Drishtidaan: the gift of vision

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

I’ve been told that many Bengali girls these days have to secure husbands through their own efforts. I have done the same, but with the assistance of the gods. Since childhood, I had performed many a penance, offered many a prayer.

I was married by the time I had turned eight. But owing to my sins in a previous life, even after getting a husband as wonderful as mine, I was unable to have him fully. The goddess Durga, with the Third Eye, took away my eyesight. She did not afford me the bliss of seeing my husband till my last day on earth.

My trials by fire began in infancy. Barely had I turned fourteen when I give birth to a stillborn child. I was at death’s door too, but it would not do if someone destined to suffer were to die. The lamp that has been made to burn is never endowed with insufficient oil; it shall be released only after it has glowed all night.

I did survive, but because of physical weakness, or the grief in my heart, or some other reason, my vision was affected.

My husband was a medical student at the time. Because of his enthusiasm for his new learning, he was delighted at the opportunity to practise medicine. He proceeded to treat me himself.

My elder brother was in college that year, reading for a Bachelor of Law degree. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he told my husband one day. ‘Kumu’s about to lose her eyes. Let a good doctor have a look at her.’

‘What new treatment can a good doctor offer,’ my husband responded. ‘I know the medicine perfectly well.’

‘Obviously there’s no difference between you and the principal of your college,’ my brother proclaimed in some anger.

‘You’re a student of law, what do you know of medicine,’ countered my husband. ‘If you are in litigation against your wife over property after you get married, will you come to me for advice?’

When elephants fight, I mused, the grass is trampled. The argument was between my husband and my brother, but I was at the receiving end of both their barbs. Since my brother had already given me away in marriage, I wondered, too, why there should be a battle now over responsibility. My joys and sorrows, illness and recovery, were all my husband’s concern now.

My husband appeared to develop some bad blood with my brother that day over the trivial matter of treatment for my eyes, which were already streaming with tears frequently; now the flow became stronger, neither my husband nor my brother fathomed the real cause.

Out of the blue, my brother brought a doctor home one afternoon while my husband was away at college. After examining my eyes, the doctor warned that unless I was careful, the affliction could worsen. He prescribed some medicine I was not familiar with, which my brother sent for immediately.

After the doctor had left, I told my brother, ‘I beg of you Dada, do not disrupt my current course of treatment.’

I used to be in great awe of my brother since childhood; it was unthinkable for me to make such an explicit request to him. But I could clearly see that the arrangement for my treatment, which my brother was making behind my husband’s back, boded ill rather than well for me.

My brother too was probably taken aback by my candour. ‘Very well, I shall not bring the doctor to your home any more,’ he said after a pause, ‘but let us see what effect the medicine has if you apply it as prescribed.’ When the medicine had arrived, he explained how to use it and left. Before my husband could return, I flung the bottles, vials, brushes and rules into the draw-well in the front yard.

Seemingly inspired by his altercation with my brother, my husband devoted himself to treating my eye with twice as much zeal. He proceeded to change medicines constantly. I put on eye-patches, tried glasses, applied medicated drops, put medicated powder on my eyelids, even suppressed the urge to expel my intestines after consuming malodorous fish-oil. My husband would ask how I was feeling. Much better, I would respond. I tried to convince myself that I was indeed improving. When my eyes watered too much, I concluded that this was a good sign; when my eyes stropped streaming, I assumed I was on my way to recovery.

But the agony became unbearable after some time. My vision became blurred and the pain in my head would not allow me to stay still. My husband appeared to be somewhat on the defensive now. He was unable to think of a pretext on which to fetch a doctor after all this time.

‘Where’s the harm in calling a doctor just to keep Dada happy,’ I told him. ‘He is needlessly upset about this, it makes me unhappy. You’re the one who will treat me, after all, but having a doctor as a figurehead is useful.’

‘You’re right,’ said my husband. And proceeded to fetch a British doctor that very same day. I was not privy to their conversation, but the Englishman appeared to be berating my husband, who stood in silence with his head bowed.

When the doctor had left, I took my husband’s hand and told him, ‘Where did you get this ass of a British doctor, an Indian doctor would have been better. Is he going to diagnose what’s wrong with my eye better than you do.’

‘Your eye needs surgery,’ he said hesitantly.

‘You knew all along that it does,’ I pretended anger, ‘but you hid it from me all this time. Do you think I’m afraid?’

His embarrassment was mitigated. ‘How many men are brave enough not to feel afraid on hearing of eye-surgery?’ he asked.

‘The valour of the man is only for his wife,’ I joked.

‘That is true,’ he turned sombre. ‘Men can only flaunt their vanity.’

