Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Premchand's story "Baasi Bhaat Mein Khuda Ka Sajjha" in English


Here is my translation of Premchand's short story "Baasi Bhaat Mein Khuda Ka Sajjha" Here Premchand seems to be hobnobbing with atheism, imagining a world in which God plays no part. 



                             


                                               God’s Share in the Stale Rice

In the evening when Dinanath returned home and told Gauri that he had got a job with a salary of fifty rupees her heart burst with joy. Her faith in gods became still stronger. For the last one year things had been very difficult. No work, no job. The few ornaments they had had been sold. They had still to pay the rent for the house. He had borrowed money from all his friends. The year-old baby was starving for milk. If they were able to eat once they had to worry for the next meal. Poor Dinanath found it difficult to go out for fear of the creditors. The moment he went out he was mobbed by angry voices: Wah babuji, you promised to pay in two days and you were not seen for two months.  Bhai sahib, this is not fair. You are bothered only about your needs and don’t care about others. That’s why people say that one may give a loan to an enemy but never to a friend. These words hurt Dinanath like an arrow. And he felt like committing suicide. But he held himself back thinking of his un-protesting wife and innocent child. However, today God had taken pity on him and the days of distress were over.

   Gauri said in a happy mood, ‘I used to say God takes care of all and would one day take care of us too, but you never believed me. Tell me, aren’t you convinced of God’s compassion now?’

   Dinanath said, unyielding, ‘This is the result of my efforts. Not because of God’s compassion. I’ll believe in Him if a treasure comes down to us crashing through the roof.’

    But whatever he might say, faith in God had taken root in his heart.

****

Dinanath’s boss was very cold and distant in behavior but very meticulous in work. He was about fifty and didn’t enjoy good health but he was the hardest worker in his office. No worker dared to come to late even by a minute or leave office a minute before time. The workers were allowed a fifteen minute break in between, which the workers could use for eating a paan, or smoking a cigarette or eating something. Beyond this they were not allowed even a minute’s break. Salary was paid on the first of the month. The office was closed on festival days and no one was asked to work after office hours. All the employees were given bonus and there was provision for provident fund too. Even then no worker was happy. No one complained about work or working hours. They were unhappy about the boss’s behavior. They might work hard or put all their heart and soul into the work but there was never a word of appreciation. 

   The workers may or may not have been happy with the boss, Dinanath had no grudge against him. He would have worked as hard as now even after getting rebukes and reprimands from the master. In one year he had paid off his debts and even saved something. He was among those who remain contented even with little if it came to him regularly. Even when the couple had to spend just one rupee, it was done after debating and discussion for many hours. If the bill came from Gauri it was scrutinized by Dinanath. If it came from Dinanath it was examined by Gauri. The bill was passed only after forceful pleading. There was no third person to certify the bill.

   And Dinanath had become a confirmed theist. He had no doubts now about God’s compassion and justness. He prayed regularly and recited the Gita every day. One day when one of his atheist friends criticized God he said, ‘Bhai, it has not been established till today whether or not God exists. Both the sides have steel solid arguments, but in my view it is better to be a theist than an atheist. If God does exist then the atheists have nowhere to go except hell. A theist is on a safe ground in both the situations. If God exists then he is on the right side and if God does not exist he loses nothing. He loses only a few minutes a day.’ His friend went away making a wry face at Dinanath’s doublespeak.

****

One day when Dinanath was about to leave for home after the day’s work his boss called him to his room, asked him with great courtesy to be seated on a chair and said, ‘How long have you been working in my office? It must be nearly a year?’

   Dinanath replied politely, ‘Yes, sir. This is the thirteenth month.’

   ‘Be relaxed. Do you take any refreshments on reaching home?’

   ‘No sir. I’m not in the habit of eating anything then.’

   ‘You might be eating paan etc. Being young, how do you exercise such self-control?’

   Saying this, the boss rang a bell and asked the orderly to bring paan and some sweets.

   Dinanath became suspicious: Why was he being treated with such hospitality? In the past he did not even respond to his greeting, and today paan and sweets were being offered. He thought the boss was happy with his work. This gave some confidence to Dinanath. He remembered God. Surely God was omniscient and just, otherwise who cared for him.

   The orderly brought paan and sweets and Dinanath had to eat them after repeated prodding.

