BY ‘SRINIVAS’

The sunlight slanted into the room and lit up the photograph that stood on the table. It was a remarkable face, lean and ascetic, but the general tone of austerity was considerably softened by a sensuous mouth and a slightly weak chin. Raghu who gazed at it with the scrutiny of a son whose father had but lately died, denied to himself the weak chin and tried to defend the inevitable aftermaths which only such a chin could have produced.

Ever since the time when he could, without difficulty, distinguish his father from the rest who surrounded his cradle, Raghu had conceived a passionate adoration for his progenitor, and had striven to model himself after him. He rehearsed every gesture, every slight inflexion of the voice, until at the age of twenty-four, he was indeed a replica of his father. Nature aided him in his endeavour, for he inherited the same type of face–though, happily, without the tell-tale chin. He also felt the same kind of tolerant affection for his mother and her whimpering accusations.

The father had given her enough causes for such complaints. An emotional man as he was, Raghu’s father had formulated a philosophy and conduct of life for himself in which the cardinal principle was an un-moral attitude towards things and persons. He believed so implicitly in his conventional conformation to this unconventional outlook that he frequently shocked and grieved his wife. He invited her to get rid of her fourteenth-century complexes, and to substitute for them his attitude to life. The orthodox lady was outraged to the core of her being, and from that day left him to himself without any further nagging towards the narrow path. The culmination of this easy procedure was a tender attachment in his later years with a rather young woman. This threatened to be such a permanent affair as to nullify her pleasant illusions of moral and religious proprietorship that the wife emerged from her passivity and began to fight him. The old man was good-humoured about his wife’s sudden interest in his shortcomings, and enunciated his idea of life afresh, But before this battle of the two philosophies could be brought to an armistice or peace, the old man had died–and had died unrepentant.

Raghu’s part in this fray was one of strict neutrality. He felt that his father could do no wrong; on the other hand he knew that his mother’s proprietary instincts were outraged. So he expended his emotions by hating ‘the woman’ who had caused such a serious disturbance between his father and his mother. His hatred was so intense that he was on the point of refusing his father’s dying request to make ‘the woman’s’ future financially secure.

And now on that warm March evening as he sat gazing at his father’s photograph, he knew that he had to do something about ‘the woman’–for he refused to call her anything else. He was now the head of the family, his father’s mantle having fallen upon his shoulders, and he ought to behave like a man and not give way to childish dislikes.

He sat there a long time, reflecting on the provision for ‘the woman.’ How much would she require to be rid of the perennial fear of the morrow? He did not know what her circumstances were, and her mode of life.

Also another thought gnawed him. Suppose she had started an affair with another man? One could never tell with such a type of woman.

He felt angry at the thought that she could be unfaithful to his father’s memory. With that coursed another thought in his mind that his father might have spared him this ugly necessity. Still there it was, and the sooner he got rid of the problem the better it would be for all. He supposed that that wretched woman would be impatiently awaiting the money.

He suddenly got up from the chair and reached for his coat. He hated going out to call on her, but the inevitability of it drove him to have it finished quickly. But he was in two minds as to the exact behaviour he ought to adopt towards her. Should he be pleasant and kind or just reserved, cold and curt? After some cogitation on the alternatives, he chose the latter method.

Let her feel what it was to come and disturb the harmony of a family!

His lips stuck out in determination, and he strode out to get his car. His lofty attitude, however, deserted him when he reached the street wherein she lived; and, feeling like a guilty school-boy, he drove past the trim little house with the neat little garden in front. He reproached himself for feeling like that; and, making up his mind resolutely, drove back again and forced himself to stop the car outside her house.

The door was closed. From somewhere inside came the sound of music. A passionate lover of music, Raghu could appreciate the delicate nuances and concords of the improvisation, and he growled to himself a grudging approval of the singer. But he had not come there to listen to music, however heavenly it might be.

He knocked on the door gently at first and then loudly. He felt somewhat irritated that the door was not immediately opened. He braced himself for one more knock, and before he could recover himself, the door flew open–and ‘the woman’ stood before him. He quickly regained himself and was about to be formal and distant…….when she smiled.

