The Home and the World, Rabindranath Tagore [robert munsch read aloud txt] 📗
- Author: Rabindranath Tagore
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Bengal and say it is for your benefit. They will seal the doors
of education and call it raising the standard. But you will
always remain good boys, snivelling in your corners. We bad men,
however, must see whether we cannot erect a defensive
fortification of untruth."
"It is no use arguing about these things, Nikhil," my master
interposed. "How can they who do not feel the truth within them,
realize that to bring it out from its obscurity into the light is
man's highest aim--not to keep on heaping material outside?"
Sandip laughed. "Right, sir!" said he. "Quite a correct speech
for a schoolmaster. That is the kind of stuff I have read in
books; but in the real world I have seen that man's chief
business is the accumulation of outside material. Those who are
masters in the art, advertise the biggest lies in their business,
enter false accounts in their political ledgers with their
broadest-pointed pens, launch their newspapers daily laden with
untruths, and send preachers abroad to disseminate falsehood like
flies carrying pestilential germs. I am a humble follower of
these great ones. When I was attached to the Congress party I
never hesitated to dilute ten per cent of truth with ninety per
cent of untruth. And now, merely because I have ceased to belong
to that party, I have not forgotten the basic fact that man's
goal is not truth but success."
"True success," corrected my master.
"Maybe," replied Sandip, "but the fruit of true success ripens
only by cultivating the field of untruth, after tearing up the
soil and pounding it into dust. Truth grows up by itself like
weeds and thorns, and only worms can expect to get fruit from
it!" With this he flung out of the room.
My master smiled as he looked towards me. "Do you know, Nikhil,"
he said, "I believe Sandip is not irreligious--his religion is of
the obverse side of truth, like the dark moon, which is still a
moon, for all that its light has gone over to the wrong side."
"That is why," I assented, "I have always had an affection for
him, though we have never been able to agree. I cannot contemn
him, even now; though he has hurt me sorely, and may yet hurt me
more."
"I have begun to realize that," said my master. "I have long
wondered how you could go on putting up with him. I have, at
times, even suspected you of weakness. I now see that though you
two do not rhyme, your rhythm is the same."
"Fate seems bent on writing Paradise Lost in blank verse,
in my case, and so has no use for a rhyming friend!" I remarked,
pursuing his conceit.
"But what of Panchu?" resumed my master.
"You say Harish Kundu wants to eject him from his ancestral
holding. Supposing I buy it up and then keep him on as my
tenant?"
"And his fine?"
"How can the zamindar realize that if he becomes my
tenant?"
"His burnt bale of cloth?"
"I will procure him another. I should like to see anyone
interfering with a tenant of mine, for trading as he pleases!"
"I am afraid, sir," interposed Panchu despondently, "while you
big folk are doing the fighting, the police and the law vultures
will merrily gather round, and the crowd will enjoy the fun, but
when it comes to getting killed, it will be the turn of only poor
me!"
"Why, what harm can come to you?"
"They will burn down my house, sir, children and all!"
"Very well, I will take charge of your children," said my master.
"You may go on with any trade you like. They shan't touch you."
That very day I bought up Panchu's holding and entered into
formal possession. Then the trouble began.
Panchu had inherited the holding of his grandfather as his sole
surviving heir. Everybody knew this. But at this juncture an
aunt turned up from somewhere, with her boxes and bundles, her
rosary, and a widowed niece. She ensconced herself in Panchu's
home and laid claim to a life interest in all he had.
Panchu was dumbfounded. "My aunt died long ago," he protested.
In reply he was told that he was thinking of his uncle's first
wife, but that the former had lost no time in taking to himself a
second.
"But my uncle died before my aunt," exclaimed Panchu, still more
mystified. "Where was the time for him to marry again?"
This was not denied. But Panchu was reminded that it had never
been asserted that the second wife had come after the death of
the first, but the former had been married by his uncle during
the latter's lifetime. Not relishing the idea of living with a
co-wife she had remained in her father's house till her husband's
death, after which she had got religion and retired to holy
Brindaban, whence she was now coming. These facts were well
known to the officers of Harish Kundu, as well as to some of his
tenants. And if the zamindar's summons should be
peremptory enough, even some of those who had partaken of the
marriage feast would be forthcoming!
IX
One afternoon, when I happened to be specially busy, word came to
my office room that Bimala had sent for me. I was startled.
"Who did you say had sent for me?" I asked the messenger.
