SACRIFICIAL
SUICIDE
(A short story)
S. K. CHETTUR, M. A.,
I
I first met Mohinimohan at my
club. I had dropped in early to secure a set of singles at tennis, and the only
young fellow on the premises whom I found practising
breaks in the billiard-room was an unknown quantity. Summoning the Writer, I
soon learnt that he was a young Bengali author, who had just published his
first novel in English, after a fairly ordinary academic career at the
university. As he had joined primarily for the sake of tennis, he readily
accepted my invitation and we had an excellent set in the shadiest of the three courts of the club. We yielded
the court to the newcomers and retired to discuss iced drinks in the verandah
easy-chairs.
From the first Mohinimohan took
a distinct liking to me. I was the oldest member of the club and I think he was
pleased by the interest I took in him and in his book. I soon got to know all
about it–in what difficulties he had been to find a publisher and how finally
he had risked it and invested a little fortune of about Rs.
1,000 in publishing a handsomely got-up edition of his novel. The book itself
was based on the mesalliance and misery
caused by child-marriages in
Of course, I had taken a copy of his book the very first
evening, but Mohinimohan told me it was no joke to
make the novel sell. He had given it for sale at the usual rate of commission
to the booksellers, but after a month he found that only six out of a hundred entrusted to the
biggest of his agents had sold, despite excellent reviews and consistent
advertising. Mohinimohan was up against it, and no
mistake. With the headlong fervour of youth and with
boundless confidence in himself he had printed an edition of 1,000 copies and
700 of them were still on his hands. In addition to the financial loss, he had
the mortification of feeling that the great moral against child-marriage which
he was preaching would be unknown to the majority of the Indian reading public;
II
I
distinctly remember the evening at the club when Mohinimohan
was down in the dumps. Anxiety had put him off his tennis–he usually played a
steady game with a very serviceable service–and he had not enjoyed
the two sets which he had gone through purely for the sake of exercise. He
pulled his easy-chair to my side at a corner of the verandah apart and unbosomed himself.
“If
this goes on much longer, I shall be tempted to commit suicide,” said he,
taking a long drink from the iced gingerbeer at his
side. “I have tried every legitimate means of popularising
my book, but it is lost labour and money trying to
make our public see a good thing under their very noses.”
“Like
casting pearls before swine,” said I gently, trying to pour oil on troubled
waters.
“Thanks
for the compliment, if you’re not being sarcastic,” he parried, “but I wouldn’t
call them that. They are just bats–blind as bats. Here have I been sweating for
two and a half months trying to bring out an artistic volume both inside and outside, and it’s jolly hard if I have to pay out of my
pocket to present the public with a beautiful book!” And he swore vigorously
under his breath.
“My
child,” I said, “life is like that. The public never accepts presents when it
has got to pay even a nominal price for the privilege of the gift. If you were
to give away your copies free, it would be quite a different thing,” I added.
“Not
a bad idea,” said he “Like the baker who gave a cake free to everybody and got
custom, or like Sir Richard Arkwright, the barber,
who shaved everyone free and thereby undersold his rivals in the profession.
But I just can’t afford it. I have determined to make my living by publishing
books, and even for the sake of advertisement, I can’t give the things away
free. Besides, people would naturally say it’s so bad that I’m anxious to have
it read at any cost, which I’m not.”
“Why
not do some daring or gallant thing which will bring you into the public eye?”
I asked.
“Like chasing dragons on the
“Exactly:
just rescue a fair damsel from the clutches of some enormous bus. Think of the
sensation it would create. ‘Young Author’s Gallant Rescue’, ‘The Days of
Chivalry Are Not Yet Dead’......What attractive headlines they would make! And what excellent advertisements for your book!”
“No,”
said Mohinimohan. “I am prepared to die for the sake
of my book, but I don’t care to yield my
life beneath the wheels of a bus.” He leant forward, his young face
aglow with serious purpose and took my hand. “I have resolved to give my life
for the sake of my book and for the principle involved–the utter futility and
misery of our child-marriage system. I shall leave a letter explaining my
resolve to kill myself. What do you think of it?”
“The
Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum and I are old friends” I answered lightly.
“I could easily secure a berth for you.”