‘Do you think you can compete with women on that score,’ I said, dismissing his solemnity. ‘We’ll beat you there too.’

Meanwhile, when my brother came visiting, I drew him aside and told him, ‘My eyes were improving once I started following your doctor’s prescription, but after I mistakenly applied a medicine to my eyes instead of taking it, things have taken a turn for the worse. My husband says I need surgery.’

‘I was under the impression your husband was treating you,’ answered my brother, ‘which made me so angry I did not come all this time.’

‘No, I was following your doctor’s prescription in secret,’ I said, ‘though I did not tell my husband in case he became angry.’

How many lies one has to tell when one is born a woman! I could not hurt my brother, nor undermine my husband’s importance. As a mother she has to keep the child in her arms happy; as a wife she has to keep the father of the child happy – such are the deceptions that women have to resort to.

The outcome of the ruse was that I was able to see my husband and brother reunited before I went blind. My brother surmised that the secret treatment had caused this mishap; my husband concluded that it would have been better to have followed my brother’s counsel from the beginning. With these thoughts the two repentant souls sought to make amends and came closer to each other. My husband began to seek my brother’s advice; my brother also began to defer to my husband’s opinion on every subject.

Eventually, on the basis of their consultations with each other, a British doctor operated on my left eye. Already weak, the eye could not survive this assault, the light in it died suddenly. Then the remaining eye was also gradually shrouded in darkness with every passing day. The curtain was drawn forever on the young figure adorned in sandalwood paste whom I had seen for the first time on my wedding day in childhood.

One day my husband came to my bedside, saying, ‘I shall not brag to you any more, I am the one responsible for you losing your eyes.’

I realized his voice was choking with tears. Seeking his right hand with both of mine, I said, ‘I don’t care, you have claimed what is yours. Think about it, how would I have consoled myself had I lost my vision because of a doctor’s treatment. Since no one can ward off destiny, no one could have saved my eyes, the only joy of my blindness is that I lost my eyes to you. Ramachandra had plucked out his own eyes as an offering to the gods when he had run out of flowers. I offer my vision to my own god – I give you everything, my moonlit nights, my morning light, the blue of my sky, the green of my earth; tell me of whatever appears beautiful to your eyes, I shall accept it as the holy image of what you have seen.’

But I had been unable to say all this, for they cannot be said; I had been thinking of all this for a long time. When I felt weary at times, when my commitment and spirit dimmed, when I thought of myself as deprived, wretched and a victim of misfortune, I used to force such thoughts into my head; I tried to use my devotion to rise above my misery. Through a mixture of words and silence, I may have been able to convey the state of mind to him that way. ‘I cannot restore what I have made you lose out of my foolishness, Kumu,’ he said, ‘but I shall stay by your side to compensate for your lack of vision as much as I possibly can.’

‘That is not practical,’ I replied. ‘I shall simply not allow you to turn your home into a hospital for the blind. You must marry again.’

My voice was close to choking before I could explain in detail why it was absolutely necessary for him to marry. Controlling myself a little after a coughing fit, I was about to continue, when my husband said in an outburst of emotion, ‘I may be obtuse, I may be vain, but that does not mean I am heartless. I have blinded you with my own hands, if I forsake you for that handicap and take another wife, I swear by our family deity Gopinath that I shall be branded a sinner who killed a Brahmin, who killed his father.’

I would not have permitted such a dire vow, I would have prevented it, but my tears were threatening to overflow my heart, my throat and my eyes and roll down my face; in trying to restrain them, I was unable to speak. Listening to my husband, I buried my face in my pillow in a tumult of happiness and wept. I was blind, and yet he would not forsake me! He would hold me to his heart like the suffering man embraces his plight! I did not want such fortune, but the heart is selfish, after all.

Finally, when the first torrent of tears had spent itself, I pressed his head to my breast, saying, ‘Why did you make such a terrible vow! Do you suppose I was entreating you to marry for your own pleasure? I would have fulfilled my objective through my rival. I would have got her to do the things I cannot do for you because I cannot see!’

‘Even maids can do all that. Can I possibly marry a maid for my convenience and put her on the same pedestal as my goddess.’ Raising my face with his fingers, he planted a pure kiss on my forehead; this kiss seemed to open a third eye, I was anointed a goddess on the spot. This is better, I told myself. Now that I have gone blind, I can no longer be the housewife, I shall ascend to the position of goddess to ensure my husband’s well-being. No more lies, no more deception, I banished all the meanness and pretence of the housewife from my life.

