Anandamath

Chapter IV

Bhavananda Goswami one day went to the city. Leaving the broad main road he entered a narrow lane. On both sides of the lane were rows of high houses. Only at noon sometimes the sun shines in this lane. After that the darkness is greater. Bhavananda Thakur entered two-storied home on one side of the lane. He went to a room in the ground floor where a middle aged woman was cooking. She was middle aged, plump, dark, wearing a nose ring, her forehead tatooed, her hair bound in a knot at the top of her head. She was stirring the rice pot noisily striking the pot with the laddie, the straggling ends of her hair stirred by the breeze whilst she was going on speaking to herself with grimaces and shakes of the head which made the top knot on her head move in all directions. At this time Bhavananda Mahaprabhu entered the room and said, “Sister, accept my morning obeisance.”

When the woman saw Bhavananda she began hastily to set right her disarranged clothes. She thought of undoing the top knot on her head and unloosing her hair, but she could not do so with her hands unclean from stirring the rice. That wet and shining hair, alas! at the time of doing poojah she had placed a Bak flower in it. She tried to hide it with the upper half of her cloth, but the cloth was unable to cover it because the woman was wearing a short cloth 2½ yds. in length only. That cloth of 2½ yds. after being wound round her ample girth was almost finished. Still it had tried to cover a portion of her heavy breasts. But reaching the shoulder it had given notice that it could not perform any further function. When she pulled it, reaching her ears it could reach no more. Resigned to the inevitable modest Gouri Devi held the cloth near her ears and swearing to herself in future buy a cloth at least 4 yds. in length said, “Who is it, — Goswami Thakur? Come! Come! But why do you offer morning obeisance to me, brother?

Bhavananda: Because you are my grand-dam.

Gouri: You say so in affection. But you are Goswamins — Gods, you know. All the same since you have offered your obeisance allow me to bless you with a long life. Besides you can offer your obeisance to me. After all I am older.

Now, Bhavananda was at least 25 years younger than Gouri Devi, but clever Bhavananda replied, “What are you talking about, grand-dam? Because you can appreciate humour, I call you my grand-dam. Otherwise when we last compared our age you were found to be six years younger than me, don’t you remember? As you know, there are all sorts of practices among us Vaishnavas. It is my desire to take the permission of the Brahmachari head of our Math and to many you. I came to tell you that.”

Gouri: Fie. What an idea? You should never think of it. I am a widow.

Bhavananda: Then we cannot marry?

Gouri: Well then, brother, do as you think best. You are Pundits. We are mere women. What do we understand about these matters? Then when will it be?

Bhavananda with difficulty controlling his laughter said, “I have only to meet the Brahmachari fellow…….Well! How is she?”

Gouri became sad. She began to suspect that the proposal of marriage was a mere joke. She said, “How else can she be except just as usual?”

Bhavananda: Please go and see once how she is and tell her have come and shall see her.

Gouri Devi threw down the ladle with which she was stirring the rice and climbing the high steep stairs went to the 1st floor. On a torn mat was seated a wonderfully beautiful woman. But on her beauty a deep shadow seemed to lie. It was a shadow like that of a dark cloud cast over broad deep river with overflooded banks glittering in the midday sun. The waves were tossing in mid stream, on the banks the flowering trees were swaying with the breeze and bending under their floral load and the houses too were looking picturesque. The row of boats as they cut across the water left a trail of waves? It was mid-day, yet that dark cloudy shadow cast a gloom over all this beauty. It was the same here. There was the same lovely lustrous thick silken tresses, there was on the calm full forehead the same incomparable pencilled arched eyebrows, the same moist glistening bright black large eyes only without the same glamourous glances, without the same languishing look, just a little lowered. But there were the same crimson lips, there were the same full ripe breasts trembling with every breath, there were the same soft rounded arms which the creepers of the forest might envy. But today in that beauty there was not that brightness, that glitter, that shimmer, that charm. One might even say there did not seem to be the same youthfulness as before. There was only the same beauty and its innate sweetness. And to it was added a new quality — a patient gravity. Previously she appeared to be an incomparably beautiful woman in this world of human beings, but now she appeared to be a cursed Goddess in the abode of the Gods. Scattered about her were two or three manuscripts. On the wall was hung a rosary uttering Harinam and here and there paintings depicting Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra, the overcoming of the demon Kaliya, Nabanarikunja, the stealing of the clothes of the Gopies at their bath by Krishna, the bearing on his hand the hill of Gobordhan by Krishna and other pictures relating to the Braja Lila, Some one had written under the pictures, — “Pictures or Wonders?” Bhavananda entered that room.

Bhavananda asked: Kalyani, are you well?

Kalyani: Will you not stop asking me the same question? What good can come from my physical well-being either to you or to me?

Bhavananda: He who plants a tree, each day he waters it. If the tree grows he is pleased. I planted life and vitality in your dead body. Whether that vitality is increasing or not, should I not ask?

Kalyani: Does the poison tree ever wither?

Bhavananda: Is life poison?