"I know who you are….You are just like your father.…" she greeted him with an artless smile.

She was young, about thirty years of age, and she was admittedly not beautiful. However, she had the loveliest eyes Raghu had ever seen, tinged with a slight melancholy, and her mouth was a Cupid’s bow revealing regular teeth–and when she smiled, her face was suddenly transfigured and she looked positively gracious.

She seemed unconscious of his hostility, and tried to draw out an answering smile from him.

Raghu’s resolution to be cold and formal deserted him. He was not conscious of his lips parting in a smile. He was even feeling slightly flattered that she had said that he looked like his father. And he mentally complimented her on her perspicacity. But still he felt reserved, unwilling to relinquish his position as an enemy.

Though he would not admit it to himself, what stirred him deeply at his first glimpse of her was the aura of sympathy about her. She seemed the epitome of motherhood with its concomitant affection and insight. No wonder his father had been in love with her.

"Come in." Her voice was low and tinkled like ice in a glass. She held the doors wide open and Raghu entered with scarcely-perceptible hesitation.

As he entered the drawing-room, the first thing he saw was a huge enlargement of his father’s photograph on the wall. ‘The woman’ intercepted his glance, and said, "Yes. It is a good one, is it not? Your father’s, last present to me." She motioned him to one of the deeply-cushioned sofas. The conversation centred round the dominating and entrancing personality that was no more. Raghu listened enthralled to that side of his father’s life which until then was a closed book to him. He discerned the sympathy that ran like a subterranean stream in her talk.

"You know my name," she added, and he nodded his head dumbly, ashamed to tell her what he called her at home, but, at the same time, longing to tell her for he was certain she would understand and forgive. "But he refused to call me that," she continued, a pathetic smile engraving her face. "He used to call me Sohini–for he would have it that I had the saddest eyes in the world. I never contradicted him. Still," she went on reflectively, "Sohini, I think, is a lovely name." There was a pause. "You know," she said suddenly, turning on him almost fiercely, "I am not what you think I am. Oh yes, I know, but never mind," she cried seeing the look of alarm on his face. "I had a position in the world, but I left everything for your father, for I loved him and he was the grandest man I had ever met. And I think I gave him a little comfort and happiness in his last years." She sighed wistfully, and said, "There were a few men who mistook my nature and who, after your father’s death, made devious approaches to me, asking me to be theirs; they think that a woman like me is fair game. But I don’t care for such folk, for I am really not that type, though your father has converted me to his view of life. He used to say to me that there was nothing unmoral in pleasure, and that everyone ought to strive for his personal happiness. But these men who haunt me with their proposals–I am simply unmoved. I don’t believe I will be capable of being otherwise, though he won’t mind. He only wants my happiness."

Raghu was fascinated by the musical cadences in her voice, and when she told him of her staunch loyalty to his father, he was suddenly blood-glad. His old antagonism was shed, and he gazed at her with new and luminous eyes.

Time flew on swallow’s wings, and Raghu had not broached the subject of his visit. He felt tongue-tied whenever he thought of opening the negotiations with regard to her future. He felt it a little indelicate, somehow sacrilegious. But talk about it he must, since that was the purpose of his visit.

When he hesitantly told her about her father’s dying request, and wanted to know about her needs, the animation died out of her face and she looked like a child hurt in its inmost depths. Raghu, noting this wounded look, blundered on and on until he stopped for want of breath. The hurt look lingered on her face, but with it came out a strange light of tenderness, and Raghu was awed into a silence.

"I didn’t come to him for money," she said in a small voice. "If I cared for comforts, I would have stuck to my husband. But I know that one must live. I leave it to you entirely. You do as you think fit. But grant me one thing. I have lost the dearest thing to me in this world. Please drop your hostility to me and be my friend." She extended a hand in appeal and dropped it–a gesture that seared its way into Raghu’s heart.

He felt glad that they did not have to pollute the serene night with money talk. He vowed within himself that he would place her beyond the leprous hands of Want.

"It is getting very late," he cried, glancing at the clock. "I must be going now."

Sohini smiled and nodded.