All day long I was in conflict with myself. The joy of the certainty that my husband was prevented by his momentous oath from marrying a second time seemed to gnaw at me; I simply could not shake it off. A day might dawn when it would be more beneficial for your husband to remarry instead of adhering to his vow, suggested the goddess who had arrived that day within my being. So what, the woman of old within me responded, since he has taken this oath, he cannot marry again. Perhaps, said the goddess, but that is no reason to rejoice. That is all very well, the human being countered, but since he has vowed etcetera. The same argument over and over again. The goddess only frowned without answering and my heart and soul were shrouded in the darkness of a terrible fear.

My repentant husband dismissed the servants and maids from my presence and prepared to personally look after all my needs. Initially I revelled in my helpless dependence on him even for the slightest thing. For, in this way I would have him to myself constantly. Because I could not see him, my desire to have him by my side all the time grew inordinately. My eyes’ share of the pleasure of my husband’s company now became disputed property between the remaining sense organs, each of them trying to increase their own allocation. If my husband happened to be engaged elsewhere for a long time, I felt suspended in mid-air, unable to hold on to anything, as though I had lost my moorings. Earlier, if my husband was late on his way back from college, I used to go up to the window facing the road he took back home and open it a crack to wait for him. With my eyes I had connected myself to the world that he moved around in. Today every part of my sightless body was in search of him. The primary bridge between his world and mine had been destroyed. Now there was an unbridgeable blindness between us; all I could do now was to wait in helpless eagerness for him to cross over of his own volition from his side to mine. That was why, when he left my side for even a moment, I attempted with all of my sightless body to hold on to him, distraught, praying for his return.

But such yearning, so much dependence, was not good. The burden of the wife on the husband was heavy enough, I could not possibly add on the enormous weight of my blindness. I would bear this universal darkness in my life on my own. I took a single-minded oath not to tie down my husband with this eternal blindness of mine.

I learnt to perform all my duties in the darkness, aided by sounds and scents and touch. In fact, I succeeded in accomplishing many of my household chores with greater felicity than before. Now I began to feel that sight distracts us more than it helps. The eyes see a great deal more than is necessary to go about one’s activities efficiently. And when the eyes act as sentries, the ears become indolent, hearing far less than they should. In the absence of my restless eyes, all my other sense organs began to perform their tasks with quite efficiency.

I no longer allowed my husband to look after me, and I began to take care of all his needs as I once had.

‘You are depriving me of my atonement,’ my husband told me one day.

‘I do not know what you are atoning for, but why should I increase the burden of my sins.’

Say what he might, he breathed a sigh of relief when I set him free. No man is fit for the mission of tending to his blind wife all his life.

After passing his medical examinations, my husband took me to live in a village.

Moving to the countryside made me feel as though I had come back home to my mother. I had left my village for the city at the age of eight. Over the past ten years the memories of my land of birth had become as indistinct as a shadow. As long as I had my eyesight, the city of Calcutta had obscured all my other memories. As soon as I lost my vision, I realized that Calcutta could only keep the eyes busy, it could not fulfil the heart. Once my vision was gone, the village of my childhood days became brighter in my mind, just like the stars in the sky at close of day.

We went to Hashimpur in the middle of December. The place was new to me, I could not surmise what it looked like, but the scents and sensations of my childhood wrapped themselves around me. The same morning breeze from the freshly-ploughed earth moistened by the dew, the same sweet fragrance rising from the fields of cascading gold arhar and of mustard to encompass the sky, the same cowherds’ songs, even the sound of the bullock-cart trundling along the unrepaired road delighted me. With its indescribable smells and sounds, the bygone memories of my earliest years enveloped me like the palpable present; my blind eyes could not protest. I returned to the same childhood, only, my mother was missing. In my mind’s eye I could see my grandmother, her sparse hair let loose as she sat in the yard with her back to the sun, putting homemade delicacies out to dry, but I was unable to hear the bawdy songs of Bhajandas, the village hermit, in her slightly quavering, ancient, weak murmur; the same harvest festival came alive in the dew-soaked sky of winter, but there was no longer a gathering of those little girls, my childhood friends, amongst the crowds husking the newly reaped rice! In the evening I could hear a cow mooing close by, I was reminded of my mother taking the evening lamp into the cowshed; the smell of moistened fodder and the smoke from burning straw seemed to seep into my heart and I could hear the sound of brass bells from the temple of the Vidyalankar family who lived by the village tank. Everything corporeal from the eight years of my childhood seemed to have been filtered out, with only the essence and the fragrances having been gathered and heaped around me.

