THIS was the time when Sandip Babu with his followers came to our
neighbourhood to preach __Swadeshi__.
There is to be a big meeting in our temple pavilion. We women
are sitting there, on one side, behind a screen. Triumphant
shouts of __Bande Mataram__ come nearer: and to them I am
thrilling through and through. Suddenly a stream of barefooted
youths in turbans, clad in ascetic ochre, rushes into the
quadrangle, like a silt-reddened freshet into a dry river-bed at
the first burst of the rains. The whole place is filled with an
immense crowd, through which Sandip Babu is borne, seated in a
big chair hoisted on the shoulders of ten or twelve of the
youths.
__Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram__! It seems
as though the skies would be rent and scattered into a thousand
fragments.
I had seen Sandip Babu's photograph before. There was something
in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad-
looking--far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I
know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance,
that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light
in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not
like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his
demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to
think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of
friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of
a person of moderate means, but foppish all over. Love of
comfort seemed to ... any number of such reflections come back
to me today, but let them be.
When, however, Sandip Babu began to speak that afternoon, and the
hearts of the crowd swayed and surged to his words, as though
they would break all bounds, I saw him wonderfully transformed.
Especially when his features were suddenly lit up by a shaft of
light from the slowly setting sun, as it sunk below the roof-line
of the pavilion, he seemed to me to be marked out by the gods as
their messenger to mortal men and women.
From beginning to end of his speech, each one of his utterances
was a stormy outburst. There was no limit to the confidence of
his assurance. I do not know how it happened, but I found I had
impatiently pushed away the screen from before me and had fixed
my gaze upon him. Yet there was none in that crowd who paid any
heed to my doings. Only once, I noticed, his eyes, like stars in
fateful Orion, flashed full on my face.
I was utterly unconscious of myself. I was no longer the lady of
the Rajah's house, but the sole representative of Bengal's
womanhood. And he was the champion of Bengal. As the sky had
shed its light over him, so he must receive the consecration of a
woman's benediction ...
It seemed clear to me that, since he had caught sight of me, the
fire in his words had flamed up more fiercely. Indra's [11]
steed refused to be reined in, and there came the roar of thunder
and the flash of lightning. I said within myself that his
language had caught fire from my eyes; for we women are not only
the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul
itself.
I returned home that evening radiant with a new pride and joy.
The storm within me had shifted my whole being from one centre to
another. Like the Greek maidens of old, I fain would cut off my
long, resplendent tresses to make a bowstring for my hero. Had
my outward ornaments been connected with my inner feelings, then
my necklet, my armlets, my bracelets, would all have burst their
bonds and flung themselves over that assembly like a shower of
meteors. Only some personal sacrifice, I felt, could help me to
bear the tumult of my exaltation.
When my husband came home later, I was trembling lest he should
utter a sound out of tune with the triumphant paean which was
still ringing in my ears, lest his fanaticism for truth should
lead him to express disapproval of anything that had been said
that afternoon. For then I should have openly defied and
humiliated him. But he did not say a word ... which I did not
like either.
He should have said: "Sandip has brought me to my senses. I now
realize how mistaken I have been all this time."
I somehow felt that he was spitefully silent, that he obstinately
refused to be enthusiastic. I asked how long Sandip Babu was
going to be with us.
"He is off to Rangpur early tomorrow morning," said my husband.
"Must it be tomorrow?"
"Yes, he is already engaged to speak there."
I was silent for a while and then asked again: "Could he not
possibly stay a day longer?"
"That may hardly be possible, but why?"
"I want to invite him to dinner and attend on him myself."
My husband was surprised. He had often entreated me to be
present when he had particular friends to dinner, but I had never
let myself be persuaded. He gazed at me curiously, in silence,
with a look I did not quite understand.
I was suddenly overcome with a sense of shame. "No, no," I
exclaimed, "that would never do!"
"Why not!" said he. "I will ask him myself, and if it is at all
possible he will surely stay on for tomorrow."
It turned out to be quite possible.
