The Calcutta Review, 3rd Series/Volume 16/Step Aside
STEP ASIDE[1]
Step aside ye crowned heads! Step-aside ye proud peers and belted knights! Stand back all mortal world and for one moment hush! Let from the frail frame a Great Soul pass away in peace to the abode of Eternal Bliss!
Bharatbarsa has produced long lances and sharp swords as any country in the world. Her sons have defended their own and punished usurpers with might and main, in fight, fair and free. Her daughters had in their hearts, along with the milk of maternal tenderness, wine enough to inebriate the souls of the sterner sex with the spirit of chivalry and gallantry. Superhuman feats of physical strength have been performed by men to win the hands of fair princesses. But the heroes of this country never won the green laurel of immortality dipped in a brother’s blood.
The standard of heroism in this land of ours was and is still gauged by the extent of self-conquest a person has achieved and not from an inventory of possessions he has been or is able to wrench off from his neighbours. Not the extermination of others but renunciation of Self makes Heroes in Bharat.
The British era in India has turned out thousands of graduates from English-made Universities, and Chittaranjan was only one of them. Hundreds of successful lawyers lived, and still live and flourish and Mr. C. R. Das was only one of the constellation. Charity is not a virtue but a habit with the people of Hindustan, and deeds of benevolence are not only sung in ballads or handed down through legends, but the ink is not yet dry on the papers on which are recorded the munificence of Palit and Rashbehary to the count of millions; so in charitable Bengal the rich lawyer of Russa Road was but another charitable man.
The thing that made the Bengali to raise his brother of Bikrampur to the throne of worship is his act of renunciation, his act of sacrificing all, his entire annihilation of Self.
Renunciation is neither a new nor rare act in this country but the age, an age in which diction has turned gold into an adjective to qualify goodness, an age in which a University degree and an advocate’s gown might have made a Sakya Singha pause before He renounced the world, the renunciation of Deshabandhu was superb, wonderful, divine!
In the eyes of the humble inditer of these lines Ramchandra, Buddhadeva, Christ, Mahomed, Sree Chaitanya, Sree Ramkrishna, Vivekananda Swami, though embodied in mortal frame, were not men but Incarnations of Iswar-sakti. They are ever-living beacons to light up men’s path but inimitable as models.
Here is our son of flesh, born in affluence, brought up in luxury, achieving worldly greatness, with gold mohurs in bagfuls thrust in the hood of his gown, rising one holy morning from his bed and declaring himself poor. Here is the scion of a rich family throwing away his gold spoon to put his fingers on a brass platter. Here is Mr. Das changing his Bond-Street clothes for Khaddar. Here is the thousand-a-day Barrister ministering to his wants by counting out copper pice.
He is no man who does not exclaim out “Ahaha” when he sees a person stumble in his walk; but the sight of one leaping down from a terrace forty-five feet high, stops the beating of the hearts of all those who look at it, and the stunned heart bound up to the mouth when that One stands up instantly erect and taller than what he looked when high above on the terrace. This wondrous feat, in these times of scrambling up the greasy post to catch the winning purse, was performed by Babu Chittaranjan Das. He threw himself down to rise stronger, he stooped to conquer. Ah! What a conquest it was! On the day that leap was taken died Mr. C. R. Das the barrister, the man with a million, the slave of luxury and with resurrection rose from the ashes of the servile flesh the Spirit of the King of Men. Three hundred millions of men, women and children bowed their devoted heads in the Grand Presence.
A bow coveted by earthly sovereigns and commanded by legislature in letters of blood, forging swords and casting cannons.
India has not begun work in earnest yet; She is receiving messages. Chittaranjan has delivered the message he was charged with from High; that done the curtain dropped on his Ascension.
The Lamp-lighter has done his task and retired to rest; an illuminated street is now before us, my countrymen, and if we will, we can walk up to our workshop.
An illuminated street is often before you too; our Rulers! You also can tread this road both for your and our good if you will see your way by the Bengal light, leaving your Roman candle for service at home.
- ↑ The name of the house at Darjeeling in which Chittaranjan passed away is “Step Aside.”