I remembered too, the vows of my childhood and the prayers at dawn to the gods after picking flowers for them. It had to be admitted that the confusion of incursions and intrusions in Calcutta definitely distorted the reasoning of the mind. The innocent purity of prayers and devotion could no longer be maintained. I remembered the day a friend of mine from the neighbourhood told me after I went blind, ‘Doesn’t it make you angry, Kumu? I wouldn’t have set eyes on my husband again if I were you.’ ‘I certainly do not set eyes on him,’ I told her, ‘for which I blame these accursed eyes, but why should I be angry with my husband.’ Labanya was furious with him for not having consulted a doctor well in time, she was trying to instigate me to anger too. I explained to her that living together meant all kinds of joys and sorrows, sins of omission and commission, deliberate and inadvertent; but if the respect remained intact there was a kind of peace even in unhappiness, else life went by in a spate of temper, competition and conflict. It was bad enough being blind, why increase my load of unhappiness by loathing my husband. Enraged at such an old-fashioned viewpoint from a child like me, Labanya left, jerking her head in contempt. But whatever I might have told her, words are poisonous, they never entirely fail in meeting their objectives. Labanya’s angry statements had cast a few embers into my heart, although I had ground them out under my heel, they had left a mark or two behind. That was why I was saying that there was so much advice, so many suggestions when in Calcutta that one’s reasoning matured and hardened prematurely.

In the village, the fragrance of the cool night-flowering jasmine used for worshipping the gods turned all my hope and trust as fresh and bright as in my childhood. Both my heart and my household were fulfilled by the gods. I prostrated myself, saying, ‘No matter that my eyes are gone, o Lord, for you are with me.’

Alas, I was wrong, to claim your proximity was arrogance too. All I was entitled to aver was that I belonged to you. Oh yes, one day my god will force these words out of my throat. I may have nothing of my own that day, but I must be his. I had no claim on anyone, only on myself.

A few months passed happily. My husband acquired a reputation as a doctor. We saved some money too.

But money isn’t good. It sucks the mind into itself. When the mind is in control it can create its own happiness, but when wealth takes the responsibility for building happiness, the mind is left with nothing to do. Material objects and furniture and so on occupy the space that was once filled by a happy heart. Joy is exchanged for possessions.

I cannot cite any particular instance or incident, but because the blind sense more, or for some reason I do not know, I could clearly discern the changes that came to my husband with our growing affluence. The sensitivity that he had once had to right and wrong, to morality and immorality, seemed to be dwindling by the day. I remember him saying once, ‘I am not studying medicine just to make a living, I shall serve poor people this way.’ His voice used to be stifled with loathing whenever he referred to those doctors who would not even check the pulse of an impoverished dying man without taking their fees in advance. I realized that those days were gone. Once, a destitute woman clung to his feet, entreating him to save her son, but he ignored her. Eventually I forced him to go and treat him, but he did not give the patient his full attention. I know what view he had held about illicit income when we were not well off. But now the bank account had swollen, an official representing a wealthy man arrived for two days of secret confabulation. I had no idea what they discussed, but when he came to me the next day, it was to talk about a great many other things with a good deal of cheerfulness. My intuition told me he had disgraced himself that day.

Where was the husband whom I had seen for the last time before going blind! What had I done for the person who had kissed between my sightless eyes and anointed me his goddess. Those who succumb unexpectedly to a tempestuous passion can still rise again under the force of a new fervour, but I could find no antidote to this constant hardening – every moment, every day – in every fibre of his being, this continuous suppression of the conscience under the trappings of external achievements.

The separation that blindness had wrought between my husband and me was immaterial, but I felt things closing in on me when I realized that he was no longer where I was; I was blind, I lived in an internal world, devoid of light, clutching the first love of my green years, my untrammelled devotion, my undimmed faith – the dew had not yet dried on the sapling in the temple to which I had made sacred offerings with my little girl’s hands at the beginning of my life; but my husband had now vanished somewhere in the desert of life in his pursuit of money, abandoning this cool, shaded, evergreen land! All that I believed in, all that I thought of as moral, all that I considered greater than every joy and possession in the world were the very things that he looked askance at, laughing at them from a remote distance. But once upon a time there had been no rift between us, in our younger days we had begun our journey on the same road, neither he nor I had realized that our paths had diverged; and now, finally, he no longer responded when I called out to him.

Sometimes I wondered whether I made too much of things because I was blind. If my eyesight were intact, perhaps I would have been able to see the world as it really was.