“Alright,”
said he, springing from his chair. “You think I’m just talking. But I shall
show you that I’m a man of action.” And snatching his coat from the rack, he
waved his hand to me and marched away, very erect and determined.
III
For
the next three days, Mohinimohan did not turn up at
the club. Now, though I pride myself on my being a very prosaic, steady, sensible
man, I began to feel uneasy. The fourth evening, I was having my drink in the
club after a poor game of tennis with a beginner who had attached himself to
me, when it struck me that I had better keep an eye on Mohinimohan
and prevent him from doing anything rash. So I summoned the writer and asked him
to get me the lad’s address from his application form. I determined to look in
that very evening on my way home.
The
Writer brought me the address and one of the evening papers which had just
come. I glanced idly at the little top right-hand corner of the folded paper
where they put the most sensational news of the day. My heart ran cold when I read:
BATHING FATALITY
YOUNG AUTHOR DROWNED
I
simply burst the paper open and hunted out the columns on the Local News Page.
It was just as I feared! The headlines were:
TRAGEDY ON
SACRIFICIAL SUCIDE
“Last
evening, at 6-45 p. m., two students of the Victoria Hostel were
returning home walking along the seashore were surprised to see a young man
stripping to the waist and arranging his clothes in a neat bundle near the sea,
away from the farthest reach of the waves. They noted the feverish hurry of his
actions and paused after walking twenty yards in order not to appear unduly
inquisitive into the details of the gentleman’s projected bath. But they got
the shock of their lives when the young man solemnly placed his hands together
as in prayer and stood motionless for a minute. Then with a wild cry of ‘I
come, I come; accept my sacrifice, O Lord,’ he rushed into the sea and began to
cleave the breakers and swim away from the shore. They hurriedly approached the
waves and watched his receding body. It was already quite dark and they could
just distinguish his head from time to time as it appeared above the waves.
After a time they could not even see this. They set up loud shouts for help.
Hearing no response, one of them stationed himself
near the clothes and despatched the other to the
pavement to summon help. A large party soon gathered; the carriage lamps of two
hackneys were requisitioned and a vigilant search was kept along the beach for
a whole mile in order to rescue the drowned buoy. Two catamarans were also
launched at the instance of an enterprising gentleman, and though these
searched the waves for a circle of one mile around the spot, no trace of the
drowned man was obtained. The fisherman declared that a strong under-current
there would probably carry the body mi1es out to sea and that it might be days
before it could be recovered, if it was recovered at all.
“An
interesting sequel to the incident remains to be told. A search of the poor young
man’s clothes revealed the fact that he was Mohinimohan
Gupta, a young Bengalee author, whose parents are
both dead. The young man was living in
“On
this day, the 24th January 1928, I, Mohinimohan
Gupta, author of The Sins of the Fathers, take my own life in order to convince
the public that my book is written with a serious purpose; and with my life’s
blood I wish to write more emphatically the moral sucide,
the mental slavery and the physical deterioration entailed by our system of Child-marriage.
Further, it is responsible for a whole series of ill-assorted unions and
assigns the destinies of individuals by an arbitrary system of mercenary
parental selection, when the parties most vitally concerned are too young to
understand the situation or rebel against the imposition.
“Further,
I, Mohinimohan Gupta, assert and declare that our
unmarried young men of progressive view find ‘their best choice, already link’d and wedlock-bound to fell adversary’ beyond their
matrimonial hopes, and this leads to the eternal triangle and all the evils of
adultery and ruined homes. To illustrate these and to bring my points home to the public I have written a novel The Sins
of the Fathers which the public has not cared to read. But now that I have
given my life’s blood to propitiate their unheeding ears, I call upon them to
read this book and to justify the action of the author in sacrificing himself
to direct the attention of the public to an evil which is undermining the physical,
moral and mental stamina of the Indian Nation.”
I
just collapsed in my chair. I am old and sentimental, so I am not ashamed to
confess that I wept at the tragedy of this splendid young life sacrificed to
convince an irresponsive public. And yet, was it not noble to give one’s life
for the social uplift of one’s country? I went home with my head in a whirl and
took up Mohinimohan’s book. I read it through again,
sitting into the small hours of the morning, and every word was now fraught
with a new meaning and a tremendous power. The gay young personality of the
author moved and spoke through the pages. Yes, it was a unique book, unique in
itself and now trebly unique through his sacrifice. It was a book rewritten
with the life-blood of a young man who had died for his ideals. Verily, he had
poured out the red sweet wine of youth in a noble cause ....
