The Home and the World, Rabindranath Tagore [robert munsch read aloud txt] 📗

the curse which had reduced them to ashes

was such that they could only be restored to life if the stream

of the Ganges was brought down to them. [Trans.].

XII

In Bengal the machinery of time being thus suddenly run at full

pressure, things which were difficult became easy, one following

soon after another. Nothing could be held back any more, even in

our corner of the country. In the beginning our district was

backward, for my husband was unwilling to put any compulsion on

the villagers. "Those who make sacrifices for their country's

sake are indeed her servants," he would say, "but those who

compel others to make them in her name are her enemies. They

would cut freedom at the root, to gain it at the top."

But when Sandip came and settled here, and his followers began to

move about the country, speaking in towns and market-places,

waves of excitement came rolling up to us as well. A band of

young fellows of the locality attached themselves to him, some

even who had been known as a disgrace to the village. But the

glow of their genuine enthusiasm lighted them up, within as well

as without. It became quite clear that when the pure breezes of

a great joy and hope sweep through the land, all dirt and decay

are cleansed away. It is hard, indeed, for men to be frank and

straight and healthy, when their country is in the throes of

dejection.

Then were all eyes turned on my husband, from whose estates alone

foreign sugar and salt and cloths had not been banished. Even

the estate officers began to feel awkward and ashamed over it.

And yet, some time ago, when my husband began to import country-

made articles into our village, he had been secretly and openly

twitted for his folly, by old and young alike. When

Swadeshi had not yet become a boast, we had despised it

with all our hearts.

My husband still sharpens his Indian-made pencils with his

Indian-made knife, does his writing with reed pens, drinks his

water out of a bell-metal vessel, and works at night in the light

of an old-fashioned castor-oil lamp. But this dull, milk-and-

water Swadeshi of his never appealed to us. Rather, we

had always felt ashamed of the inelegant, unfashionable furniture

of his reception-rooms, especially when he had the magistrate, or

any other European, as his guest.

My husband used to make light of my protests. "Why allow such

trifles to upset you?" he would say with a smile.

"They will think us barbarians, or at all events wanting in

refinement."

"If they do, I will pay them back by thinking that their

refinement does not go deeper than their white skins."

My husband had an ordinary brass pot on his writing-table which

he used as a flower-vase. It has often happened that, when I had

news of some European guest, I would steal into his room and put

in its place a crystal vase of European make. "Look here,

Bimala," he objected at length, "that brass pot is as unconscious

of itself as those blossoms are; but this thing protests its

purpose so loudly, it is only fit for artificial flowers."

The Bara Rani, alone, pandered to my husband's whims. Once she

comes panting to say: "Oh, brother, have you heard? Such lovely

Indian soaps have come out! My days of luxury are gone by;

still, if they contain no animal fat, I should like to try some."

This sort of thing makes my husband beam all over, and the house

is deluged with Indian scents and soaps. Soaps indeed! They are

more like lumps of caustic soda. And do I not know that what my

sister-in-law uses on herself are the European soaps of old,

while these are made over to the maids for washing clothes?

Another time it is: "Oh, brother dear, do get me some of these

new Indian pen-holders."

Her "brother" bubbles up as usual, and the Bara Rani's room

becomes littered with all kinds of awful sticks that go by the

name of Swadeshi pen-holders. Not that it makes any

difference to her, for reading and writing are out of her line.

Still, in her writing-case, lies the selfsame ivory pen-holder,

the only one ever handled.

The fact is, all this was intended as a hit at me, because I

would not keep my husband company in his vagaries. It was no

good trying to show up my sister-in-law's insincerity; my

husband's face would set so hard, if I barely touched on it. One

only gets into trouble, trying to save such people from being

imposed upon!

The Bara Rani loves sewing. One day I could not help blurting

out: "What a humbug you are, sister! When your 'brother' is

present, your mouth waters at the very mention of Swadeshi

scissors, but it is the English-made article every time when you

work."

"What harm?" she replied. "Do you not see what pleasure it

gives him? We have grown up together in this house, since he was

a boy. I simply cannot bear, as you can, the sight of the smile

leaving his face. Poor dear, he has no amusement except this

playing at shop-keeping. You are his only dissipation, and you

will yet be his ruin!"

"Whatever you may say, it is not right to be double-faced," I

retorted.

My sister-in-law laughed out in my face. "Oh, our artless little

Chota Rani!--straight as a schoolmaster's rod, eh? But a woman

is not built that way. She is soft and supple, so that she may

bend without being crooked."