My husband conveyed as much to me. An old Muslim man had come one morning to request him to treat his granddaughter for cholera. ‘I am poor, my son, but Allah will bless you,’ I heard him say. ‘Allah’s blessings will not be enough,’ my husband replied, ‘first tell me what you will do for me.’ My first thought was, why had God only blinded me, why had he not made me deaf as well? The old man sighed deeply, exclaiming ‘Allah!’ and left. I got the maid to fetch him to the back door at once, telling him, ‘Here’s some money for your granddaughter’s treatment, Baba, please bless my husband and ask Doctor Hari next door to go with you.’

But I could not bring myself to eat the entire day. ‘Why do you look so mournful,’ my husband asked on awaking from his afternoon nap. I was about to give my customary answer of the past – nothing’s the matter. But the time of deception was over, I spoke my mind. ‘I keep thinking of telling you, but I simply cannot determine what exactly there is to say. I don’t know if I can explain what’s in my heart, but I am sure you can sense in yours that although we had started our lives in unison, we walk on different paths today.’ ‘Change is the principle on which the world runs,’ my husband smiled. ‘Everyone goes through change when it comes to wealth or beauty or youth, but is nothing meant to be constant?’ I asked. Turning grave, he replied, ‘Look, other women complain about real things lacking in their lives – some of husbands who don’t earn enough, some of husbands who don’t love them; you pluck problems out of the sky.’ I realized at once that blindness had placed a layer over my eyes and planted me outside this ever-changing world; I was not like other women; my husband wouldn’t understand me.

Meanwhile an aunt of my husband’s arrived from her village to enquire after my husband. The first thing she said after both of us greeted her was, ‘Ill luck has robbed you of your eyesight, Bouma, now how will our Avinash manage his home and household with a blind wife. Get him married again.’ Had my husband joked, ‘Very well Pishima, why don’t you arrange something,’ everything would have been clarified. But he said irresolutely, ‘What on earth are you saying, Pishima.’ ‘Have I said anything wrong,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that right, Bouma, what do you think?’ ‘You’re asking the right person for advice, Pishima,’ I laughed. ‘Does anyone seek the victim’s consent before picking his pocket.’ ‘Yes, that’s true,’ she responded. ‘You and I will plan this in secret, Avinash,. But I must tell you, Bouma, the more wives a high-caste man has, the more his wives can revel in his glory. If our boy had got married instead of becoming a doctor, would he have lacked for an income. Patients inevitably die when they consult doctors, and when they die they cannot pay their fees, but by the curse of God the wives of high-caste men never die, and the longer they live the more their husbands stand to gain.’

Two days later my husband asked his aunt in my presence, ‘Can you find a girl from a decent home who can help my wife as a member of the family will, Pishima? She cannot see, if she had a companion by her side constantly I would be relieved.’ This might have been applicable when I had become newly blind, but I did not know how either the household or I suffered now because of my blindness; however, I remained silent without protesting. ‘That’s easy,’ my husband’s aunt responded. ‘My husband’s elder brother has a daughter who’s as well-behaved as she’s pretty. She has come of age, now all she’s waiting for is a suitable husband; with a high-caste groom like you, her family will give her in marriage immediately.’ ‘Who’s talking of marriage,’ said my husband, startled. ‘Do you suppose a girl from a decent family will just come and live in your home unless you marry her.’ This was a valid argument, which my husband could not refute suitably.

Standing alone amidst the eternal darkness of my shuttered eyes, I sent my prayers into the sky, protect my husband, o Lord.

A few days later, when I emerged after my morning prayers, my husband’s aunt said, ‘Hemangini, the niece I was telling you about, has arrived from my village. Himu, this is your elder sister.’

My husband appeared suddenly, but prepared to retreat at the sight of an unknown lady. ‘Don’t go, Avinash,’ said my aunt. ‘Who is this,’ my husband enquired. ‘This is my niece Hemangini,’ answered my husband’s aunt. My husband proceeded to express repeated and superfluous consternation over who had fetched her and when, and other such details.

‘I can clearly understand what’s going on,’ I said to myself, ‘but now the deception begins on top of it. Hide-and-seek, cat-and-mouse, lies! If you wish to break your principles, go ahead and satisfy your wild tendencies, but why abase yourself for my sake. Why these tricks to deceive me.’

Taking Hemangini’s hand, I took her to my bedroom. I ran my hands over her face and body; she appeared to be beautiful, and not less than fourteen or fifteen years old.

‘What are you doing?’ Suddenly the girl laughed sweetly and loudly. ‘Are you trying to exorcise me.’

The sound of her free, simple laughter dispelled the dark cloud between us in an instant. Putting my right arm around her neck, I said, ‘I’m looking at you, my dear,’ and ran my hand over her soft face once more.

