Divya, page 18
‘And man is surely immortal,’ said Marish. ‘His immortality lies in the continuity of the human race, which has gone on for thousands and thousands of years.’
Under Marish’s influence, Ratnaprabha ceased to be preoccupied with immortality and the other world, and began to think about the meaningfulness of the present. Even though she had acquired wealth, she did not consider her life to be meaningful, since she was merely a source of distraction and enjoyment for the community. The life of a high-born housewife held the ultimate attraction for her, but she felt that she had lost the chance of becoming one herself. Who would accept her as a wife? Into whose hands could she entrust herself? Her life, at best, stimulated the desire for life in others.
Even though she had all the gifts to earn a fortune as a courtesan, Anshumala was not vain. She was indifferent towards her own self, but for Ratnaprabha she felt a profound attachment and gratitude. From the very beginning, Ratnaprabha had displayed sympathy and affection for her. And on learning that she was the pupil of Mallika, her own teacher, and that the girl loved her and looked upon her as her saviour, she began to dote on her. Anshumala addressed her as ‘mistress’ while Ratnaprabha called her ‘sister’ or ‘friend’. Already in her forties, Ratnaprabha had come to regard Anshumala not as a rival who challenged her place and position, but rather as a worthy successor who would perpetuate her art and her tradition. Out of a sense of pride, admiration and love, she took to calling her not Anshumala but ‘Anshuprabha’, commingling both their names.
At the appearance of Anshumala in Ratnaprabha’s concert hall the pleasure lovers of Mathurapuri went into ecstasies over her. But Anshumala was not thrilled by such adulation; she remained as distant and unapproachable as before.
Anshu’s aloofness merely heightened the ardour of her admirers. They showered presents on her in the hope of ingratiating themselves. But that did not work either, and soon her indifference began to turn them off.
Rumours spread in the town, that she was no courtesan but a mere performing doll; that she was more like a marionette who went through the motions of ritual dances before the image of a god than a real dancer; that her alluring smiles and bewitching glances were mere formal gestures of art and carried no genuine feeling for anyone. She had nothing inside her and, therefore, she could give out anything. She was devoid of that warmth which is the essential quality of a desirable woman. She was only a jointed puppet whose strings were pulled by Ratnaprabha.
Such comments would reach the ears of Devi Ratnaprabha, and she herself would observe the behaviour that led to the rumours. She would worry about Anshu’s depression and become anxious about her future. Neither could she say anything directly to Anshu for fear of hurting her feelings, nor could she remain silent.
She even called in Prithvi, the well-known tantrik, to exercise his skills to find out what was ailing Anshu, but to no effect. Hesitantly, she broached the subject with Anshu one day. ‘Death comes to us all, one day or the other,’ she said. ‘Why go on this way, with a half-dead, half-alive existence? Is it proper to ignore the wishes of those from whom we receive the means of subsistence? People come to us to forget their sorrows. If we too offer them sadness and dejection, then what can they expect from us? Art without purpose is like a beautifully coloured artificial fruit, which can give no real satisfaction. Why offend the feelings of those who offer their love in the hope of receiving the same in return? Love is nothing but regard given active expression. You wanted once to become a courtesan in order to be a free woman. You must have faith in and respect for your vocation. It’s a duty one owes to one’s profession …’ There was so much more that Ratnaprabha wanted to say but she could find no words for it.
Anshu joined her hands and said in the subdued tones of a supplicant, her eyes brimming with tears, ‘Mistress, you have purchased this body of mine. My mind is not under my control. You have shown me nothing but the greatest kindness. I wish to submit my mind also to your bidding. I am most grateful.’
Seeing that her advice, however well-meaning, had troubled Anshu, Ratnaprabha did not return to the subject. Had Marish been there, she thought, he would probably have brought Anshu around with his arguments and lifted her out of her despondency. She would have listened to him with attention, and very likely, changed her outlook. Ratnaprabha often thought about Marish, but now she felt she needed him as an adviser.
Marish was in the habit of arriving unexpectedly, like some bird landing for a rest on its migratory flight. When he wearied of Sagal, he would proceed to Magadh by way of Shursen; spurned in Magadh he would again return to Shursen; and when Shursen palled on him, he would again set out for Sagal.
