Lost

LOST
(SHORT STORY)

By ANNADA SANKAR RAY

(Translated from the Bengali by Lila Ray)

(I)

I made the acquaintance of Chandra Kiron, whom I had not known personally, quite unexpectedly at a literary gathering. “I am not a writer,” he said, “How can I introduce myself?”

“Am I a writer?” I reassured him, “I can stop writing any time, the moment life calls me.”

“In that case,” Chandra Kiron said, relieved, “we’ll get along together. To tell the truth I was looking for you.”

We slipped away from the party like kids playing hockey from school.

As we walked up and down the streets and sipped tea at wayside shops or stood on a corner munching chanachur, we talked to each other about ourselves like a pair of adolescents. Yet we were both over thirty. It would have caused a commotion in the country. How fortunate it is that no one recognizes anybody in Calcutta!

“This is why,” I commented, “I like Calcutta so much. Here I am unknown, nameless, without a reputation, an obscure-passer-by. I am anonymous.”

“That,” said Chandra Kiron, “is what pains me. I am not anonymous in Calcutta. I would like to go away somewhere under a false name, disguised, outside Calcutta, outside India.”

“Where?”

“At least to Europe.”

“Why? Haven’t you been there?”

“Many times, riding on the of a winged steed,” then he smiled sadly, “I’m an only son. And tied to my wife’s apron strings...”

“Then you regret?” I said, feeling sorry for him, “Are you unhappy?”

“Only regret? It is a torment!” and he quoted several lines from Tagore, “To live like this is mortifying. It is mere existence, not living. I want to live.”

Our conversation grew more and more intimate. We forgot that we had known each other for only a day.

Chandra Kiron belonged to an influential Calcutta family. He had never known what it means to be without prestige or position. He was a solicitor in a family of solicitors. To his ground he added culture and to his culture good looks. And his wife was as beautiful as he was educated. He had been married a long time. There were no children. His wife had already turned her attention to religion. Chandra Kiron was unable to concentrate on anything. Nothing interested him. He wished to go away for a time. There was no possibility of his doing so. Strict watch was kept on him, tears were used–and fasts.

To add to his sorrow he could not be open or free with anyone. A distance had to be kept. To do otherwise was to invite disgrace and a loss of professional prestige. He was forced to act the part of a distinguished citizen all his life, just because he had happened to be born one. He would never be able to sit cross-legged and share a lunch of rotten fish with flies in a penny eating-house. He would never he able to strip and bathe at a water tank with clerks in a cheap boarding establishment. He would never be able to sing and pound a drum into the small hours of the morning with the people of the slums, keeping others awake. There was no objection to his smoking cigarettes but to smoke biriwas to lose caste. He might drink foreign liquor but he was not to touch toddy or rice wine. He felt like doing many things, from mending shoes to reading the Chandi!But if he sat down to brush his boots his valet came running, “Oh, Sir, what are you doing! This is not work for you! If he touched a broom the sweeper was there instantly, “Oh, Sir, what are you doing! This is work for humble folk! He would have liked to pull a rickshaw and once he had tipped a puller and done it. The whole neighbourhood had turned out to see him! He bribed a coachman to let him drive a phaeton and an old beggar got himself run over. If everybody conspired to put obstacles in his way Chandra Kiron would never be able to do anything, except earn money.

And what pleasure was there in earning money? The best of all the ways there are of acquiring another’s possessions is business. The wealth of the business man pours into the pockets of his solicitors just like the loot of a thief goes to robbers. Chandra Kiron liked neither theft nor robbery. He felt disgusted with himself and with others. Who would listen to him! It was the profession of his father, his uncles and his cousins! Of everybody! Their livelihood! They were either business men or solicitors. Being friendly with outsiders was taboo. If they were at all amiable they were never candid. They exerted all their strength to maintain a dignified remoteness. The people with whom he played tennis, or shared snacks at the clubs to which he went, all belonged to his own set. They never considered for a moment where the money came from or whether it was right for it to come as it did or if society was being benefitted by it or whether it contained the gun-powder of disaster!

Chandra Kiron sighed and said, “Alas! If only I could get away!”

“What then?” I was curious.

“Then? Water would flow in the dry bed of my river! In a day or two I would be all fresh with the breeze of the sea. Ah! How nice it would be to be rocked by a ship!”

I laughed. “It wouldn’t be so nice when you began to feel sick!”

“It would! It would! Everything would feel good! Sea sickness! It means lying in bed for only five or six days. And then life would be new again. Walking on new legs! Toddling step by step!”

I listened. Chandra Kiron went on: “I would lose myself in the crowd as soon as I reached England. No one would know where I was or report home. I could repair roads with day labourers and drink cheap beer at a pub when I got thirsty. And when I was hungry I’d eat fish and chips. I’d live in some slum.”

