First Light (86 page)

‘Who is he?'

‘The poet Rabindranath Thakur.'

Bharat nodded gently. ‘That is possible. Yes, quite possible.' Silence fell between them once again. It lay unbroken for a long time. Bharat raised his eyes to the sky out of which the stars hung like clusters of jewels. The moon swam in and out of clouds in a haze of opalescent light. Bharat murmured some lines from a verse of Rabindranath's poetry:

You and I have floated here on the stream mat brings from the fount

At the heart of time love of one for another. have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same

Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell—

Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Looking up, he saw Bhumisuta's eyes swimming in tears. ‘Why do you weep Bhumi?' he asked tenderly.

‘Tears are welling up in my eyes. But I do not weep.'

‘So much has gone . . .' Bharat murmured, ‘So many days, months and years. A vast expanse of space and time lies between us. Can we ever come together Bhumi? You seem . . . you seem so far away.'

‘Why, here I am sitting by your side!'

‘That night . . . the night you spoke of, when I found you sitting on the steps of a house in Kolutola . . . I took your hand in mine. If I ask for it tonight . . . will you give it?'

Bhumisuta's lips quivered. She turned her face away to hide her emotion. In the same instant the moon slipped from behind some clouds and rained its beams on her. Bharat stared at her profile, bathed in moonlight, eyes lowered, long lashes resting against one cheek. His heart missed a beat. A flood of old memories welled up within him and merged with the present. The moments passed. Bhumisuta turned to him and placed her soft damp palm on his.

They sat, hand in hand, looking out on the river, a sky full of stars above their heads—a vast sheet of water at their feet. Words were redundant between them now. They conversed in the language of silence. They sat as though frozen in time; as though they had been together from the beginning of life itself and would be together for aeons and aeons to come.

*
What wondrous beauty!
Whose face is this which I behold?
The Lord of my heart hath appeared before me.
And the fountain of Love gushes forth.

*
Who passed over my soul,
Like a faint breath of Spring? some clothes for you?'

*
I looked into the sea of my heart
And saw a queer workshop
A house within the body
Six burglars had broken into it
But only one was doing the stealing

*
You may chide me as you will my friend
But my eyes beheld his beauty and stood transfixed
Ah! who created that beauteous form
And anointed it with honey?

*
On such a day I might let him know
On such a day dark with pouring rain

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First published in Bengali as
Pratham Alo
by Ananda Publishers Pvt. Ltd 1996
First published in English by Penguin Books India 2001

www.penguinbooksindia.com

Copyright © Sunil Gangopadhyay 1996, 2001
This translation copyright   Penguin Books India 2001

Cover photograph by Amit Khullar

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-141-00430-3

This digital edition published in 2014.
e-ISBN: 978-9-351-18888-9

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents (except where historically founded in fact or obviously genuine) are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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