"The Rani Mother."
"The Bara Rani?"
"No, sir, the Chota Rani Mother."
The Chota Rani! It seemed a century since I had been sent for by
her. I kept them all waiting there, and went off into the inner
apartments. When I stepped into our room I had another shock of
surprise to find Bimala there with a distinct suggestion of being
dressed up. The room, which from persistent neglect had latterly
acquired an air of having grown absent-minded, had regained
something of its old order this afternoon. I stood there
silently, looking enquiringly at Bimala.
She flushed a little and the fingers of her right hand toyed for
a time with the bangles on her left arm. Then she abruptly broke
the silence. "Look here! Is it right that ours should be the
only market in all Bengal which allows foreign goods?"
"What, then, would be the right thing to do?" I asked.
"Order them to be cleared out!"
"But the goods are not mine."
"Is not the market yours?"
"It is much more theirs who use it for trade."
"Let them trade in Indian goods, then."
"Nothing would please me better. But suppose they do not?"
"Nonsense! How dare they be so insolent? Are you not ..."
"I am very busy this afternoon and cannot stop to argue it out.
But I must refuse to tyrannize."
"It would not be tyranny for selfish gain, but for the sake of
the country."
"To tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country.
But that I am afraid you will never understand." With this I
came away.
All of a sudden the world shone out for me with a fresh
clearness. I seemed to feel it in my blood, that the Earth had
lost the weight of its earthiness, and its daily task of
sustaining life no longer appeared a burden, as with a wonderful
access of power it whirled through space telling its beads of
days and nights. What endless work, and withal what illimitable
energy of freedom! None shall check it, oh, none can ever check
it! From the depths of my being an uprush of joy, like a
waterspout, sprang high to storm the skies.
I repeatedly asked myself the meaning of this outburst of
feeling. At first there was no intelligible answer. Then it
became clear that the bond against which I had been fretting
inwardly, night and day, had broken. To my surprise I discovered
that my mind was freed from all mistiness. I could see
everything relating to Bimala as if vividly pictured on a camera
screen. It was palpable that she had specially dressed herself
up to coax that order out of me. Till that moment, I had never
viewed Bimala's adornment as a thing apart from herself. But
today the elaborate manner in which she had done up her hair, in
the English fashion, made it appear a mere decoration. That
which before had the mystery of her personality about it, and was
priceless to me, was now out to sell itself cheap.
As I came away from that broken cage of a bedroom, out into the
golden sunlight of the open, there was the avenue of bauhinias,
along the gravelled path in front of my verandah, suffusing the
sky with a rosy flush. A group of starlings beneath the trees
were noisily chattering away. In the distance an empty bullock
cart, with its nose on the ground, held up its tail aloft--one of
its unharnessed bullocks grazing, the other resting on the grass,
its eyes dropping for very comfort, while a crow on its back was
pecking away at the insects on its body.
I seemed to have come closer to the heartbeats of the great earth
in all the simplicity of its daily life; its warm breath fell on
me with the perfume of the bauhinia blossoms; and an anthem,
inexpressibly sweet, seemed to peal forth from this world, where
I, in my freedom, live in the freedom of all else.
We, men, are knights whose quest is that freedom to which our
ideals call us. She who makes for us the banner under which we
fare forth is the true Woman for us. We must tear away the
disguise of her who weaves our net of enchantment at home, and
know her for what she is. We must beware of clothing her in the
witchery of our own longings and imaginings, and thus allow her
to distract us from our true quest.
Today I feel that I shall win through. I have come to the
gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they
are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to
others. In my work will be my salvation.
I know that, time and again, my heart will ache, but now that I
understand its pain in all its truth, I can disregard it. Now
that I know it concerns only me, what after all can be its value?
The suffering which belongs to all mankind shall be my crown.
Save me, Truth! Never again let me hanker after the false
paradise of Illusion. If I must walk alone, let me at least
tread your path. Let the drum-beats of Truth lead me to Victory.
Sandip's Story
VII
Bimala sent for me that day, but for a time she could not utter a
word; her eyes kept brimming up to the verge of overflowing. I
could see at once that she had been unsuccessful with Nikhil.
She had been so proudly confident that she would have her own
way--but I had never shared her confidence. Woman knows man well
enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable to fathom him
where he is strong. The fact is that man is as much a mystery to
woman as woman is to man. If that were not so, the separation of
the sexes would only have been a waste of Nature's energy.
Ah pride,
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