First Light (70 page)

There were no horses for the last lap of the journey which was such a steep climb that only
human feet could negotiate it and
that too after exercising the utmost caution. Nivedita's feet were still sore and hurting but she walked rapidly ahead her eyes darting this way and that for a glimpse of Vivekananda. But he wasn't at the front of the file either and Nivedita was forced to walk on keeping pace with the others.

The path wound upwards dramatically over slippery snow-covered rocks for about two thousand feet. This was the most dangerous part of the journey. It was easy to lose one's footing and be thrown down the precipice thousands of feet below. Several accidents took place each year most of them fatal.

After inching their way painfully over steep rocks and jagged cliffs for several hours the pilgrims beheld a sight that sent a shout of jubilation through their lines. Before them lay a stretch of level ground covered with a blanket of fresh fallen snow which glimmered like a ghostly sea of silver under the fading moon. On the other side the eastern sky was paling with the first grey light of dawn. Singing and ullulating the frenzied pilgrims ran across—slipping over the snow, falling and reaching out to one another. The perils of the journey lay behind them. Amarnath was less than a mile away.

Nivedita tried to stand aside and let the others pass. She wanted to wait for Vivekananda. But the crowd washed over her in joyous tumult and carried her along on its waves. On and on she went, propelled by the force of faith behind her, feet flying, her ears deafened by cries of
Hara Hara Bom Bom
till she was washed ashore at the mouth of the cave of Amarnath. Was this the merging she had envisaged and yearned for? If it was, why did it leave her so restless and dissatisfied?

Nivedita entered the cave along with the others. It was huge and filled to overflowing with men and women singing, shouting, laughing, rolling over the ground and sobbing with joy in front of the shining pillar of ice that was the phallus of Shiva. Nivedita stood on one side her back pressing against a rock. She felt a sense of anti-climax. Was this all there was to see at the end of such a long, hard perilous journey? Water dripping from a crack in the roof and solidifying into a column of ice? What was so wonderful about it? She had expected . . . she didn't know what she had expected. But the reality was far from overwhelming. She had hoped that the collective faith of the people around her would
touch a chord in her soul; would set it quivering with ecstasy. But nothing like that happened. Dismayed, she looked on the phenomenon with lacklustre eyes.

Vivekananda came in after a while. He had bathed in the river and his dripping body was naked except for the flimsy bit of saffron that covered his genitals. His eyes were stark and staring and his feet unsteady as he ran towards the linga. Flinging himself, face downwards, he knocked his head on the ground several times. Then, rising, he stood with his eyes closed and his head bowed over folded hands. His lips moved in a silent chant. After a few minutes, it seemed to Nivedita that his body was swaying from side to side. Afraid that he would fall, she made a rush towards him, but stopped herself just in time. She remembered that he was a Hindu and a sadhu and she a woman; a Christian woman. She couldn't pollute him with her touch in this holy place.

But Vivekananda didn't fall. He gathered himself together with a supreme effort and walked out of the tent reeling and stumbling. Nivedita followed him. ‘Do you feel unwell?' she asked anxiously. ‘Shall I send for Shahid-ul-lah? There might be a doctor among the pilgrims—' Vivekananda turned his large, bloodshot eyes upon her face, ‘I saw Him!' he cried in a wondering voice. ‘He revealed himself before me! Do you hear me Margot? The great Mahadev—first and supreme among the gods of the pantheon—stood before me in a cloud of blinding light . . .' Nivedita looked down at her feet. She was embarrassed and didn't know how to respond.

The return journey was much easier. Crossing the Hathyar lake they reached Pahalgaon on the afternoon of the following day. Joe and Olé, who had missed them sorely, were standing by the Lider waiting for them. After a wash Vivekananda and Nivedita sat down to their first hot meal after nearly a week. Tucking into freshly made chapatis and vegetables and washing them down with great gulps of smoking tea, Vivekananda gave a sigh of satisfaction. ‘A cigar is all I need now to make life perfect,' he said. Lighting one, he pulled deeply on it. Joe and Olé, consumed with curiosity, pressed him for an account of all that had taken place. ‘I've had the most awesome experience of my life Joe,' Vivekananda said, ‘The sight of the linga set my pulses
racing. My heart trembled like a leaf. I shut my eyes. The light was unbearable. Then I felt something pulling at me; pulling me out of myself. I felt as though I was floating in space. I was frightened and ran out of the cave. But in my heart I knew that the great God Shiva, Destroyer and Preserver, was drawing me to Him . . .'