But Raghu was loath to leave her in such an abrupt fashion. He did not mind her curt dismissal of him, for it was so disarming, so ingenuous and was accompanied by a tiny smile.

"Do come again, and come soon," she said after a slight pause. "This house is open to you any time you choose."

Raghu got up and Sohini saw him to the door. She stood framed against the door-step, one hand caressing the door, her lips slightly open and expectant. That last glimpse he had of her in the moon-light lingered in his mind like a haunting music-phrase.

He drove the car slowly and reviewed the few fragrant hours he had spent with Sohini. He felt that he understood his father all the better now. But what surprised him was that the care-free, laughing father of his memory should have had grief-laden occasions that drove him to seek comfort from any outside agency. But he could not have chosen better. Sohini was sympathy incarnate, and he could imagine the solace his father must have got in her arms. The hatred that had stormed his heart before was now a dim ache in him; he was indeed surprised at his childish dislike of a person he had not met until then.

He slowly garaged the car, feeling annoyed that the drive was so short, and swung up the steps of his bungalow. He was met by his mother with her grief-corroded face.

"You are late," his mother greeted him. "Where have you been. son?" Her life-wise eyes searched his face for some clue.

Raghu gazed at her without answering. Suddenly there was a revulsion of feeling in him. This was his mother who had suffered because of that woman, who had counted the sleepless hours of his father’s dalliance with her rival. A wave of affection and tenderness for the mother shot through him. Sohini receded into the distance in his mind; she had once again become the symbol of discord between his parents.

"Oh, I had been to see some friends," he lied lamely, though he knew that his mother could not be expected to believe such a weak explanation.

His heart, however, was the storm-centre of conflicting emotions, and he did not care to indulge in explanations just then. He had become impotent, his psyche was dull with feelinglessness, and all he wanted was peace. He felt bewildered and lost in the midst of two opposing forces, forces that threatened to tear him into two. His love for his mother was instinctive, an age-old habit that had clung to him ever since he had suckled at her breast; but the meeting with his father’s mistress had awakened a new train of emotions that began to war with his mother-affection. He felt that he could not, by any possible means, harmonise the two and issue forth from the struggle with strength and dignity of self.

He ate his food silently, while this conflict raged unappeased. But, as his troubled eyes fell on his mother sitting opposite to him, the natal tenderness for her shook him anew, and he swung away from the image of Sohini. His mother, instinct-wise where the son of her womb was concerned, did not badger him with questions. She knew, from old experience, that he would be mulish if questioned, but would come to her of his own accord. She was, however, subtly aware that the problem agitating him was a major one. She felt helpless, irritated by her inability to bridge the gulf between them, and be one with her son.

All night long Raghu tossed on his bed trying to arrive at a solution for his own sake. How could he bring together his mother and Sohini so that he could build up a single image that he could love?

The morning found him red-eyed, with a racking headache, but still there was silence between him and his mother. He went to office as usual, but his problem pursued him like a thousand devils, and his attention wandered off to grapple with the new crisis.

The sun had begun his rapid descent down the western sky before Raghu came to a decision. He would seek Sohini again, and see if she could resolve the problem for him. With a twinge of sweet pain, he remembered her saying that his father brought his worries to her. She would understand and answer the question, and his life might again resume its calm, uneventful tenor. It would not matter that it concerned her too much; she would give him the answer.

He left the office early and rushed to Sohini’s place. As he poised himself to knock on the door, he again heard her sing inside–and he waited, listening. It was Sarna with its turbulent upward gush revealing nature’s majesty and grandeur with flourish.

How long he stood there laving himself in that hill-torrent of a raga, he did not know. With a start, he saw Sohini stand before him, a smile framing her lovely lips.

"Come in," she said, and he followed her mechanically inside.

"Tell me, what is the matter? You seem troubled." Her voice was edged with concern and sympathy.

Raghu felt like a man coming out of a dream. He looked at her and smiled wanly. And now that he was actually there before her, he felt a strange shyness envelope him, and he did not know how to express his difficult situation in concrete terms. But she was looking at him with expectancy, and in halting words he tried to pour into her sympathetic ears what he felt. He started telling her about his mother and her puritanical attitude towards things in general. Then he narrated to her the conflict in his own mind. In effect he was appealing to her to tell him of a way to reconcile her and his mother for himself.