   The boss smiled and said, ‘You must have found me a very strict kind of a person. The fact is that people here still don’t understand their responsibility and if one becomes lenient they start taking undue advantages; as a result the work suffers. There are a few lucky persons who freely mix and socialize with their servants and still the servants don’t renegade and work wholeheartedly. But I don’t know that art. As a result I like to keep aloof from my employees, and following this practice I have not been at a loss in anyway.  But I keep a constant watch on all my employees and keep testing them. Now the opinion I have built about you is that you are a loyal employee and I can trust you. That is why I wish   to assign a bigger responsibility where you won’t have to work much but only supervise. Your salary will be raised by fifty rupees and I hope you would work with even greater devotion than before.

   Dinanath’s eyes became tearful and the taste of sweets in his throat became a bit salty. He felt like touching the boss’s feet and say: I am willing to give my life in your service, and the trust you have placed in me I shall not betray. But his voice was shaky and he merely looked at him with grateful eyes.

   The seth took out a thick ledger and said, ‘I need your help in a work on which the future of this office depends. Among so many I have chosen you alone and hope you won’t disappoint me. This is last year’s ledger and contains entries that show that the company has earned a profit of many thousands; but you know we have been incurring losses for many months. The clerk who had made these entries has handwriting similar to yours. If your writing and his were placed side by side even an expert would find it very difficult to see the difference. I want you to re-write one page of this ledger and replace the page of the same number with it. I have had the page number printed and also managed a daftri who would re-bind the ledger during the night. No one would come to know. All I need is that you should copy the page in your handwriting.

   Dinanath expressed his doubts, ‘If that page has only to be copied, then why replace it?’

   Sethji smiled and said, ‘Do you think you will have to copy that page exactly as it is?  I shall change some figures. I assure you that I am doing all this only for the good of the office. If this alteration is not done then the jobs of about a hundred employees would be endangered. There’s nothing to think about. It is only a matter of half an hour. You write very fast.’

   It was a hard test. It was clear he was being asked to make false entries. He had no way to find out whether sethji was doing it out of selfish motives or for the good of the office; yet in both the cases it was a fraud, serious fraud. Will he kill his soul? No, never.

   He said, filled with fear, ‘Please excuse me, I won’t be able to do this.’

   Sethji asked with a steady smile, ‘Why?’

   ‘Because this is a fraud.’

   ‘What is a fraud?’

   ‘To make false entries.’

   ‘Is it a fraud if by doing this you save the jobs of a hundred employees?’ The company’s real value is different from its value in the records. If these figures are not changed the company will have to pay thousands of rupees as profit; with the result the company would become bankrupt and all its employees would have to sit at home. I don’t want that for a handful of rich shareholders so many poor should be sacrificed. If one has to commit a fraud for someone’s good it is not killing one’s soul.’

   Dinanath could not refute this argument. If sethji was being truthful, then committing this fraud was not a crime but a serious duty. And if one had to kill one’s soul to protect the jobs of a hundred people then one should not care about it.  Thus having found a moral justification he then thought of his own safety. He said, ’If the fraud is found out I would be sent to kalapani.’

   Sethji laughed loudly and said, ‘If the fraud is found out I would be caught, not you. You can refuse point blank.’

   ‘But the writing would be caught.’

   ‘How would anyone know which page has been changed? The writing would be the same all through.’

   Dinanath was defeated. He began to copy the page there and then.

  ***  

Even then Dinanath was feeling guilty. He could not say a word about it to Gauri.

   He was promoted after one month. His salary was raised to hundred rupees. He got a bonus too of two hundred rupees.

   With all this the house looked prosperous but Dinanath’s heart was burdened with a sense of guilt. The arguments with which sethji had shut his mouth, he had not the confidence to use them to convince Gauri.

   His faith in God constantly terrified him. He would surely receive a fearful punishment for this crime. It was impossible to prevent it through contrition or a ritual propitiation. May be not now, not after two-three years, or five-ten years; but greater the delay the more fearful would the punishment be; the capital would go on multiplying with interest. He often regretted why he had fallen prey to the temptation offered by sethji. Why should it matter to him that the company might become bankrupt, the employees might lose their jobs? Why did he bring upon himself this torture? But now whatever had to happen had happened and the punishment was sure to follow. This fear destroyed all the enthusiasm, pleasure and sweetness of his life.