After hearing Vivekananda's account Joe turned to Nivedita. ‘What was your experience Margaret?' Nivedita blushed. ‘To tell you the truth,' she began, throwing a nervous glance at her guru, ‘I enjoyed the journey very much. The scenery is spectacular. But inside the cave, I felt nothing—nothing at all. And I saw nothing that, in my eyes, appeared to be a miracle. The famed linga was only a trick of nature. I'm sure there are dozens of such ice pillars in the caves of Europe. I couldn't see what there was in it worthy of veneration.'

‘The eyes of your mind are shut like a newborn's,' Vivekananda said, ‘And your soul sleeps within you. That is why you saw nothing and felt nothing.'

‘I admit it,' Nivedita confessed humbly. ‘I'm raw, ignorant—not ready yet for a spiritual experience. But if you had helped me just a little; if you had sent only a tiny spark of the great fire that lit your soul I could have—'

‘You talk like a child Margot,' Vivekananda cut her short. Then, looking at Joe, he said, ‘She understands nothing. Yet the great pilgrimage she undertook will not go waste. She'll receive its fruits when she awakens—older and wiser.'

The incarceration of Balgangadhar Tilak sent shock waves not only through the country but across the seas to Great Britain. The killers of Rand and Ayerst had been caught and hanged. Not a shred of evidence had come to light connecting Tilak with the crime. The English intelligentsia was disturbed and angry. Why was Her Majesty's government in India following a policy of such brutal repression particularly against a highly educated, distinguished leader of the people like Tilak? What was his crime? That he had criticized the inhuman behaviour of the Plague Control officials in his newspaper? What, then, was the meaning of the term
freedom of expression
?
Max Mueller, acting as their mouthpiece, appealed to Queen Victoria to give orders to release her distinguished Indian subject without delay.

With Tilak's release the others, held without evidence, in the Rand and Ayerst murder case were set free one by one. Thus, over a year after being forcefully taken from the dharmashala in Sitavaldi, Bharat found himself standing outside the prison gates. His money and belongings were returned to him and he was given, in addition, a sum of one hundred and twenty rupees as wages for his labour in the oil mills.
In all these months Bharat hadn't shaved or cut his hair. It stood out from his head, now, in a vast tangled thatch and was the breeding ground of thousands of lice. Some of them had travelled south and lodged themselves in his beard. Bharat couldn't sleep at night for the constant activity in his head and face. Sometimes, finding the itching unbearable, he scratched so viciously with his broken fingernails that blood ran down his scalp and chin.

Bharat's first action, on walking out of the prison gates, was to enter a barber's shop and shave the whole mass off. His head felt light and delightfully free and, with this
new-found freedom, the old compulsion to wander about as a roaming sadhu dropped from him. Looking into the barber's mirror he saw a clean shaved head, fair healthy cheeks and a neat profile. He decided to
become a gentleman and get himself a new lease of life. But where would he go? Calcutta was barred to him. So was Puri with its unhappy memories. Here, in Poona too, he had had a bad experience. Suddenly he thought of Patna. He had been there once and had liked the city. He decided to go to Patna.

He bought himself a full suit of Western clothes and shoes to go with it. Booking himself into a hotel, he bathed, changed out of his filthy saffron and wore his new clothes. Then he ate a lavish meal, went to the station and boarded a train to Patna.

Taking his seat in a second class compartment Bharat looked curiously about him. The young man sitting in a corner by the window drew his attention. Not for his looks, that was certain. He was of medium height and his body spare and frail in its loosely fitting English suit. A scattering of pockmarks on a face without beauty or distinction rendered it plainer than ever. What compelled Bharat's attention were his strange ways. He had six or seven books open before him from which he read haphazardly between puffs from a cigarette. He smoked incessantly and was extremely clumsy in his movements. He was constantly dropping something or the other—a book, his spectacles, his cigarette. And if anyone came forward to help him pick them up, he shrank into his corner and cried ‘No, No' as though in extreme distress. Bharat wondered if he was an Anglo-Indian. Whenever he spoke it was in the language of the rulers. Bharat heard him ask a peanut vendor for an anna's worth of peanuts in English.

Presently the young man rose from his seat dropping a book and a handkerchief at the same time. As he stooped to pick them up Bharat saw that his purse was halfway out of his pocket. ‘Mind your purse,' he warned. The young man straightened himself and pushed the purse deeper into his pocket. ‘Thanks,' he said and walked swaying down the aisle. Curious to see what he was reading Bharat moved to his corner. And then he got a shock. The book nearest to him was Bankimchandra's
Krishna Kantér Will.
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. A wave of nostalgia swept over him. He hadn't read Bankimchandra in so many years!