This Arabian Night’s dream was not unpleasant to listen to. And while I listened I tried to discover if anything in it was compatible with Chandra Kiron’s temperament.

“Twice or thrice a month,” he went on, “I’d change my clothes and stay at the Ritz. Otherwise I’d lose my taste for the other kind of nourishment. In its turn it would become as monotonous as the kind of life I left the country to escape from.”

“From the slum to the Ritz in one jump! What is wrong with the steps in between?” I was interested to know.

“No, no. I would not like those. I’ve had enough of those at home. It is to taste something really new that I wish to travel abroad.”

After that Chandra Kiron spoke of Paris. He would go bohemian with art students there. Cafes, the boulevards, studios and salons! He would dress like a chameleon. Everyone would know by looking at him that he was an artist. There would be nothing like it outside a circus. He would paint pictures with an umbrella over his head to keep off the rain that dripped through the leaky roof. That was life!

But that kind of poverty existed in this country too, and it was necessary to go to France for a change! Monte Carlo, Nice, Monaco! The thrill of gambling in a casino! Challenging one’s luck! To lose or to win! That was life!

Somewhere during the course of our conversation that day we dropped the formal personal pronoun ‘apni’ and began to call each other by the familiar ‘tumi’.

“Chandra Kiron,” I said, “you won’t wake from your day dream until you actually start. And when you do you will find that there is a big difference between the reality and the dream. You ought to go.”

“Who will let me? Buddha’s Yasodhara fell asleep. That was how he was able to slip away. My Yasodhara keeps one eye open day and night. That means she keeps watch.” Chandra Kiron spoke with exasperation.

“Why don’t you take her with you? Many people take their wives abroad with them nowadays. You do not lack the means.”

“Are you suggesting that I take her along? That would spoil everything. I can manage to live incognito. But where could I hide her? A single suitcase is enough for me. There is no limit to the baggage she would take. I don’t need a servant. She cannot live without both a servant and a maid. It is in conceivable for me to mend roads in front of her or stand in a pub drinking beer! No, no, if she wants to accompany me I’ll change my mind about wanting to go.”

Chandra Kiron would not take his wife with him. And his wife would not let him go alone. I knew of no solution to this problem. So I kept quiet.

It’s easier to carry the Gandhamadon mountain about than my wife! The thought of travelling from Calcutta to Darjeeling frightens her. It would kill me to have to take her to England.” Chandra Kiron sighed deeply.

Then he noticed my silence. “Now do you understand,” he asked, “why I was looking for you? Show me a way out.”

“Where was a way out for me to show him! “Let me think it over,” I said. But I found no solution. Before the day appointed for our next meeting I was compelled to leave Calcutta.

(2)

Several years later I saw him again. World War II was in progress. Both of us had grey hair but he had more than I had.

We met, notat a literary party, but at a community kitchen. Chandra Kiron was building up credit in heaven for himself, not by going abroad, but by doling out gruel to famine stricken people. When he heard that I was in Calcutta he sent someone to fetch me in order to persuade me to recommend that more rice be allotted to the share of his kitchen.

“You left me nicely in the lurch,” Chandra Kiron said.

“How are you? Are things going well?” I asked.

“You can see for yourself that I am alive. But just being alive is not living,” his tone was as rueful as ever.

Beside the protruding skeletons of the famine-stricken people his plump, butter-fed flesh did not proclaim him as one of the living dead. He had, on the contrary, become stouter with the years.

“Why? What do you lack?” I wanted to know.

“It is just as monotonous as ever in the same old way,” he everted his lips in distaste and went on in a listless, dry, tone, “It is no pleasure to drag on and on. I really must get away. One set of clothes and a blanket is enough. I’ll go on pilgrimage to Kedar and Badrinath with sadhus and from there to Kailash and Manas Sarovar.”

“Will your wife let you go?”

“Let me? Are you crazy?”

“Then how will it be possible?”

“How will it be possible!” Chandra Kiron echoed, “I’d like to know!”

“What harm is there in taking her along with you?”

“There is no use going in that case! Could I light a pipe and sing out, ‘Aum! Aum!’ in front of her?” Chandra Kiron said what he thought.

“Where did you get the idea?” I asked, “Why such a sudden whim?”

“It isn’t a whim. It is knocking at the doors of life.” “Chandra Kiron spoke mysteriously, “Who knows when a door will open for me? I’ll find the way in!”

“Fine!” I said, “But take your wife along.”