Mohinimohan Gupta was the Rupert Brook of India.
IV
I
need hardly remind you of the record sale commanded by The Sins of the
Fathers. The splendid sacrifice of the young fellow was on everybody’s
lips. The next day the papers published his photograph and wrote column reviews
on his book. The incidents of the suicide were discussed and detailed and analysed over and over again. The splendid poetry of his
dying dedication as he leapt into the waves was made the subject of a leader by
the nationalist daily which called for young men of the same calibre in the national cause. The sneering article in one
of the conservative dailies ascribing the act to insanity was virulently
attacked all over South India, and the author of the article was paid back in
his own coin by the asseveration that he himself was a fit subject for the
Mental Hospital. The news of the incident was telegraphed all over
Six
days later, fishermen near the Royapuram beach
discovered the drowned body. It was in an advanced stage of decomposition. The
painful details of the inquest over, the corpse was cremated,
the ashes collected in an urn, and a public mass-meeting held on the Triplicane beach to do honour to Mohinimohan’s memory. I shall always remember how a
prominent Nationalist speaker broke down and wept at the pathos of “a beautiful
young life consecrated to the service of the country, and consumed so early on
the altar of national sacrifice,” and how, pulling himself together, he ended
up with a stirring emotional appeal to every young man there to be ready to
devote his life to his country’s cause with the same spirit of courageous
selflessness.
The
Agents and Booksellers selling The Sins of the Fathers found their
commission the easiest and readiest money they had ever earned. The very day
after news of the suicide had appeared in the papers, two hundred copies were
sold. Thereafter, there was a steady sale all over
V
A
month after the event an advertisement appeared in all the papers which took
Now Ready
THE VALES OF
By
Mohinimohan Gupta
Author of The Sins of the Fathers
The humorous narrative of a recent trip to
Floods
of letters littered the boxes of the newspapers asking for the solution of the
mystery. The papers thereupon published the following sealed letter which had
accompanied the advertisement from the publishers of the book in question:
“Mohinimohan Gupta presents his compliments to his numerous readers.
He regrets the imposition of his suicide on an admiring public, but he feels that
the glory he loses by his resurrection may in some measure be retrieved by his
placing at the service of the public those little talents, which were partly
responsible for the success of his first book, The Sins of the Fathers. He
heartily endorses the latter half of the opinion of all his reviewers regarding
‘the sacrifice of genuine talent in a noble cause’ but he feels that, having
achieved his object in securing extensive circulation of his propaganda
regarding child-marriage, he should
return to this world in person to undertake the completion of that task which
he has so effectively begun. Having won the long distance sea-swimming cup in
“The author had considered the possibility that somebody
might suggest that his suicide was a hoax if no drowned body of his was picked
up. But he relied on the conviction in his letter to prevent the suggestion
being raised by anybody; and he tipped the fishermen of the catamaran he hired
to tell the press reporters that a drowned body might not be picked up for
weeks together and sometimes not at all.
“No one was more astonished and dismayed than himself to learn from the papers that a drowned body found
at Royapuram was identified as his, and duly
cremated. His perplexity at having thus lost his legal persona was
allayed by his indulging in charitable reflections on the sagacity of the
Madras Police ... who had thus unwittingly completed
the deception of his pretended suicide. He feels that coincidence, as a factor
in the complexities of life, is not confined entirely to the realms of
fiction....
“He enjoyed a delightful holiday in Kashmir and his
record of his recent trip thither, interspersed with reflections on the joy of
being alive and kicking though dead in the eyes of the world, forms excellent
reading. His second novel is now in the Press. It is entitled The Aftermath or
Three in a Tangle.”
VI
I am an old man but I simply roared with laughter and
danced around my room with super-Kruschen feeling
when I read the above. Mohinimohan had used his
brains to good purpose. You may remember how the whole country roared over the
joke for a week. His photo was published from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, and when his forthcoming arrival in
Interviewed on the platform by a dozen Press
representatives, Mohinimohan uttered a world-famous
epigram as he nearly shook my hand off in greeting:
“I died one day and awoke to find myself famous.”