The young man returned a few minutes later. He had washed his face and was wiping it with a large handkerchief. ‘Can I borrow this book for a couple of hours?' Bharat asked him in
Bengali, ‘What?' It seemed the young man didn't understand Bengali. Bharat was puzzled. He was reading a Bengali book but couldn't speak or understand the language! How was that possible? He repeated his request in English and the young man agreed instantly. ‘Yes, of course,' he said, then went on to add, ‘Going far?'

‘Up to Patna.'

The young man put out his hand and shook Bharat's. ‘I am A. Ghosh. Coming from Baroda and going to Deoghar.'

‘My name is Bharat Kumar Singha,' Bharat said in Bengali, ‘I'm coming from Poona. You don't look a Bengali but you have to be one with a name like Ghosh.' His travelling companion frowned.

‘Say that again,' he said. Bharat obliged, whereupon he answered ‘Yes—Bengali by birth.' Then, opening his cigarette case, he offered Bharat its contents. Bharat helped himself and said in English, ‘You read Bengali fiction. That too Bankimchandra. Yet you can't speak Bengali?' A. Ghosh smiled. ‘I can,' he said with charming candour. ‘But I make many mistakes. And I can't understand it when spoken to, unless each word is enunciated slowly and properly.' He, then, proceeded to tell Bharat about himself. His full name was Aurobindo Ghosh. He taught in a college in Baroda and was the Gaekwad's private secretary. He was going to Deoghar to see his maternal grandfather who was old and ailing.

‘How long have you been in Baroda?'

‘Seven years.'

‘That's too short a time to forget your mother tongue.' Aurobindo smiled. The story of his life, he told Bharat, was strange; unlike anyone else's. He had never known mother's love as a child. She was insane and had been so for as long as he could remember. His father was a famous civil surgeon and a pukka sahib. Aurobindo and his two elder brothers had received their primary education from Loretto Convent in Darjeeling. Then the whole family had moved to London where his youngest brother Barindra was born. After some years his parents had returned to India with the infant Barin. The others had been left behind in England. Their father had sent them money from time to time, at first, but soon the sums stopped coming and the boys were left to
fend for themselves. Aurobindo had spent the next fourteen years in England. His parents, it seemed, had forgotten that he existed. It was in England that Aurobindo had met the Gaekwad of Baroda. Impressed with the youth's learning, the former had offered him a job and taken him along with him to his kingdom. Through his fourteen years' sojourn in a foreign land Aurobindo had tried to cling to his memories of the Bengali alphabet, to which he had been introduced as a child, and could still recognize the letters.

‘Amazing!' Bharat exclaimed.

‘Bengali is our language,' Aurobindo continued, ‘and its literature our pride. Where in the world can you find a writer of the quality of Bankim?'

‘Have you read Robi Babu?'

‘No, but I've heard of him. I must get hold of some volumes of his poetry when I'm in Calcutta. What do you do in Patna?'

‘Nothing,' Bharat answered with a smile ‘I'm going there to look for a means of living.'

‘Is Patna a good place for that?'

‘Not really. I had to go somewhere. So I thought—why not Patna?'

‘Why don't you come to Baroda? English-speaking young men like you can easily find employment there. Besides, I could appeal to the Maharaja on your behalf. He'll never turn down a recommendation of mine.' Then, warming to his theme, Aurobindo continued, ‘Why don't you come with me to Deoghar for the present? My grandfather would be happy to offer you his hospitality. And, then, we could go back to Baroda together.'

‘But my ticket is up to Patna!'

‘That can be easily remedied. We'll extend it to Joshidi by paying the difference. Meeting you was really lucky for me. I was looking for someone to help me with my Bengali.'

Bharat smiled and shook his head. ‘Not this time,' he said, ‘I have some personal work in Patna which needs immediate attention. But I'll keep your offer in mind and come and see you in Baroda.' He wondered how his new friend would react if he knew that Bharat had been held on the charge of a murder conspiracy and was just out of jail.

On reaching Deoghar, the first thing Aurobindo did was to
bathe and change into a dhuti and kurta of coarse cotton from the mills of Ahmedabad. Lighting a cigarette he asked the old family retainer who was hovering around, ‘Where's Barin?'

‘Where else?' the old man pushed his lower lip out in sullen indignation. ‘That whore keeps showing up from time to time. And he runs off to her. There's no stopping him.'

