The Complete Short Stories

up in these problems for no reason—and then all of a sudden it was the day of the exam and he was completely unprepared for it. He couldn’t take his exams. He tried to console himself, thinking, I am just getting started in this work, that’s why there are all these hindrances. By next year, I will have this work under control and then I can sit for the exams without any worries! It’s not difficult to pass after all! Idiots who cannot even write a simple composition pass the exam, how can I possibly not pass? When Manaki heard his explanations she was beside herself with rage—‘I knew this obsession would ruin you. That’s why I tried to stop you so many times, but you never listened to me. Now that you have sunk yourself you are going to take me down with you.’ His father, too, was angry. His friends tried to make him understand—‘Put your work on hiatus for a while and pass your law exams, and then you can carry on with your idealist work.’ But Ishwarchandra thought it was cowardly to run away once you had stepped on to the battlefield. True, he was determined that he would prepare body and soul for the examinations next year. So, just as the new year began, he got his law books and the prescribed syllabus together, began keeping a diary, and tried to restrain his distractible and cheating mind, but when does simple fare ever taste good after tasty snacks!

Where were the manoeuvres in law, the passion, the blows, the excitement, or the commotion! Every day, now, Ishwarchandra was lost. While he was doing the work that he wanted to, he could find an hour or two out of the day to look at his law books. But this stupor had drained his mental faculties. His muscles had atrophied. He began to realize, I am not cut out for law, and this realization made him treat the law with indifference. A contentment began to grow within. He began to find comfort in the ideologies of fate and superstition.

One day, Manaki said, ‘What’s the matter now, are you bored with the law again?’

Restlessly, Ishwarchandra replied, ‘Yes dear, I can’t focus on it.’

Sarcastically, Manaki said, ‘Is it very difficult?’

‘It’s not difficult, and even if it was difficult I wouldn’t have been scared by it, but I find the practice of law detestable. The more I get to know about the inner workings of lawyers, the more I hate the profession. There are hundreds of lawyers and barristers in this city but there is not one among them who has enough compassion in his heart not to sell himself for personal gain. Deceit and hypocrisy are the defining principles of this profession. It does not exist without them. And even if some individuals do take part in the nationalist struggle then it is only to beat their own drums in self-promotion. Our entire lives become dedicated to chasing after pleasure. How unfortunate are the educated classes of our nation who are jumping on this bandwagon. This is the reason that there is no improvement in our national institutions. We can never really accomplish any work that our hearts are not in, and become captains only out of a desire for fame and personal gain. It is the injustice of the present social condition that this profession has been ranked so high. This is the worst aspect of colonial civilization: A country which is unable to generate revenue on the basis of its own talents but enjoys the fruits of others’ labours. Unable to become a honeybee, it makes it its life’s mission to become an ant instead.’

Irritated, Manaki said, ‘You never used to criticize lawyers like this before!’

Ishwarchandra responded, ‘I didn’t know what I was talking about then. I was dazzled by its superficial shimmer.’

‘I do not understand why you love being an editor so much. Every time I meet an editor, he’s constantly crying over his misfortunes. If it’s not appealing to your subscribers for more subscriptions, then it’s complaining about people not paying their bills. I dare you to tell me of me a single man with an advanced degree going into this profession. The kind of person who edits a newspaper is the kind who has no ambition, who has neither a certificate nor a degree, and who contents himself with coarse bread instead of dying of starvation. People go abroad—to become doctors or engineers or civil servants—but I’ve never heard of anyone going abroad to become an editor. Why get an education? What’s it to anyone if you abandon your ambitions and live out your life as an ascetic? Unless of course we are talking about crazy people.’

‘The purpose of life is not just to accumulate wealth.’

‘You just criticized lawyers by pointing out that they are growing fat eating other people’s incomes. Editors eat other people’s incomes, too.’

Ishwarchandra retorted, ‘Perhaps we do eat other people’s incomes, but we also care deeply for them. We are not looting them like lawyers.’

Manaki countered him, ‘You’re being unfair. Lawyers, too, make sacrifices for their clients. Their incomes are just as kosher as editors’. The only difference is that one is a mountain stream and the other is a trickling gutter. One of them carries along pure water each day, while the other moves garbage. At the most, it will carry water for an hour or two when it rains.’

‘First of all, I don’t agree that lawyers’ earnings are kosher, and even if I do accept that fact, I can never accept that they are all noble people sleeping on beds of flowers. Every person’s fate catches up with them. There are so many lawyers who give false testimonies to fill their bellies. There are such few newspapers in this country precisely because the economic status of managing editors is not very good. In Europe and in America, people have become millionaires running newspapers. In the world today, the leading