‘Looking at me?’ she said, laughing again. ‘Am I an eggplant or cauliflower from your kitchen garden that you’re examining to see how well it’s grown?’

It occurred to me suddenly that Hemangini did not know that I was blind. ‘I am blind, you see,’ I told her. She turned solemn for a few minutes at this. I could clearly make out that she examined my sightless eyes and expression with her own young and curious eyes before saying, ‘Oh, is that why you’ve got Kaki here with you?’

‘I didn’t ask her to come,’ I answered. ‘Your aunt is here by her own choice.’

‘As a favour?’ The girl laughed again as she spoke. ‘Then Lady Favour won’t budge in a hurry. But why did my father send me here.’

My husband’s aunt entered the room. She had been talking to my husband all this while. ‘When are we going back home, Kaki,’ Hemangini asked her as soon as she came in.

‘But you just got here. Why do you want to leave so soon? Never seen a girl so restless.’

‘I don’t see any sign of your leaving soon, Kaki,’ Hemangini said. ‘But then these are your relatives, you can stay here as long as you like; but I shall leave, I’m warning you.’ Taking my hand, she added, ‘Don’t you agree, my dear, you people are not my family, after all.’ Without answering, I drew her to myself. I observed that no matter how formidable my husband’s aunt might be, she was not capable of controlling this girl. Without openly displaying displeasure, my husband’s aunt tried to be nice to her; the girl appeared to shake her off. Laughing off the entire thing as though a spoilt child were having a little fun, my husband’s aunt was about to leave. But a thought struck her, and she returned to tell Hemangini, ‘Come along Himu, it’s time for your bath.’ Coming up to me, Hemangini said, ‘Let’s go together, shall we.’ My husband’s aunt gave up reluctantly; she knew that insisting would only lead to Hemangini’s getting her way, and the conflict between them would be inappropriately revealed to me.

‘Why don’t you have any children,’ Hemangini asked on our way to the tank at the back of the house. ‘How would I know,’ I said with a smile, ‘God did not see it fit to give me any.’ ‘There must be something sinful about you then,’ Hemangini responded. ‘Only the Almighty knows whether there is,’ I replied. As proof, she said, ‘Don’t you see, Kaki is so twisted that she is unable to have children.’ I neither understood the theories of good deeds and bad or joy and sorrow or reward and punishment myself, nor did I try to explain them to the girl; I only sighed and said to Him in my head, no one but you knows! Hemangini put her arms around me at once, saying, ‘But you’re sighing because of what I said! As if anyone bothers with what I say!’

I observed that my husband’s medical practice was being disrupted. Attending to calls from distant places was out of the question, he even attended to nearby calls in a big hurry and returned swiftly. Earlier, when he worked at home, he came into the women’s part of the house only for his meals and to sleep. Now my husband’s aunt sent for him every now and then, he came often on his own too, asking after her. Whenever she called out, ‘Get my paan, will you, Himu,’ it was obvious that my husband was visiting her. Hemangini would take her the paan, or the hair-oil, or the sindoor, as directed, for the first two or three days. But thereafter, she simply refused to go when summoned, directing the maid to provide whatever her aunt had asked for. ‘Hemangini, Himi, Himu,’ her aunt would call – the girl would cling to me tightly as though overcome by compassion; anxiety and melancholy subsumed her. After that she did not refer to my husband even by mistake.

Meanwhile my brother came to visit me. I knew his eyes were sharp. It would be virtually impossible to conceal from him the way things were developing. My brother was a stern judge. He did not know how to forgive the slightest of transgressions. My biggest fear was that my husband would appear a sinner to none other than him. I kept everything hidden under a layer of extra good cheer. I talked incessantly, bustled about, and made elaborate arrangements – all to raise a covering dust-storm, as it were. But this was so uncharacteristic of me that it increased the chances of being caught out. However, my brother was unable to stay very long, for my husband began to express such impatience that it took the form of rudeness. He left. Before his departure, he placed a trembling, affectionate hand on my head, keeping it there for the longest time; I understood the blessings he heaped upon me with all his heart; his tears fell on my tear-stained cheeks.