Aurobindo threw his cigarette away and came to the room where his grandfather Rajnarayan Bosu lay on his bed. He was paralysed from neck downwards but he could lift
his arm just a little. Looking on him, with his great thatch of snow white hair and merry black eyes, no one could guess that he was dying a slow, weary death. ‘
Ki ré
Aura!' he exclaimed, smiling up at his grandson. ‘You've grown into a really
big boy. And I hear great things of you. They say you have enough learning in your head to put a dozen pandits to shame. Come, come closer.' Lifting a trembling hand the old man stroked the boy's cheeks and chin.

‘How old are you Aura?'

‘Twenty-seven.'

‘Twenty-seven! And still unwed!' Rajnarayan Bosu gave a great cackle of laughter. ‘An eligible boy like you with a job as a king's secretary! Do you mean to tell me that the girls' fathers have left you alone all these years? Very bad,' he bared his toothless gums in a grin and wagged his snowy beard, ‘We must remedy the situation at once. I haven't eaten at a wedding feast for years. How I long to dip my hand, right up to the wrist, in a rich mutton curry!'

‘I'm not ready for marriage yet Dada Moshai.' Aurobindo's grandfather pretended he hadn't heard. ‘I'll look around for a suitable bride,' he said. ‘Brahmo girls are being well educated these days. You won't have a problem conversing with your wife. By the way, haven't the Congress
netas
got to you yet? From what I hear it's a den of anglophiles. They'll snap you up.'

‘I have no faith in the Congress. It's completely out of touch with the needs of the people. All the leaders do is curry favour with the Government.' He rose to leave. ‘You must rest now Dada Moshai. I'll see you again in the evening.'

Coming out of his grandfather's room Aurobindo lit a cigarette and waited for his brother. Barin came home towards noon. His face was flushed and his eyes secretive. Aurobindo
looked on him with affection. ‘Where were you?' he asked. ‘I heard you left home early this morning.'

‘I was with Ranga Ma,' the boy answered shuffling his feet. ‘Don't you have school today?'

‘Ranga Ma wouldn't let me come away without a meal.' His face started working and tears glistened in his eyes. ‘Why can't I stay in her house, Sejda? No one loves me here except Dadu. If you would only tell Bara Mama—'

Aurobindo ruffled the boy's hair. This little brother of his was even more unfortunate than he was. After trying out a variety of treatments without success on his mad wife, Swarnalata, Dr Krishnadhan Ghosh had decided to keep her in a house in Rohini with his two youngest children. For himself he had taken a mistress and, moving with her to a house in Gomes Lane in Calcutta, he had proceeded, like many of his ancestors, to drown his sorrows in drink. Barin and his sister were left to grow like weeds in the fearful shadow of their violent, insane mother. She would beat them mercilessly whenever the whim took her, then cackle with laughter to see them weep. They tried to run away several times but were easily caught and brought back to be beaten black and blue. One day Krishnadhan Ghosh came to Rohini and was appalled at what he saw. The children were emaciated from lack of proper nourishment and their eyes had the furtive look of living with constant terror. He realized that if he left them where they were they would grow up as ignorant and uncouth as street children. He requested Swarnalata to let him take them away. But, though she gave up her daughter quite readily, the mad mother refused to part with her son. Separated from his sister Barin's life became harder than ever.

One evening, as Barin was playing in the garden, a big ferocious looking man walked in. Approaching Swarnalata, who sat on a bench under the bakul tree, he said, ‘Would you like to buy some flowers Memsaheb?' Then, throwing the basket of flowers at her feet, he clutched Barin's hand and, pulling him along with him, ran out of the gate into the street.

Recovering from her initial shock and bewilderment in a few seconds, Swarnalata ran into the kitchen and picked up a long evil-looking knife. With this in her hand she chased the kidnapper but, her clothes restricting her movements, she wasn't able to
catch up with him. Dragging the weeping, protesting boy over the rough, uneven ground his abductor look him to the station and hauled him into a train to Calcutta.

When they reached the house in Gomes Lane, the next morning, Barin's body was a mass of bruises and he had fainted from fear and exhaustion. On regaining consciousness, he felt a soft hand stroking his face and arms and a sweet voice murmuring in his ear, ‘Oh! My poor baby! My lump of gold. How you have suffered!' Little Barin had never heard such words in his life, nor such a voice. From that day onwards the tall beautiful woman, who was his father's mistress, become Barin's Ranga Ma.

It was Krishnadhan's great good fortune that he had found himself a woman whose beauty of mind and soul matched that of her exquisite face and form. It was she who had insisted that he take his children away from the mad woman and give them proper care and education. While Krishnadhan lived she had been, to him, all that a wife should be. She had given him a happy home, been a mother to his children and had even, by gentle persuasion, weaned him away from his drink.