   The malaria epidemic came. His son caught the sickness. Dinanath’s life-breath seemed to go out through his finger nails. The instrument of punishment had arrived. What should he do? Where should he go? He was totally out of his mind.

   Gauri said, ‘Go to some doctor and get some medicine. It is already three days.’

   Dinanath replied with apprehension, ‘Yes, I’ll go. But I am frightened.’

   ‘What is there to fear? You are saying something meaningless. Who doesn’t get fever these days?’

   ‘Why is God so cruel?’

   ‘God is cruel for sinners. What have we done?’

   ‘Does God never forgive the sinners?’

   ‘If the sinners are not punished, there would be chaos in the world.’

   ‘But a person can do something which may be a sin in one way and a good deed in another.’

   ‘I don’t understand?’

   ‘Suppose I save someone’s life by lying. Is that a sin?’

   ‘I think such a lie is a virtue.’

   ‘So a lie which does good to people is not a sin?’

   ‘what else?’

   Dinanath’s fear that something terrible was going to happen was allayed for some time.  He called a doctor, the treatment began and the boy recovered in a week.

   But after a few days he himself fell ill. This surely was God’s punishment and he won’t escape now. It was ordinary malaria fever but Dinanath’s imagination converted it into a deadly illness. In fever, as in the state of drunkenness, a person’s imagination soars high. Something that was just an apprehension now took a fearful turn. His fantasy created messengers of death, their spears and maces, and hellfire. How could a small dose of doctor’s medicine ward off the blow from a one-thousand maund heavy mace and the destructive power of a boiling sea of fire? Dinanath was not a believer in myths. He had no faith in the mysterious Puranic fictions. No, he was a rationalist and he had begun to believe in God only after his reason had convinced him. But along with God also came his compassion, and also came his punishment. Compassion gave him livelihood, gave him respect. But for God’s compassion he might have starved to death, but to die of hunger was far easier, just a joke as compared to being pushed into a cauldron of fire. The idea of divine retribution had become an inseparable part of his reason, of his soul as a result of generations of acculturation. His intellect and reason rode like sea waves over these incrustations hardened over ages but would subside after inundating them momentarily, and that mountain stayed unshaken as it was.

   He had not yet reached the end of his life. So he recovered. He started going to office as soon as he regained strength. One day Gauri said to him, ‘During your illness, one day when your condition was very serious, I had said to God that I would feed fifty brahmins if you became well. Your condition began to improve the very next day. Had it not been for His compassion I wouldn’t have been given anything even if I went begging. Go to the market and bring the provisions so that I can fulfill my promise. If fifty brahmins are invited a hundred would surely come. Five beggars, and twenty-twenty-five friends too. My estimate is for two hundred people. I will give you the list of provisions.’

   Dinanath brought furrows on his forehead and said, ‘Do you think I became well because of God’s compassion?’

   ‘How else?’

   ‘I became well because the time for my death had not come.’

   ‘Don’t say such things. We have to fulfill the vow.’

   ‘No, never. I don’t regard God as compassionate.’

   ‘Is God then cruel?’

   ‘No one is a crueller than Him. A God who pushes into hellfire the toys He Himself created in order to punish them for their follies and mistakes can’t be compassionate. If God is compassionate, he is innumerable times far crueller, and I hate to imagine such a God. Love has been said to be the greatest power. Wise men have regarded love as the greatest blessing in life and the world. If not in actual practice, at least in principle love is the greatest truth of our lives. But your God controls the world on the principle of fear and punishment. Then where is the difference between God and man? I don’t want to and cannot worship such a God. Those who are rich, God might be compassionate for them because they rob the world. People like us don’t see any compassion in God. But yes, fear stares at us at every step. Don’t do this, or God would punish you. Don’t do that, or God would punish you. To rule with love is humane. To rule with terror is barbarous. It is better to have no God than to have a terrorist God. I want to throw Him out of my heart and become free both of his compassion and fear. One harsh punishment destroys years of love. I have loved you all these years, but if one day I pick up a stick to beat you, you won’t like to look at my face. I don’t wish to be obliged to God for this life filled with terror and retribution. God cannot be given any share in the stale rice. If you insist on giving this feast I shall commit suicide.’

Gauri kept on staring at his face  with fear-stricken eyes.
                                             ---  
(Baasi Bhaat Mein Khuda Ka Sajjha, in Hans, Urdu, October 1934,)

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