I could not forget those words: "You are his dissipation, and

will be his ruin!" Today I feel--if a man needs must have some

intoxicant, let it not be a woman.

XIII

Suksar, within our estates, is one of the biggest trade centres

in the district. On one side of a stretch of water there is held

a daily bazar; on the other, a weekly market. During the rains

when this piece of water gets connected with the river, and boats

can come through, great quantities of cotton yarns, and woollen

stuffs for the coming winter, are brought in for sale.

At the height of our enthusiasm, Sandip laid it down that all

foreign articles, together with the demon of foreign influence,

must be driven out of our territory.

"Of course!" said I, girding myself up for a fight.

"I have had words with Nikhil about it," said Sandip. "He tells

me, he does not mind speechifying, but he will not have

coercion."

"I will see to that," I said, with a proud sense of power. I

knew how deep was my husband's love for me. Had I been in my

senses I should have allowed myself to be torn to pieces rather

than assert my claim to that, at such a time. But Sandip had to

be impressed with the full strength of my Shakti.

Sandip had brought home to me, in his irresistible way, how the

cosmic Energy was revealed for each individual in the shape of

some special affinity. Vaishnava Philosophy, he said, speaks of

the Shakti of Delight that dwells in the heart of

creation, ever attracting the heart of her Eternal Lover. Men

have a perpetual longing to bring out this Shakti from the

hidden depths of their own nature, and those of us who succeed in

doing so at once clearly understand the meaning of the music

coming to us from the Dark. He broke out singing:

/*

"My flute, that was busy with its song,

Is silent now when we stand face to face.

My call went seeking you from sky to sky

When you lay hidden;

But now all my cry finds its smile

In the face of my beloved."

*/

Listening to his allegories, I had forgotten that I was plain and

simple Bimala. I was Shakti; also an embodiment of

Universal joy. Nothing could fetter me, nothing was impossible

for me; whatever I touched would gain new life. The world around

me was a fresh creation of mine; for behold, before my heart's

response had touched it, there had not been this wealth of gold

in the Autumn sky! And this hero, this true servant of the

country, this devotee of mine--this flaming intelligence, this

burning energy, this shining genius--him also was I creating from

moment to moment. Have I not seen how my presence pours fresh

life into him time after time?

The other day Sandip begged me to receive a young lad, Amulya, an

ardent disciple of his. In a moment I could see a new light

flash out from the boy's eyes, and knew that he, too, had a

vision of Shakti manifest, that my creative force had

begun its work in his blood. "What sorcery is this of yours!"

exclaimed Sandip next day. "Amulya is a boy no longer, the wick

of his life is all ablaze. Who can hide your fire under your

home-roof? Every one of them must be touched up by it, sooner or

later, and when every lamp is alight what a grand carnival of a

Dewali we shall have in the country!"

Blinded with the brilliance of my own glory I had decided to

grant my devotee this boon. I was overweeningly confident that

none could baulk me of what I really wanted. When I returned to

my room after my talk with Sandip, I loosed my hair and tied it

up over again. Miss Gilby had taught me a way of brushing it up

from the neck and piling it in a knot over my head. This style

was a favourite one with my husband. "It is a pity," he once

said, "that Providence should have chosen poor me, instead of

poet Kalidas, for revealing all the wonders of a woman's neck.

The poet would probably have likened it to a flower-stem; but I

feel it to be a torch, holding aloft the black flame of your

hair." With which he ... but why, oh why, do I go back to all

that?

I sent for my husband. In the old days I could contrive a

hundred and one excuses, good or bad, to get him to come to me.

Now that all this had stopped for days I had lost the art of

contriving.

Nikhil's Story

VI

Panchu's wife has just died of a lingering consumption. Panchu

must undergo a purification ceremony to cleanse himself of sin

and to propitiate his community. The community has calculated

and informed him that it will cost one hundred and twenty-three

rupees.

"How absurd!" I cried, highly indignant. "Don't submit to this,

Panchu. What can they do to you?"

Raising to me his patient eyes like those of a tired-out beast of

burden, he said: "There is my eldest girl, sir, she will have to

be married. And my poor wife's last rites have to be put

through."

"Even if the sin were yours, Panchu," I mused aloud, "you have

surely suffered enough for it already."

"That is so, sir," he na�vely assented. "I had to sell part of

my land and mortgage the rest to meet the doctor's bills. But

there is no escape from the offerings I have to make the

Brahmins."

What was the use of arguing? When will come the time, I

wondered, for the purification of the Brahmins