I will tell the exact truth. That day I reproached my Creator
because he had not made me surpassingly beautiful--not to steal
any heart away, but because beauty is glory. In this great day
the men of the country should realize its goddess in its
womanhood. But, alas, the eyes of men fail to discern the
goddess, if outward beauty be lacking. Would Sandip Babu find
the __Shakti__ of the Motherland manifest in me? Or would he
simply take me to be an ordinary, domestic woman?
That morning I scented my flowing hair and tied it in a loose
knot, bound by a cunningly intertwined red silk ribbon. Dinner,
you see, was to be served at midday, and there was no time to dry
my hair after my bath and do it up plaited in the ordinary way.
I put on a gold-bordered white __sari__, and my short-sleeve
muslin jacket was also gold-bordered.
I felt that there was a certain restraint about my costume and
that nothing could well have been simpler. But my sister-in-law,
who happened to be passing by, stopped dead before me, surveyed
me from head to foot and with compressed lips smiled a meaning
smile. When I asked her the reason, "I am admiring your get-up!"
she said.
"What is there so entertaining about it?" I enquired,
considerably annoyed.
"It's superb," she said. "I was only thinking that one of those
low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect." Not only
her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with
suppressed laughter as she left the room.
I was very, very angry, and wanted to change everything and put
on my everyday clothes. But I cannot tell exactly why I could
not carry out my impulse. Women are the ornaments of society--
thus I reasoned with myself--and my husband would never like it,
if I appeared before Sandip Babu unworthily clad.
My idea had been to make my appearance after they had sat down to
dinner. In the bustle of looking after the serving the first
awkwardness would have passed off. But dinner was not ready in
time, and it was getting late. Meanwhile my husband had sent for
me to introduce the guest.
I was feeling horribly shy about looking Sandip Babu in the face.
However, I managed to recover myself enough to say: "I am so
sorry dinner is getting late."
He boldly came and sat right beside me as he replied: "I get a
dinner of some kind every day, but the Goddess of Plenty keeps
behind the scenes. Now that the goddess herself has appeared, it
matters little if the dinner lags behind."
He was just as emphatic in his manners as he was in his public
speaking. He had no hesitation and seemed to be accustomed to
occupy, unchallenged, his chosen seat. He claimed the right to
intimacy so confidently, that the blame would seem to belong to
those who should dispute it.
I was in terror lest Sandip Babu should take me for a shrinking,
old-fashioned bundle of inanity. But, for the life of me, I
could not sparkle in repartees such as might charm or dazzle him.
What could have possessed me, I angrily wondered, to appear
before him in such an absurd way?
I was about to retire when dinner was over, but Sandip Babu, as
bold as ever, placed himself in my way.
"You must not," he said, "think me greedy. It was not the dinner
that kept me staying on, it was your invitation. If you were to
run away now, that would not be playing fair with your guest."
If he had not said these words with a careless ease, they would
have been out of tune. But, after all, he was such a great
friend of my husband that I was like his sister.
While I was struggling to climb up this high wave of intimacy, my
husband came to the rescue, saying: "Why not come back to us
after you have taken your dinner?"
"But you must give your word," said Sandip Babu, "before we let
you off."
"I will come," said I, with a slight smile.
"Let me tell you," continued Sandip Babu, "why I cannot trust
you. Nikhil has been married these nine years, and all this
while you have eluded me. If you do this again for another nine
years, we shall never meet again."
I took up the spirit of his remark as I dropped my voice to
reply: "Why even then should we not meet?"
"My horoscope tells me I am to die early. None of my forefathers
have survived their thirtieth year. I am now twenty-seven."
He knew this would go home. This time there must have been a
shade of concern in my low voice as I said: "The blessings of the
whole country are sure to avert the evil influence of the stars."
"Then the blessings of the country must be voiced by its goddess.
This is the reason for my anxiety that you should return, so that
my talisman may begin to work from today."
Sandip Babu had such a way of taking things by storm that I got
no opportunity of resenting what I never should have permitted in
another.
"So," he concluded with a laugh, "I am going to hold this husband
of yours as a hostage till you come back."
As I was coming away, he exclaimed: "May I trouble you for a
trifle?"