Every year, in the month of Shravan, a Festival of Swings was celebrated in Vrindavan, a suburban district of Mathurapuri. Pleasure-loving men and women assembled there in large numbers from all corners of the land. The common people would go there for entertainment, while the connoisseurs of art would meet for argument and debate on aesthetics. There would be a rich variety of performances: displays of musical virtuosity in the well-tempered voices of experienced singers and the graceful performances of dance by troupes of young trainees. The best artist would be honoured by the audience, and honours would be conferred on the state to which the artist belonged—Magadh, Kuru, Madra, Malla, etc. But for the last three years in succession, ever since Anshu had appeared in Ratnaprabha’s troupe, the honour had been won by Mathurapuri. On account of the Festival of Swings, Anshumala’s fame had spread far and wide.
The festival took place during the rainy season. A large number of devotees of the performing arts flocked to Mathurapuri. Their arrival would cause a rush in Ratnaprabha’s concert hall, so much so that there would not be enough seats. Even a heavy downpour in the evening did not discourage people from attending her concerts. After the month of Shravan, rains continued far into Bhadrapad. Only during the worst of the monsoon rain showers, when the roads became impassable, did Ratnaprabha and Anshumala get some respite.
On one such evening, Ratnaprabha sat alone in the veranda of her house, musing over her life and the future of her friend, Anshu, when suddenly Marish appeared, escorted by a maidservant. Ratnaprabha’s eyes lit up with joy at the sight of her long-awaited friend. It also flashed through her mind, that, very likely, Marish would be able to dispel Anshu’s gloom.
It was raining heavily. Ratnaprabha and Marish sat on the veranda reclining against cushions. The pouring rain looked like a sheet of water before them. In Ratnaprabha’s concert hall, the tambourine and the kettledrum were silent. Across the sky, dark and heavy thunderclouds billowed with rumbling sounds that seemed to parody the silent tambourine and kettledrum. Caressed by a soft breeze, the trees appeared to wave their limbs in imitation of the resting dancers. Ratnaprabha asked the slave-girl, who stood waving the fan behind her, to call Anshu and to bring the wine tray.
At the mention of Anshumala’s name, Marish felt curious, ‘Devi, good luck has brought you a pupil who has spread your fame far and wide. I would certainly like to see her and also to have the pleasure of watching her performance.’
‘I called Anshu because I want you to meet her. But my friend, don’t be disappointed if you find her poor company. Off the stage, she spends all her time wrapped up in her own thoughts; dance and music for her are merely a means of earning a livelihood.’
Marish waited with eager curiosity.
Anshumala came, dressed in an expensive but casual white dress. She wore no ornaments, not even a flower. Sad and listless, she had little consciousness of her charm, only heightened by her careless dressing.
With a flicker of a smile, Anshu joined her hands in greeting to the visitor, ‘The humble servant to the Court Dancer offers her salutations to the honoured guest.’
Marish found himself staring at her petal-like lips. He raised his eyes and felt a flash of recollection. In the sad, set features of this timid woman he recognized the young dancer in the white costume of the lovelorn swan-maiden who had danced five years before in Sagal’s Festival of Spring.
At a sign from Ratnaprabha, Anshu sat down on the mattress, and as desired by her mistress, filled a bowl with wine and held it out with both hands to the visitor.
Marish continued to look at Anshu with astonishment. Anshu, finally recognizing him, sat petrified under his piercing gaze.
Ratnaprabha sized up the situation and put her arm round Anshu in reassurance. Noticing the extreme bewilderment in Marish’s eyes, she smiled and with a corner of her stole screened Anshu’s face. ‘Arya,’ she said jokingly, ‘you will frighten my gentle friend by staring so hard.’
Lost in memories, Marish’s gaze remained fixed on Anshu. Then his lips moved, ‘Kumari Divya!’ he muttered.
Speechless, Anshu lowered her eyes.
Ratnaprabha looked at Marish and then at Anshu. The faces of both had darkened like the overcast sky before rainfall. For a few seconds she hesitated, and then, taking with her the slave-girl who had been waving the fan all the while, and issuing a string of instructions to her, she moved off the veranda.
‘Kumari Divya,’ Marish muttered again, after a few seconds.