I remember people were on their way back home in the evening on a market-day in April. A rain-bearing storm was on its way from the distance, the smell of damp earth and a moisture-laden wind were spreading across the sky; companions separated from one another were calling out loudly and desperately to each other in the darkened fields. As long as I was alone with my blinded eyes in my bedroom, the lamps were never lit, lest the flames sear my garments or some other accident take place. Sitting on the floor of my room in that desolate darkness I was praying to the emperor of my eternally blind world with folded hands, saying, ‘When I cannot feel your compassion, Lord, when I cannot fathom your intentions, I hold on to the rudder of my orphaned broken heart with all my might; I bleed but I cannot contain the tempest within me; how many more tests will you subject me to, what power do I have in any case.’ Tears welled in my eyes as I spoke, I sobbed with my head on the bed. I had to do household chores all day. Hemangini stayed by my side like my shadow, I had no opportunity to shed the tears that gathered in my heart; I was weeping that day after a long time, suddenly I sensed the bed shake, there was a rustle of movement from someone, and a moment later Hemangini silently put her arms around me, wiping away my tears with the end of her sari. I had not even realized when and why she had lain down on my bed in the early part of the evening. She asked me no questions, nor did I say anything to her. She ran her cooling hand over my brow. I did not realise when the thunderstorm struck, accompanied by torrential rain; after a long time a pleasant sense of serenity brought peace to my fevered heart.

‘If you don’t come home with me now, Kaki,’ Hemangini told my husband’s aunt the next day, ‘I’m going back by myself with Kaibarta-Dada, I’m warning you.’ ‘Don’t do that,’ my husband’s aunt intervened, ‘I’m going tomorrow, we can all go together. Here, Himu, take a look at the pearl ring my Avinash has got for you.’ She handed over the ring proudly to Hemangini. ‘See how good my aim is, Kaki,’ said Hemangini, flinging the ring though the window at the middle of the tank at the back of the house. My husband’s aunt bristled with rage and displeasure. Taking my hand, she told me repeatedly, ‘You must not tell Avinash about this childishness, Bouma, my son will be very upset. Promise me you won’t!’ ‘There’s no need to entreat me over and over again, Pishima, I won’t tell him a thing.’

‘Don’t forget me, Didi,’ Hemangini told me the next day as she was about to leave. ‘The blind never forget, my dear,’ I told her, running my hands over her face repeatedly. ‘I have no world, all I have is my own heart.’ Breathing in the fragrance of her hair, I kissed her head. My tears streamed down on her tresses.

My world became arid with Hemangini’s departure – when the fragrance, the beauty, the music, the lustre and the tender greenness she had brought into my heart had all dissipated, I stretched my arms out to my home, to my surroundings, to find out how things stood for me. ‘Thank goodness they’ve left,’ my husband said with extra good cheer, ‘I can get down to work now.’ Shame, shame on me. Why this sham on my account. Did I fear the truth. Had I ever feared turmoil. Didn’t my husband know? Had I not accepted eternal darkness calmly when I gave up my eyes.

All this time my husband and I were only separated by blindness, now another gulf was created. My husband never mentioned Hemangini to me, not even by mistake, as though she had been obliterated completely from the world related to him, as though she had never made the slightest impression on it. Yet I could easily discern that he kept himself informed through letters; just as the stalk of the lotus feels a tug as soon as the floodwater enters the lake, in the same way I could sense something in my heart when he became even a little more animated than usual. I was not unaware of the occasions on which he heard from her, nor of those when he did not. But I could not ask him about her. I used to yearn for some news of – or to talk about – the frenzied, tempestuous, dazzling star that had risen briefly in my darkened heart, but I did not have the right to mention her name even once to my husband. This silence, pregnant with words and with pain, reigned unwaveringly between us.

Around the end of April, the maid appeared to ask, ‘The boat is being readied with great attention, Mathakrun, where is Babamashai going.’ I knew that some preparations were afoot; the oppressive silence that precedes a storm, followed by the scattered clouds signalling imminent destruction, had been gathering in my fate; I had realized that the divine destroyer Shiva had been silently amassing devastating forces of annihilation. ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ I told the maid. She left with a sigh, not daring to ask any more questions.

Late that night my husband appeared to tell me, ‘I have been called away somewhere, I have to leave early in the morning. It may be two or three days before I am back.’

‘Why are you lying to me,’ I asked, rising from my bed.

‘Lying to you?’ said my husband indistinctly, his voice trembling.

‘You are going to get married,’ I told him.

He remained silent. I stood without a word. There was no sound in the room for a long time. Eventually I said, ‘Answer me. Say, yes, I am going to get married.’

‘Yes, I am going to get married,’ he repeated like an echo.

‘No, you cannot go,’ I told him. ‘I shall protect you from this terrible danger, this terrible sin. What kind of a wife am I if I cannot do this, what are all those prayers worth?’

The room was silent again for a long time. Slumping to the floor and clutching my husband’s feet, I asked, ‘What sin have I committed, where have I gone wrong, why do you need another wife? Tell me the truth, swear by me.’