Kalyani: Otherwise why did I try to destroy it by pouring nectar into it?

Bhavananda: I have long desired to ask you the reason, but I had not the courage to ask. Who made your life poisonous?

Kalyani answered quite calmly, “No one made my life poisonous. Life itself is so — my life, your life, all our lives.”

Bhavananda: Truly, Kalyani, my life is poisonous. Since the day...... Have you finished your Sanskrit grammar?

Kalyani: No.

Bhavananda: Your Sanskrit word book?

Kalyani: I do not like it.

Bhavananda: I saw you take some interest in your studies. Why this disgust now?

Kalyani: When a scholar like you is such a great sinner, then it is better not to study. My Lord, what news of my husband?

Bhavananda: Why do you repeatedly ask for news of him? For you he is as good as dead.

Kalyani: I am dead for him, not he for me.

Bhavananda: You died so that he should be dead to you. Then why harp on the same topic, Kalyani?

Kalyani: If one dies, does all relation cease? How is he?

Bhavananda: He is well.

Kalyani: Where is he? At Padachinha?

Bhavananda: Yes, he is there.

Kalyani: What is he doing?

Bhavananda: The same thing that he was doing — constructing a fort and manufacturing arms. With the arms he has manufactured thousands of Santans have been armed. Because of him we are not wanting in guns, shells, cartridges, gun-powder. Amongst the Santans he is indeed the most excellent. He has done us a great service. He is our right hand.

Kalyani: If I had not died, would all this have taken place? He round whose neck is tied a vessel full of mud, can he swim in the ocean of the world? He whose feet are chained, can he run? Why did I you preserve this vain life, Oh! Sannyasin?

Bhavananda: One’s wife is the partner of one’s religion, its support.

Kalyani: Yes, in small religions. But in great religions she is a thorn. By the thorn of poison I took out this thorn of irreligion. Fie on you. Oh sinful wicked Brahmacharin! Why did you revive this life?

Bhavananda: It is well. What I have given let it be mine. That life which was my gift can you give it to me?

Kalyani: Do you know how is my child Sukumari?

Bhavananda: For long I have had no news of her, Jivananda has not gone that way for long.

Kalyani: Can you bring me that news? I have given up my husband. But since I am alive, why should I abandon my child? If I can get Sukumari now, there is some possibility of getting a little joy in life. But why should you do so much for me?

Bhavananda: I shall do so, Kalyani. I shall bring your child to you. But after that?

Kalyani: After that? What do you mean, Thakur?

Bhavananda: Your husband?

Kalyani: Willingly I have given him up.

Bhavananda: If his vow is successfully fulfilled?

Kalyani: Then I shall be his. Does he know that I am alive?

Bhavananda: No!

Kalyani: Do you not meet him?

Bhavananda: I do.

Kalyani: Does He not speak about me?

Bhavananda: No, the wife who is dead what relationship can the husband have with her?

Kalyani: What are you talking about?

Bhavananda: You can marry again. You have been reborn.

Kalyani: Bring me my child.

Bhavananda: I shall do so. You can marry again.

Kalyani: Whom? You?

Bhavananda: Will you marry?

Kalyani: You?

Bhavananda: If that be so?

Kalyani: Where will your Santan religion be?

Bhavananda: It will be drowned in fathomless waters.

Kalyani: Your future life?

Bhavananda: That too will be drowned in fathomless waters.

Kalyani: This great vow?

Bhavananda: It will be drowned in fathomless waters too.

Kalyani: For what will you let all these be drowned in fathomless waters?

Bhavananda: For you. The heart is without control, whether it be that of a man, a saint — one who has attained fulfilment and release, or even if he be a God. The religion of the Santans is my very life. But for the first time I tell you today that you are dearer to me than my very life. From the day when I gifted you with life, from that day I sold myself as a slave at your feet. I did not know before that there was so much beauty in this world. Had I seen such beauty I would never have embraced the religion of the Santans. In the fire of your beauty my religion is burnt to ashes. My religion has been burnt, my life still remains. These four years my life too is being burnt in the fire of your beauty. It cannot be preserved any longer. It is a burning fire, Kalyani, but the wood which is to catch fire, that is gone. My life is ebbing away. For four years I have borne it. I can bear it no longer. Will you be mine?

Kalyani: I have heard from your own mouth that according to the religion of the Santans, he who is overcome by lust, his penance is death. Is this true?

Bhavananda; It is true.

Kalyani: Your penance then is death.

Bhavananda: My only penance is death.

Kalyani: If I fulfil your desire will you die?

Bhavananda: Certainly I shall die.

Kalyani: And if I do not fulfil your desire?

Bhavananda: Still death is my penance. Because my heart has become subject to my senses.

Kalyani: I shall not fulfil your desire. When will you die?

Bhavananda: In the next battle.

Kalyani: Then leave me. Will you send my child to me?

Bhavananda with tears in his eyes said, “I shall do so. When I die will you remember me?”

Kalyani: I shall do so but as a sinful breaker of vows.

Bhavananda went away. Kalyani sat down to read the manuscripts.