“Do you imagine I haven’t thought of doing that?” he caught hold of my hands, “I’ve thought it over. It is not to be. If she is with me I can’t hide her. I cannot go incognito in that case. And unless I am incognito I may as well go on pilgrimage in the conventional way just like everybody else. Unless I can disguise myself there is no hope of finding a response to my
knocking.”

It took me a long time to understand what he said. “Now tell me,” I asked, “why are you so anxious to go incognito? Have you committed murder or any other crime?”

“Crime!” Chandra Kiron was hurt, “Not one and not once! These people who are dying of hunger on the streets of Calcutta are not ordinary beggars. They work for their livelihood. We have bought the food out of their mouths by paying a price for it which they cannot afford. By ‘we’ I mean my uncle and his company. The curse of God will fall upon our house. That has driven me to open this free kitchen. My cousin Pradyumna is wasting away from day to day. Nobody can diagnose his illness. He won’t say what it is himself. He sits there like a dummy, an idiot. It is painful to look at him.”

I noticed that Chandra Kiron’s eyes were misty. “And your uncle?” I asked.

“By day he makes money and by night he makes offerings to the gods. He visits Kalighat every evening. It is ten or eleven before he comes home. ‘Who are you making so much money for?’ my aunt asks him, ‘Who will enjoy it? Our son is beyond medical aid.’ ”

I did not wish to allow him to enlarge upon the subject. I changed the topic. “So that is why you wish to join the sadhus incognito? Good! Good!”

“I won’t become one. I won’t give up the world,” Chandra Kiron explained, “but I shall live for a time. If only she would let me!”

The reference was to his wife. If only the companion of his life would let him live! Should I laugh or cry? It was really a joke. But the place, the time and the person all precluded joking. Should I then weep?

“Well;” I said, “take her permission and set out. The world is not what you think it is. You will come of your own accord after a few days. You won’t have to go as far as the Manas Sarovar.”

“Manas Sarovar! I’ll never get as far as Mogul Sarai just to catch the next train ! I must either take her with me or take a pack of servants. I shall not be allowed to go alone. What fun is there in going unless I can go alone!” Chandra Kiron was suffering.

Poor man! What could I do for him? I expressed my sympathy and took my leave. “You haven’t shown me a way out?” he said.

(3)

I met Chandra Kiron the other day in a foreign book-shop on Park Street. He had bought a lot of travel books and was turning over the pages of some others. Though only forty-four or five he looked ten years older.

The few remaining hairs on his head shyly hid themselves behind his ears. His paunch had given up all attempts to conceal itself. His clothes, manners, and general appearance all proclaimed the distinguished citizen.

After exchanging greetings I asked, “Haven’t you got over your whim yet?”

“Whim!” he was surprised. “What are you calling my whim? It is my life! Do you imagine that I could live without it?”

I wanted to know if he had been away anywhere since I had last seen him.

“This time I’m really going,” he answered, “I can’t go on living like this. Rationing has taken away even the pleasure of eating. I’m told the Municipal rates are going to be raised. Let them! I’ll be across the water before it happens!”

“To which country are you going?”

“Country!” he exclaimed with alarm, “No, no, there’s no fun in seeing a country. Supplies are controlled everywhere. This time I’m going by cargo boat, from port to port. I’ll go to London via the Cape as was done a hundred years ago, and to Amsterdam, to Copenhagen, to Stockholm. If possible to Leningrad too. Then on my way Hamburg, Bremen, New York. Around South America to San Francisco. And from there Tokyo, Shanghai and Hongkong. At last Singapore, Rangoon, Chittagong and Calcutta.”

“Grand!” I commented.

“Isn’t it?” he was pleased and put a hand in mine, “You tell me. You’re the only person who has known me for what I am, who has understood me. Everybody else who hears about it says I am eccentric or crazy. At home it is fasting, tears, non-co-operation. This time she does not want to go with me. This time she refuses to let me go. Look at the injustice of it! Now I know her weakness! I too am applying pressure. I’m asking her to come. We can go together, on the same boat.”

I was enjoying his predicament. “Bravo!” I said.

Chandra Kiron took me by the arm and dragged me to Fleury’s, to eat cake and make me eat it. “It is a little like a Paris patisserie, isn’t it?”

“What else?” I answered evasively, not to cause him pain.

He believed he was enjoying a taste of Paris, sitting in Calcutta. And why only Paris? Here he had bought books from the Oxford Bookshop. It was lucky he didn’t say, “Something like Oxford, isn’t it?”

As we ate Chandra Kiron grew absent-minded. His thoughts were perhaps in Florence or Rome. “What is the good of going,” he said, “the Americans have spoiled it all.”

“No. They haven’t. Much of it is still there,” I protested.