‘I am telling you the truth,’ he answered gently, ‘I am afraid of you. Your blindness has wrapped you in an impenetrable covering, I have no right of entry. You are my god, you are as fearsome as a god, I cannot live my life every day with you. I want an ordinary woman, someone I can scold, someone I can be angry with, someone I can love, someone I can buy jewellery.’

‘Carve my heart and look inside. I am an ordinary woman, deep inside I’m nothing but your young bride; I want to trust you, I want to depend on you, I want to worship you; do not raise me to a higher pedestal than yourself – you make me suffer intolerably when you humiliate yourself, let me languish at your feet all the time.’

Could I possibly remember all that I said? Can the agitated sea possibly hear itself roar? All I remembered saying was, ‘As God is my witness, if I have been a pious wife, you shall not violate your sacred vow in any circumstances. Before you can commit such a dreadful sin, either I shall be widowed, or Hemangini shall not live.’ After that, I fainted on the floor.

When I recovered, the birds had not yet begun chirping at daybreak and my husband had left.

I sat down to pray behind the closed doors of my puja room. I did not leave the room all day. In the evening the house shook under the impact of a nor’wester. I did not say, ‘My husband is on the river, protect him, o God.’ All I kept saying with all my heart was, ‘Let my fate bring what it may, but make my husband desist from sinning.’ The entire night passed. I did not abandon my position even the day after. I do not know who gave me strength through my fasting, sleepless hours, but I sat like stone before the stone idol.

In the evening people began knocking on the door. When they finally broke it open, they found me unconscious on the floor.

The first word I heard when I regained consciousness was ‘Didi!’ I found myself lying with my head in Hemangini’s lap. Her bridal dress rustled as she moved her head. So you have rejected my prayers, o God. My husband has fallen.

‘I have come for your blessings, Didi,’ Hemangini said softly, her head bowed.

As stiff as a block of wood for a moment, I sat up the very next instant, saying, ‘Why should I not, my sister! You are not to blamed.’

‘Blame!’ Hemangini laughed in her sweet, high voice. ‘You are not to be blamed for getting married, but I am?’

Putting my arms around Hemangini, I laughed too. ‘As if my prayers make the world go round,’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s His will that’s the last word, not mine. Let this attack assail me physically, but I shall not let it assail my heart, where my faith and my trust reside. I shall remain as I was.’ Planting herself near my feet, Hemangini touched them with her hands and raised her hands to her brow. ‘May you always have good fortune and eternal happiness,’ I said.

‘Your blessings alone won’t do,’ said Hemangini, ‘you must escort your sister’s husband and your sister in with your own chaste hands. You must not feel embarrassed to see him. I shall bring him in here if you will permit me.’

‘Do,’ I answered.

I heard fresh footsteps enter my room after a while. ‘How are you, Kumu?’ I heard someone ask lovingly.

‘Dada!’ I jumped out of bed hurriedly and touched his feet with my hands.

‘What do you mean, Dada,’ said Hemangini. ‘Box his ears, he’s your sister’s husband.’

I understood everything then. I knew that my brother had vowed not to marry; with our mother dead, there was no one to coax him either. Now it was I who had arranged for him to be married. Tears streamed from my eyes, I simply could not staunch them. My brother ran his hand through my hair gently; Hemangini just put her arms around me and laughed.

I could not sleep that night; I awaited my husband’s return anxiously. I could not imagine how he would conceal his disgrace and disappointment.

Extremely late at night, the door opened very slowly. I sat up in bed, startled. My husband’s footsteps. My heart hammered in my breast.

‘Your brother has saved me,’ he said, coming to bed and taking my hand. ‘I was about to succumb to temporary infatuation. The Almighty alone knows the burden I was weighed down by when I climbed into the boat the other day; when the storm struck us in mid-river, I was afraid for my life, but I also wished that I could perish in the waves, for that would save me. When I reached Mathurganj, I heard that your brother had married Hemangini the previous day. I cannot explain with what humiliation and joy I returned to the boat. I have become convinced over these past few days that I shall never be happy if I am parted from you. You are my goddess.’

‘No, I do not wish to be a goddess,’ I smiled. ‘I am the mistress of your house, I am merely an ordinary woman.’

‘You must honour my request too,’ my husband said. ‘Do not embarrass me ever again by turning me into a god.’

The next day the neighbourhood was roused by the sound of ululation and conch shells. While he ate and while he slept, in the morning and at night, Hemangini began to mock at my husband, there was no end to his travails; but no one made the slightest mention of where he had been and what had transpired.

 

* Translated by Arunava Sinha. Other published translations include The Chieftain’s Daughter (Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay), Three Women (Rabindranath Tagore), and Chowringhee (Sankar).