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

purposeless conflict with itself? I thought

I had imposed too hard a task. My first impulse was to call her

back, and tell her I would rather not make her life wretched by

dragging her into all these troubles. I forgot, for the moment,

that it was the mission of man to be aggressive, to make woman's

existence fruitful by stirring up disquiet in the depth of her

passivity, to make the whole world blessed by churning up the

immeasurable abyss of suffering! This is why man's hands are so

strong, his grip so firm. Bimala had been longing with all her

heart that I, Sandip, should demand of her some great sacrifice--

should call her to her death. How else could she be happy? Had

she not waited all these weary years only for an opportunity to

weep out her heart--so satiated was she with the monotony of her

placid happiness? And therefore, at the very sight of me, her

heart's horizon darkened with the rain clouds of her impending

days of anguish. If I pity her and save her from her sorrows,

what then was the purpose of my being born a man?

The real reason of my qualms is that my demand happens to be for

money. That savours of beggary, for money is man's, not woman's.

That is why I had to make it a big figure. A thousand or two

would have the air of petty theft. Fifty thousand has all the

expanse of romantic brigandage. Ah, but riches should really

have been mine! So many of my desires have had to halt, again

and again, on the road to accomplishment simply for want of

money. This does not become me! Had my fate been merely unjust,

it could be forgiven--but its bad taste is unpardonable. It is

not simply a hardship that a man like me should be at his wit's

end to pay his house rent, or should have to carefully count out

the coins for an Intermediate Class railway ticket--it is vulgar!

It is equally clear that Nikhil's paternal estates are a

superfluity to him. For him it would not have been at all

unbecoming to be poor. He would have cheerfully pulled in the

double harness of indigent mediocrity with that precious master

of his. I should love to have, just for once, the chance to

fling about fifty thousand rupees in the service of my country

and to the satisfaction of myself. I am a nabob born, and it is

a great dream of mine to get rid of this disguise of poverty,

though it be for a day only, and to see myself in my true

character. I have grave misgivings, however, as to Bimala ever

getting that fifty thousand rupees within her reach, and it will

probably be only a thousand or two which will actually come to

hand. Be it so. The wise man is content with half a loaf, or

any fraction for that matter, rather than no bread. I must

return to these personal reflections of mine later. News comes

that I am wanted at once. Something has gone wrong ...

It seems that the police have got a clue to the man who sank

Mirjan's boat for us. He was an old offender. They are on his

trail, but he should be too practised a hand to be caught

blabbing. However, one never knows. Nikhil's back is up, and

his manager may not be able to have things his own way.

"If I get into trouble, sir," said the manager when I saw him, "I

shall have to drag you in!"

"Where is the noose with which you can catch me?" I asked.

"I have a letter of yours, and several of Amulya Babu's." I

could not see that the letter marked "urgent" to which I had been

hurried into writing a reply was wanted urgently for this purpose

only! I am getting to learn quite a number of things.

The point now is, that the police must be bribed and hush-money

paid to Mirjan for his boat. It is also becoming evident that

much of the cost of this patriotic venture of ours will find its

way as profit into the pockets of Nikhil's manager. However, I

must shut my eyes to that for the present, for is he not shouting

Bande Mataram as lustily as I am?

This kind of work has always to be carried on with leaky vessels

which let as much through as they fetch in. We all have a hidden

fund of moral judgement stored away within us, and so I was about

to wax indignant with the manager, and enter in my diary a tirade

against the unreliability of our countrymen. But, if there be a

god, I must acknowledge with gratitude to him that he has given

me a clear-seeing mind, which allows nothing inside or outside it

to remain vague. I may delude others, but never myself. So I

was unable to continue angry.

Whatever is true is neither good nor bad, but simply true, and

that is Science. A lake is only the remnant of water which has

not been sucked into the ground. Underneath the cult of _Bande

Mataram_, as indeed at the bottom of all mundane affairs,

there is a region of slime, whose absorbing power must be

reckoned with. The manager will take what he wants; I also have

my own wants. These lesser wants form a part of the wants of the

great Cause--the horse must be fed and the wheels must be oiled

if the best progress is to be made.