She listened attentively without interrupting him; and as his last words died out into an awkward silence, she looked at him, her sympathy going out to him in successive waves from her love-laden eyes.

You cannot reconcile us. Your mother and I have only one thing in common–we loved the same man," she said with tenderness and compassion. "Otherwise we are poles apart and we must be poles apart for your peace and comfort. One cannot make a single image out of the two of us as an outlet for one’s emotions. You are not expected to make a harmonious blend of every aspect of life. If you did you are either a superman, or a madman. So leave us both separate. But remember," her voice faltered a little, "I am separate entity. But your mother is not. You have issued forth from deep inside her, and only death can sever that intimate connection. I am I–different, outside the circle, and I have to remain so. Your father endeavoured for the same result once, and he failed. I cannot yield my personality and allow it to be absorbed in your mother’s. Your mother too will not allow it. Nature is cruel, boy. You and I can't help it." She stood up, her eyes filled with a troubled look. "But go now, boy. Come tomorrow and be nice to me. You have reminded me of things that I had wanted to forget. Tomorrow I will be cheerful again and greet you with a smile on my lips. But go now, and God he with you."

Raghu raised his tortured eyes to her face. "Don’t send me away just yet," he pleaded. "I will sit here quiet. And you sing. That will bring me some comfort at least."

Sohini looked at him long through her tear-shrined eyes. "All right," she whispered. She sat down again and began to sing. Raghu closed his eyes and yielded his whole self to her music. He felt dissolved again, and his mind was a total blank. His body became all the more alive. He had lost his bearings, and all he remembered later was her Nadanamakriya and the perfume of the jasmines from the garden. He was in communion with the sadness of the world–and time spelt eternity.

Sohini stopped singing, and looked at Raghu. But Raghu did not stir. He was still in a golden dream. She got up and tip-toed away inside the house. She flung herself on a bed, and the heaven-like stillness of the evening was broken by her sobs.

Raghu sensed rather than heard the sobs, and he was perturbed. He could not understand why Sohini should cry. He ran inside. "Sohihi, Sohini," he called, but she did not answer.

"Sohini, Sohini," he called again, his heart wrung with anguish. In a dim corner of his consciousness, he was aware that that was the first time he had called her by her name–and he felt a strange thrill.

"Sohini, please, Sohini." He was quite upset. "Sohini, I am sorry. Don’t cry, please….."

Sohini suddenly raised her head and said, "Why should you be sorry? Go away, boy, go away. Come tomorrow. Don’t talk to me now."

Raghu stood still’ for a moment. He wanted to cry out her name again, to make her understand, but a strange hesitancy gripped him. He turned and went out closing the door gently be- hind him.

"You are late again," his mother said, as he slowly ascended the steps of his house.

"I am sorry, mother," he replied wearily.

The mother waited, expectant, but no explanation came forth from her son. "Oh, God, why is he so strange?" she prayed.

Raghu had abandoned the struggle. He felt that what Sohini had said was right. His mother and she could not be united in himself; but he could be the pivot round which they revolved There was no oneness possible; a compromise centred in himself was the only feasible procedure.

He felt light-hearted at this solution, and he was once again the same as before, animated and happy. His mother noted the change and was reassured that the trouble agitating her son had rolled away, though there was a regret in her dim consciousness that he had not made her his confidante.

The same gaiety Raghu carried with him to Sohini the next evening, and she too was responsive to his moods. She sang to him again, light ragas that laughed and gurgled, lifting them high until the very heavens shook with their mirth and happiness.

Raghu had achieved the only satisfactory solution possible in this strange tangle. The matter of provision which had first served as the point of meeting was never again brought up between them. He fell into the pleasant habit of dropping at Sohini’s place every evening after office, and; what was more, he began to take an interest in the arrangements of her life. Sohini did not resist what in another man would have been an impertinence, but in his father’s son a sign and proof of affection. She yielded readily to his ideas of domestic conduct, and that pleased Raghu all the more. He loaded her with books that had influenced his life, and even dared to take her with him to some music concerts. An expert musician herself, these outings were great occasions to her. He called her ‘Sohini’ in half-ashamed familiarity, and she called him ‘boy.’

