and rarefied
standard cherished by his sire. It was clear that the son's ideas
of comfort were moving away from the spiritual to the material, and
imitating the ways of the world. He was unwilling to put up with the
discomforts of heat and cold, thirst and hunger. His minimum of food
and clothing rose apace.
Frequent were the quarrels between the father and the son. At last
Brindaban's wife became seriously ill and a _kabiraj_[13] was called
in. But when the doctor prescribed a costly medicine for his patient,
Jaganath took it as a proof of sheer incompetence, and turned him
out immediately. At first Brindaban besought his father to allow the
treatment to continue; then he quarrelled with him about it, but to
no purpose. When his wife died, he abused his father and called him
a murderer.
[13] Country doctor, unqualified by any medical training.
'Nonsense!' said the father. 'Don't people die even after swallowing
all kinds of drugs? If costly medicines could save life, how is it
that kings and emperors are not immortal? You don't expect your wife
to die with more pomp and ceremony than did your mother and your
grandmother before her, do you?'
Brindaban might really have derived a great consolation from these
words, had he not been overwhelmed with grief and incapable of
proper thinking. Neither his mother nor his grandmother had taken any
medicine before making their exit from this world, and this was the
time-honoured custom of the family. But, alas, the younger generation
was unwilling to die according to ancient custom. The English had
newly come to the country at the time we speak of. Even in those remote
days, the good old folks were horrified at the unorthodox ways of the
new generation, and sat speechless, trying to draw comfort from
their _hookas_.
Be that as it may, the modern Brindaban said to his old fogy of a
father: 'I am off.'
The father instantly agreed, and wished publicly that, should he ever
give his son one single pice in future, the gods might reckon his act
as shedding the holy blood of cows. Brindaban in his turn similarly
wished that, should he ever accept anything from his father, his act
might be held as bad as matricide.
The people of the village looked upon this small revolution as a
great relief after a long period of monotony. And when Jaganath
disinherited his only son, every one did his best to console him.
All were unanimous in the opinion that to quarrel with a father for
the sake of a wife was possible only in these degenerate days. And
the reason they gave was sound too. 'When your wife dies,' they
said, 'you can find a second one without delay. But when your father
dies, you can't get another to replace him for love or money.'
Their logic no doubt was perfect, but we suspect that the utter
hopelessness of getting another father did not trouble the misguided
son very much. On the contrary, he looked upon it as a mercy.
Nor did separation from Brindaban weigh heavily on the mind of his
father. In the first place, his absence from home reduced the household
expenses. Then, again, the father was freed from a great anxiety. The
fear of being poisoned by his son and heir had always haunted him. When
he ate his scanty fare, he could never banish the thought of poison
from his mind. This fear had abated somewhat after the death of his
daughter-in-law, and, now that the son was gone, it disappeared
altogether.
But there was one tender spot in the old man's heart. Brindaban had
taken away with him his four-year-old son, Gokul Chandra. Now, the
expense of keeping the child was comparatively small, and so Jaganath's
affection for him was without a drawback. Still, when Brindaban took
him away, his grief, sincere as it was, was mingled at first with
calculation as to how much he would save a month by the absence of the
two, how much the sum would come to in the year, and what would be the
capital to bring it in as interest.
But the empty house, without Gokul Chandra in it to make mischief,
became more and more difficult for the old man to live in. There
was no one now to play tricks upon him when he was engaged in his
_puja_,[14] no one to snatch away his food and eat it, no one to
run away with his inkpot, when he was writing up his accounts. His
daily routine of life, now uninterrupted, became an intolerable burden
to him. He bethought him that this unworried peace was endurable
only in the world to come. When he caught sight of the holes made in
his quilt by his grandchild, and the pen-and-ink sketches executed by
the same artist on his rush-mat, his heart was heavy with grief.
Once upon a time he had reproached the boy bitterly because he had torn
his _dhoti_ into pieces within the short space of two years; now
tears stood in Jaganath's eyes as he gazed upon the dirty remnants
lying in the bedroom. He carefully put them away in his safe, and
registered a vow that, should Gokul ever come back again, he should
not be reprimanded even if he destroyed one _dhoti_ a year.
[14] A ceremonial worship.
But Gokul did not return, and poor Jaganath aged rapidly. His empty
home seemed emptier every day.
No longer could the old man stay peacefully at home. Even in the
middle of the day, when all respectable folks in the village enjoyed
their after-dinner siesta, Jaganath might be seen roaming over the
village, _hooka_ in hand. The boys, at sight of him, would give up
their play, and, retiring in a body to a safe distance, chant verses
composed by a local poet, praising the old gentleman's economical
habits. No one ventured to say his real name, lest he should have to go
without his meal that day[15]--and so people gave him names after their
own fancy. Elderly people called him Jaganash,[16] but the reason why
the younger generation preferred to call him a vampire was hard to
guess. It may be that the bloodless, dried-up skin of the old man
had some physical resemblance to the vampire's.
[15] It is a superstition current in Bengal that if a man pronounces
the name of a very miserly individual, he has to go without his meal
that day.
[16] Jaganath is the Lord of Festivity, and Jaga_nash_ would mean the
despoiler of it.