The long and short of it is that money we must have, and that

soon. We must take whatever comes the readiest, for we cannot

afford to wait. I know that the immediate often swallows up the

ultimate; that the five thousand rupees of today may nip in the

bud the fifty thousand rupees of tomorrow. But I must accept the

penalty. Have I not often twitted Nikhil that they who walk in

the paths of restraint have never known what sacrifice is? It is

we greedy folk who have to sacrifice our greed at every step!

Of the cardinal sins of man, Desire is for men who are men--but

Delusion, which is only for cowards, hampers them. Because

delusion keeps them wrapped up in past and future, but is the

very deuce for confounding their footsteps in the present. Those

who are always straining their ears for the call of the remote,

to the neglect of the call of the imminent, are like Sakuntala

[19] absorbed in the memories of her lover. The guest comes

unheeded, and the curse descends, depriving them of the very

object of their desire.

The other day I pressed Bimala's hand, and that touch still stirs

her mind, as it vibrates in mine. Its thrill must not be

deadened by repetition, for then what is now music will descend

to mere argument. There is at present no room in her mind for

the question "why?" So I must not deprive Bimala, who is one of

those creatures for whom illusion is necessary, of her full

supply of it.

As for me, I have so much else to do that I shall have to be

content for the present with the foam of the wine cup of passion.

O man of desire! Curb your greed, and practise your hand on the

harp of illusion till you can bring out all the delicate nuances

of suggestion. This is not the time to drain the cup to the

dregs.

Sakuntala, after the king, her lover, went back to his

kingdom, promising to send for her, was so lost in thoughts of

him, that she failed to hear the call of her hermit guest who

thereupon cursed her, saying that the object of her love would

forget all about her. [Trans.].

IX

Our work proceeds apace. But though we have shouted ourselves

hoarse, proclaiming the Mussulmans to be our brethren, we have

come to realize that we shall never be able to bring them wholly

round to our side. So they must be suppressed altogether and

made to understand that we are the masters. They are now showing

their teeth, but one day they shall dance like tame bears to the

tune we play.

"If the idea of a United India is a true one," objects Nikhil,

"Mussulmans are a necessary part of it."

"Quite so," said I, "but we must know their place and keep them

there, otherwise they will constantly be giving trouble."

"So you want to make trouble to prevent trouble?"

"What, then, is your plan?"

"There is only one well-known way of avoiding quarrels," said

Nikhil meaningly.

I know that, like tales written by good people, Nikhil's

discourse always ends in a moral. The strange part of it is that

with all his familiarity with moral precepts, he still believes

in them! He is an incorrigible schoolboy. His only merit is his

sincerity. The mischief with people like him is that they will

not admit the finality even of death, but keep their eyes always

fixed on a hereafter.

I have long been nursing a plan which, if only I could carry it

out, would set fire to the whole country. True patriotism will

never be roused in our countrymen unless they can visualize the

motherland. We must make a goddess of her. My colleagues saw

the point at once. "Let us devise an appropriate image!" they

exclaimed. "It will not do if you devise it," I admonished

them. "We must get one of the current images accepted as

representing the country--the worship of the people must flow

towards it along the deep-cut grooves of custom."

But Nikhil's needs must argue even about this. "We must not seek

the help of illusions," he said to me some time ago, "for what we

believe to be the true cause."

"Illusions are necessary for lesser minds," I said, "and to this

class the greater portion of the world belongs. That is why

divinities are set up in every country to keep up the illusions

of the people, for men are only too well aware of their

weakness."

"No," he replied. "God is necessary to clear away our illusions.

The divinities which keep them alive are false gods."

"What of that? If need be, even false gods must be invoked,

rather than let the work suffer. Unfortunately for us, our

illusions are alive enough, but we do not know how to make them

serve our purpose. Look at the Brahmins. In spite of our

treating them as demi-gods, and untiringly taking the dust of

their feet, they are a force going to waste.

"There will always be a large class of people, given to

grovelling, who can never be made to do anything unless they are

bespattered with the dust of somebody's feet, be it on their

heads or on their backs! What a pity if after keeping Brahmins

saved up in our armoury for all these ages--keen and serviceable

--they cannot be utilized to urge on this rabble in the time of

our need."

But it is impossible to drive all this into Nikhil's head. He

has such a prejudice in favour of truth--as though there exists

such an objective reality! How often have I tried to explain to

him that where untruth truly exists, there it is indeed