Anshu sat motionless, holding the bowl of wine in her hands. She lowered her head still further. ‘Arya, I am no longer Divya,’ she said in a faint voice. ‘I am no longer a kumari (virgin) either. I am Anshumala now, dancer–courtesan and the bought slave of Devi Ratnaprabha. Do, pray, accept this bowl of wine.’
With a deep sigh, Marish took the bowl, but put it back on the tray. His mind, soaring on the wings of memory, once again flew towards the past. ‘How did you happen to come here, to this far-off place?’
‘Fate brought me here, Arya, my karma,’ Anshu answered in a firm voice, raising her eyes and looking at Marish in the dim light of the cloudy evening.
This mention of fate and karma exasperated Marish. He felt as though he had been rudely jolted out of his reverie. ‘What has fate or karma to do with it?’ he said. ‘Fate is nothing but an expression of human helplessness. And to blame your present way of life on karma, as the result of your deeds in a previous life, means nothing but blindness to the cause of suffering and helplessness. Dear girl, fate and karma are nothing more than this.’
‘Arya, that is what your humble servant meant. I feel completely helpless, and I am ignorant of the cause of my helplessness.’
Marish felt relieved by Anshu’s answer, which seemed to reflect his own ideas. But her resignation hindered further conversation on the subject. Marish sat silent, his eyes fixed on the bowl of wine on the tray. Anshu once again picked up the bowl and dutifully offered it to the guest, ‘Pray, do have some wine.’
Marish, without raising his eyes, quietly accepted the wine and gulped it down like a bowl of medicine. He turned his eyes towards the curtain of driving rain, which seemed to fill the gap between heaven and earth.
‘Several years ago,’ Marish said, his eyes still turned away, ‘at the time of the death of the Chief Justice, I had occasion to hear some stray mention of you. It was said that the Chief Justice’s great-granddaughter had died of some serious ailment. There was suspicion of suicide … And I find you here, under a different name. Am I dreaming now, or was I dreaming then?’
Hearing something like a stifled sob, he turned to look at Anshu. Her face was covered by her stole. ‘This subject has pained you. I’ll say nothing more about it,’ Marish said sympathetically.
Struggling to control herself, Anshu said humbly, ‘Arya, separation from dear ones does cause pain. The grandsire was the only person I could turn to.’
‘Of course, separation causes great sorrow, but, lady, death is the law of life. The Chief Justice’s death caused much sorrow to the people of Sagal. For more than a hundred years he had been the pride of Sagal, the very soul and spirit of justice. His sacred memory will continue to be a source of pride. When the light of his life was extinguished, Sagal was plunged in gloom. But, gentle lady, such sorrow too falls to the lot of fortunate people, just as anxiety for the health of one’s children contains within itself the joy of being a father or mother.’ Marish and Anshu were silent for some time.
Ratnaprabha returned with the slave-girl, carrying a lamp. Finding Marish and Anshu sitting in silence in the dark, she tried to lighten the mood, and said jocularly, ‘Those gifted ones who can read each other’s thoughts without uttering a word, have no need to go on sitting in the dark at such a late hour.’
When neither of them gave any answer, Ratnaprabha touched Anshu on the shoulder and said, ‘Get up, my dear, it is already late. Arrangements have been made for the guest in the guest house. He must be tired after the long day’s journey.’
The memories of the past were like a nightmare to Anshu; bringing back so much horror and pain. And the future was a void. She did not think about the past any more, for there was hardly a time in it which did not move her to tears. She found herself unable to think of happiness. What was happiness? A rich family, a loving husband, beautiful children? She had had her chances for all of these and lost them, and in consequence found only pain. She remembered the words of the Buddhist monk, Cheebuk. He had been right when he said, ‘Joy and sorrow cling to each other. Pain comes only when one desires happiness. There is much more pain in the world than there is happiness. When the world is so full of sorrow, how can anyone escape it?’ Anshu had gone through so much that she had become indifferent to pain and happiness alike. By making herself insensitive to feeling and by accepting her situation with resignation, she had attained a certain peace of mind. Her physical activities were mechanical and devoid of any purpose. Her mind, no doubt, could respond, could think, but it stopped prompting her to act, to take an initiative, to strive or to construct. She had become fixed in the tendency to withdraw from life, a detached observer who could see only futility on all sides.