The result was the opposite of what I had intended. Chandra Kiron said sadly, “Who knows but the Russians will smash the rest some day! I’m told a third War is imminent. I’ll never see it unless I get there beforehand. Every day is precious! But...” he could not finish. His mouth was full of cake.

“Come on. Let’s go for a drive down the Strand,” Chandra Kiron said afterwards. To him the Strand was London’s, not Calcutta’s. I agreed.

We drove slowly down from the Howrah Bridge along the banks of the river, as far as the Kidderpore docks. Both of us gazed at the ships. The flags of many nations flew from them. Chandra Kiron enthusiastically explained which belonged to which country, showing a wide knowledge of them. Several names were written in Greek and Russian. Chandra Kiron read them easily.

He had, in his thoughts, sailed the seven seas on these ships, and travelled in the strange lands to which they carried him. Once or twice a month he came to see them. To him they were the storied ships of Chand Sadagar. Bengalis used to sail to Java, Bali, Sumatra and Ceylon in these. Bengali writing carved on the walls of a Javanese temple is still in existence. Chandra Kiron had a photograph of it.

“This is life!” Chandra Kiron gazed hungrily at the ships. Then he turned to me and said, “I’ve watched them since I was a child. Seeing is all. I’ve passed life by from a distance. I never got close to it.”

On our way from Kidderpore we stopped for a while at the Victoria Memorial and strolled in the gardens. Wasn’t it a little like Hyde Park? Chandra Kiron spoke on, relating the story of his family. His mother was still alive. The older she grew the more apprehensive she became that if she allowed her son to go abroad she would never see him again. But it was not impossible to make her understand. His wife refused to listen. Why? Nowadays everything can be had in Calcutta, even a skyscraper. There is going to be an Underground.

Then there was Chandra Kiron’s second day dream, the day dream of wandering from holy place to holy place on pilgrimage but not like an ordinary pilgrim. He wanted to be a sadhu among sadhus, carrying only a pot and a blanket.

His wife objected strongly. He was sure to be taken with cholera or typhoid. Who would be there to look after him, to nurse him? A telegram would come saying all was over. No, no, such unnatural nonsense would not do at all? It was better to wait a little. It would not be long before she died. He could see her off on her journey and then set out on his.

Poor Chandra Kiron! He had accumulated a pile of books like a monument. He knew who was engaged in which system of tapasyaand where in the Himalayas. He knew which Mahatma was doing yoga in Tibet and which sacred spot for spiritual discipline was situated at twelve thousand feet. All that remained to be done was to set out. He had purchased a camera, not just an ordinary camera, a cine-Kodak. He was prepared to buy an oxygen outfit if necessary. But who was going to let him go?

He met sadhus secretly. They told him the time had not yet come. Obstacles would be removed when it came. But would he still be young enough and strong enough then? How could his old bones endure the mountain cold? His blood would freeze. He would not have the physical strength to resist. Perhaps he might win a reward in heaven. But was it for that he wanted to take to the road? He wanted to taste life!

His daily life was anathema to him, his daily measure of sin, his veiled exploitation, the hunting of men. He had lost all respect for his class and felt only contempt for it, contempt not only for the men but the women also. They belonged to the exploiting class. They were not exploited. They were tigresses. They were not deer. Inwardly his values had changed. Yet he did not have the strength to fight. Nor did he want to. He was weak by nature. The most he could do was to run away. He could not face it. His longing for incognito was unconquerable but the more he tried to hide himself the more his wife misunderstood. She kept watch on him.

“Who is that fellow?” Chandra Kiron was startled, “Why is he loitering about here?”

“He has come for an outing as we have.”

“Oh, no, no! I have seen him before in other places,” Chandra Kiron whispered in my ear. “A detective is set on me.”

I did not believe it. I smiled at him.

“I’m watched at home. And away from home,” he went on as we climbed into a taxi. “You know who watches me at home. Now you know who watches me outside.”

I was dumbfounded. Was it possible?

“There is no happiness in life left, my friend. I go to the office and the courts and find a detective waiting. If I go for a stroll on the maidan it is the same story. Who is going to allow me to go to a restaurant or a dock? I listen to the ship’s sirens from a distance. I cannot get near them. My plight is like the plight of Radha in a Vaishnava lyric...”

Poor Chandra Kiron! The expression in his eyes stirred my pity. Such a big man! As helpless as a baby! Yet he was a cunning lawyer. A mountain of money!

That day I had to accompany him as far as Sitaram Ghose Street. The house was an old one, built in the days of the Company. The architecture was colonial. As I was about to take leave of him at the gate Chandra Kiron blocked my way. “This time I won’t let you go. Show me a way out. Then you can leave.”

Where was a way out for me to show him? He was lost.