Raghu was aware that his ambition to be his father’s second self was furthered by his platonic friendship with Sohini. But, in the case of his mother, he could not summon up enough courage and tell her of Sohini. He shirked it, the old inhibition of mother-superiority cupping him like an anxious bird over its brood; and he wanted to keep away from her the knowledge of what he felt was his disloyalty to her. He was afraid of the issue.

Life could have continued thus until time slipped into eternity, but the public would not let them be. Tongues wagged, the friendship was construed into something else, and gossip floated from lip to lip, from door to door. And one officious person went to Raghu’s mother and condoled with her over what was termed "her son’s sinful passion." The mother leant a ready ear, for she had some misgivings as to her son’s strange behaviour lately. A sullen rage possessed her.

Before, that woman had taken her husband away from her. Her proprietorship as wife had been mocked and trampled. And now her mother-proprietorship was in danger. All her womanly faculties were up now in arms–to defend her own from the implacable foe.

When Raghu returned home after a soul-satisfying evening with Sohini, he found his mother waiting for him. Her eyes were stony hard, and her lips were rimmed by hostility.

Raghu sensed the discord in the air. He wanted to avoid it and run up to his room.

His mother, however, barred his way.

"You have been to see that woman!" She fired the accusation so abruptly that it was startling. Raghu was shocked, not because his mother had come to know what he wanted to hide from her, but because of the phrase ‘that woman’ with all its ugly connotations. It seemed now a gratuitous insult.

"How dare you…….?" His lips framed the words, but they stuck in his throat. Sub-consciously he was aware that it was his mother, and that he ought to be more gentle and not give way to anger.

"Don’t call her ‘that woman’, mother," he begged.

"What is she?" His mother’s eyes blazed. "And who is she that you should go there every evening–every evening?"

Her jealousy, mixed as it was with life-long misery, was breath-taking. Raghu had never seen her like this. He felt cowed.

"I thought you were different from your father." Her voice was edged with the pain that memories alone could evoke. "I brought you up so. I wanted you at least to be kind to me, to be mine-and now?" Her voice broke down a little. "I might have known!" she lashed him with withering contempt. "You are your father’s son–and no mistake!"

"Don’t say that, mother. I am as much yours as father’s."

"Don’t!" she screamed. "You are not my son. If you were, you would have hated that woman. You would have even killed her to avenge the wrong done to your mother. But you go and dally with her every day–the harlot! She has taken your father away from me; and now she is taking you away too!"

Her misery swamped her anger, and she broke down completely. She began to weep. Raghu’s arms were immediately round her to comfort her.

"Go away, don’t touch me. Go and touch that–that woman!" she shrieked, and began to sob.

Raghu suddenly went limp. He broke away from her and said, "All right, mother. Have it so. But before God I swear that I am not having an affair with her–as you seem to think. She is not a harlot either. She is like you–to me."

"What?" His mother wheeled on him. "How dare you say that she is like me to you! Yes, go on, insult me again and again. This is what I get for having borne you."

Raghu felt helpless. Must she misunderstand everything he said? He looked at her, at her ridiculous posture on the sofa, her breasts heaving with emotion. Sobs tore from her throat. Raghu became, all of a sudden, detached. He seemed to see her as a remote being–a being who bore no personal relationship to him. Vaguely he felt irritated, even hostile to her.

Without a word, he walked out of the house. He wished he had his father’s courage to stand up to his mother. He was a coward, a coward to run away. He could not help it. The accusation was horrible, and it struck him like a whip-lash on the face. He walked fast to get away from the thoughts that tortured him.

He rushed blindly through the moon-washed streets. His legs guided him to Sohini’s house. He knocked on her door.

"You again, boy? I was just going to bed," Sohini said as she saw him.

"Don’t call me ‘boy’," he snapped out, irritated by that word coming on top of everything.