Anshu spent a restless night. When the water in a pond is disturbed, it stirs up the mud and brings up the weeds from the bottom. So the contact with Marish had brought to the surface the horrible memories from her past. The peace of mind achieved in three years had been shattered in a few seconds.
She asked the maidservant to remove the light from her room, and kept tossing and turning in her bed for a while. She recalled the kind of life she used to lead in the house of Chakradhar, the priest. Lying on the bare stone floor, she would be so sleepy that she did not know where she was. She would wake up only when the mistress shouted for her, or when little Shakul woke up crying. The mistress would scold and curse her for having such sound sleep.
The drumming of rain was so incessant that it dulled all other sounds of the night. Anshu thought, ‘Every drop of rain makes its own little sound as it falls to the earth but taken together, they become just a dull monotone. Even so, each sorrow produces its own pain, but innumerable sorrows, all coming together, incapacitate a person from feeling anything, from experiencing pain.
‘Arya Marish kept me company in silence, as if he was sharing my grief. Why should he feel anything towards me? Hundreds of pleasure seekers come here for entertainment. They are concerned only with that side of my existence, which they see before their eyes. Perhaps Marish had eyes for the inner reality, and could not remain indifferent to what lay hidden behind the appearance.
‘Five years ago, I had found Marish’s remark flippant; his words had filled me with revulsion and disgust. That prophecy of Marish, which was more like a curse than a prediction, has proved only too true. Why do these admirers flock to my mistress’s concert hall? In Sagal, what was the purpose of those grand festivities held in Devi Mallika’s palace? Did the audience come to take pleasure in a woman’s charm, to take in that primeval force of creation in woman? … They come, amuse themselves and go away, but Marish is looking for sorrow in a shop where only entertainment is on sale. It is not entertainment but pain that gives him satisfaction; pain and sympathy in pain … Everything is futile, there is nothing but futility all round …’ And she lay wide awake, lost in the maze of her thoughts, with the rain still pattering away in the darkness.
On the other hand, Marish, who had made a practice of remaining indifferent and unconcerned, felt very disturbed at finding Divya in Ratnaprabha’s palace. He kept tossing and turning in his bed till late in the night. Divya’s face, bereft of hope, overwhelmed with grief, devoid of interest, lingered before his eyes. Divya in her white clothes, looking the very picture of sorrow, sank deep into Marish’s heart. At one moment he would picture her as he saw her on the veranda of Ratnaprabha’s palace. At another, it would be Divya vibrant with life, full of hope and zest, like a newly budding flower, as she used to be in Sagal, in the house of her great-grandfather.
His heart melted with pity for her, and he lost hold over himself as wax, once molten, cannot be held in the palm of the hand.
In Sagal, Marish had felt attraction towards Divya, but it had been one of admiration, rather than desire. He was well aware of his lack of resources and lowly social status. He knew that a wide gap existed between him and Divya. But here, in Ratnaprabha’s house, Divya was no longer living on those inaccessible heights of pride and grandeur. She had fallen from there and was now at the same level as he was, and therefore, she had come within his reach. He had only to stretch out his hand in sympathy and he would be able to touch her.
This attraction, reinforced by a feeling of sympathy, grew very strong. He became restless, yearned for her company, yearned to have a glimpse of her, but his references to her past had upset and pained Divya. He had no wish to distress her. One thought constantly irked him: Would she continue to despair and indefinitely isolate herself from the world? He was still consumed by his concern for Divya when, in the evening of the following day, he attended the performance in Ratnaprabha’s concert hall.
Anshumala got up from her place near Ratnaprabha and began her performance. Her make-up was simple yet effective, and a smile enlivened her features as she drew inspiration from the music. Marish could not concentrate on her singing and dancing. He kept thinking to himself: Compared to this artificial and vivacious Anshumala, the Divya of the previous evening, clad in white, serious and without any embellishments looked much more beautiful. Last evening she had been free to voice the sorrow in her heart. At this moment she was obliged to be a purveyor of entertainment, an object of enjoyment with the admirers drinking in her beauty through their eyes.
