Ramesh's future was now a blank. He had nothing to look forward to, no regular work, no settled habitation. It must not be supposed that he had completely forgotten Hemamalini. Rather, he had cast the thought of her aside.
"The cruel blow that Fate has dealt me has made me permanently unfit for this world's affairs," he said to himself. "A blasted tree is out of place in a green wood."
He sought relief in travel and flitted restlessly from place to place. He surveyed pageant of the Benares ghats from a boat on the Ganges. He proceeded to Delhi and ascended the Kutub Minar ; thence to Agra, where he visited the Taj Mahal in the moonlight. From Amritsar, with its Golden Temple, he journeyed to Rajputana and made pilgrimage to the shrines on Mount Abu. Neither body nor mind had any rest while the roaming spirit possessed him.
But the last nostalgia set in and his thoughts turned to home-the peaceful home of his childhood, now almost forgotten, and the ideal home of his whilom imagination. When the call became too insistent, the wanderings by which he had hoped to assuage his misery came to a sudden end. He secured a seat in the next Calcutta-bound express and with a prodigious sigh took his place in the train.
Ramesh had been some days in Calcutta before he nerved himself to set foot in Kalutola. One day he went as far as the entrance to the lane in which he had lived, and on the following evening he summoned up courage and marched up to the front door of Annada Babu's house. All the doors and windows were shut and barred, and there were no signs of human occupancy. It occurred to him that the bearer Sukhan might have been left behind to guard the empty house, and he knocked at the door several times and called to the bearer, but there was no response. A neighbor, Chandra Mohan, who was sitting in his porch smoking a hookah, now hailed him : "Hallow, Ramesh Babu, is that really you ? How are you ? None of Annada Babu's people are at home."
"Do you happen to know where they've gone, sir ?" asked Ramesh.
"I can't say. They're gone somewhere up-country, that's all I can say," he told.
"Which of them went there ?"
"Annada Babu and his daughter," replied Chandra.
"Do you know for certain that no one else went with them," he asked further.
"Yes, I'm quite sure of that ; I saw them start," affirmed Chandra.
Ramesh could contain himself no longer. "Some one told me ," he proceeded, "that a gentleman called Nalin Babu accompanied them."
"Your informant was wrong. Nalin Babu stayed for some time in your old lodgings there, but he started for Benares several days before Annada Babu left Calcutta," confirmed Chandra Mohan.
Ramesh then proceeded to draw out Chandra Mohan on the subject of this Nalin Babu, and was informed that his full name was Nalinaksha Chattopadhyay ; he was supposed to have had a practice in Rangpur, but was now living with his mother in Benares.
After a short pause Ramesh asked if Chandra Mohan knew where Jogen was at the moment. He was told that Jogendra had gone to a place called Bisaipur, in Mymensingh, where he was headmaster of a high school established by a landowner of the place.
Chandra Mohan now began to question in turn. "I haven't seen you for a long time, Ramesh Babu," he remarked. "Where have you been all these days ?"
Ramesh saw no reason for further concealment. "I went to practise in Ghazipur," he answered.
"Are you going to make your home there ?"
"No, I don't mean to settle down there after all. I haven't decided where to go next."
No comments:
Post a Comment