Sohini looked at him round-eyed, with surprise. Without a word she led him to the front room. Desperately she tried to keep a flow of conversation.

"You know, you look just like your father now. Whenever he was angry, he used to be like that. His brows would be drawn together and his forehead would be thundrous. You are just the same. I thought for a moment that it was your father."

Raghu did not answer her at all. He sat on the sofa. So everyone, even his mother, was putting a wrong construction on his friendship. And how’ horribly she screamed when he told her- that Sohini was just like another mother to him. He looked at Sohini. She was certainly young, but what had age got to do with it?

"What is the matter?" Sohini asked him.

"Nothing, nothing," he answered abruptly. "Only my mother has come to know about us. And she thinks we are lovers."

Sohini flushed, but did not reply.

"Everybody in this town seems to think so," he laughed bitterly.

"Does it matter so much? I have told you long ago that I do not care what the neighbours think about me. They do not exist for me. I do as I think fit–for my happiness. Everyone fights for one’s happiness. Others try to get it through marriage; I did not get it that way–so I sought for it outside. They have no call to criticise me, to talk about me. Why don’t you treat it light too? Do you remember, one day you told me that you have copied every gesture, every intonation of your father’s. You feel that your father’s personality has descended to you. Why then don’t you go a little farther than mere behaviour, and make yours his ideas, his philosophy? You want to be in both camps at once. It can’t be. Be your father completely...Then my life too will have a continued aim, a purpose."

Raghu looked at her in surprise.

"What do you mean, Sohini?" He half rose from his seat. She compelled him back with a gesture.

"Now that this thing has happened, you may as well know the whole thing. Since your father’s death I was living with a beautiful memory. Then you came. You have succeeded in disturbing the placidity of my life which I had trained and controlled, centred round a memory. But the memory became a living fact. You have shattered my calm to pieces. You have given me a new zest in life, a new heaven. And now the prattle of the neighbours has brought it home to me. I am just what they think I am."

"No, no," Raghu shouted in protest, his heart twisted with pain.

"Let me continue, please," Sohini said without a trace of emotion. "I am all that and more. I didn’t realise it before. But now I know. Your father has infected me with his philosophy. I am not sorry about it. Really I am glad–for I am able to face the truth now without any remorse. Only it is so funny that it should be you." She laughed, slightly hysterical. "The father–and then the son. O God! How painfully droll!"

"Don’t, Sohini, don’t. You are hurting me," Raghu cried.

"I am hurting you?" she mocked him. "But aren’t you hurting me? Why did you come into my life at all? You would call it fate, wouldn’t you? It was all ordained long before we were both born, wasn’t it? You poor fool!"

"If you talk like that any more, I will go and never return," cried Raghu, standing up.

"Go, go, I am not stopping you. You will become another shadow to me. A woman with memories! There was a good little woman who wanted happiness–and all she got was two shadows," she mocked again. Her heart ached as it had never ached before, and her eyes were blinded by hot scorching tears She turned away to hide her face and went to the window. She placed her head on the sill, silent tears coursing down her cheeks.

Raghu stood irresolute, undecided. In a blinding flash he was aware of the truth himself. There was that inevitableness in their friendship. They had only pretended to have been children; that evening they recognized what the world around them had discovered long ago. The finality about the whole affair made him, curiously enough, glad. The fight–the dumb sub-conscious fight against facts–was over, but he did not admit the pleasures of victory. It was only an admission of defeat. He became peaceful in his defeat.

He went near the window with halting steps and touched Sohini. She did not stir except to retreat to one corner of the window. He came close to her and leant out.

The night was beautiful and calm and slightly sad. He gazed at the trees that waved about like ghosts in the moonlight. A sudden breeze wafted up the scent of jasmines from the garden. His hand, unconsciously, stole to hers. After a slight resistance, it was surrendered. Raghu felt powerful, elated; he had come into his manhood; he was his father, completely, unmistakeably.

Sohini’s sobs had ceased, though the tears still glistened in her eyes. There was even a glint of happiness in those pearl drops. She clasped his hand tightly.

"Your father understands. He would have wished the same, I know," she said in a whisper.

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