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

about to attack me again."

"I have come to give you a warning, Sandip," said my husband.

"About the fever fit of poesy?"

My husband took no notice of this attempt at humour. "For some

time," he continued, "Mahomedan preachers have been about

stirring up the local Mussulmans. They are all wild with you,

and may attack you any moment."

"Are you come to advise flight?"

"I have come to give you information, not to offer advice."

"Had these estates been mine, such a warning would have been

necessary for the preachers, not for me. If, instead of trying

to frighten me, you give them a taste of your intimidation, that

would be worthier both of you and me. Do you know that your

weakness is weakening your neighbouring zamindars also?"

"I did not offer you my advice, Sandip. I wish you, too, would

refrain from giving me yours. Besides, it is useless. And there

is another thing I want to tell you. You and your followers have

been secretly worrying and oppressing my tenantry. I cannot

allow that any longer. So I must ask you to leave my territory."

"For fear of the Mussulmans, or is there any other fear you have

to threaten me with?"

"There are fears the want of which is cowardice. In the name of

those fears, I tell you, Sandip, you must go. In five days I

shall be starting for Calcutta. I want you to accompany me. You

may of course stay in my house there--to that there is no

objection."

"All right, I have still five day's time then. Meanwhile, Queen

Bee, let me hum to you my song of parting from your honey-hive.

Ah! you poet of modern Bengal! Throw open your doors and let me

plunder your words. The theft is really yours, for it is my song

which you have made your own--let the name be yours by all means,

but the song is mine." With this Sandip struck up in a deep,

husky voice, which threatened to be out of tune, a song in the

Bhairavi mode:

/*

"In the springtime of your kingdom, my Queen,

Meetings and partings chase each other in their endless hide

and seek,

And flowers blossom in the wake of those that droop and die in

the shade.

In the springtime of your kingdom, my Queen,

My meeting with you had its own songs,

But has not also my leave-taking any gift to offer you?

That gift is my secret hope, which I keep hidden in the shadows

of your flower garden,

That the rains of July may sweetly temper your fiery June."

*/

His boldness was immense--boldness which had no veil, but was naked

as fire. One finds no time to stop it: it is like trying

to resist a thunderbolt: the lightning flashes: it laughs at all

resistance.

I left the room. As I was passing along the verandah towards the

inner apartments, Amulya suddenly made his appearance and came

and stood before me.

"Fear nothing, Sister Rani," he said. "I am off tonight and

shall not return unsuccessful."

"Amulya," said I, looking straight into his earnest, youthful

face, "I fear nothing for myself, but may I never cease to fear

for you."

Amulya turned to go, but before he was out of sight I called him

back and asked: "Have you a mother, Amulya?"

"I have."

"A sister?"

"No, I am the only child of my mother. My father died when I was

quite little."

"Then go back to your mother, Amulya."

"But, Sister Rani, I have now both mother and sister."

"Then, Amulya, before you leave tonight, come and have your

dinner here."

"There won't be time for that. Let me take some food for the

journey, consecrated with your touch."

"What do you specially like, Amulya?"

"If I had been with my mother I should have had lots of Poush

cakes. Make some for me with your own hands, Sister Rani!"

Of the Ramayana. The story of his devotion to his

elder brother Rama and his brother's wife Sita, has become a

byword.

Chapter Ten

Nikhil's Story

XII

I LEARNT from my master that Sandip had joined forces with Harish

Kundu, and there was to be a grand celebration of the worship of

the demon-destroying Goddess. Harish Kundu was extorting the

expenses from his tenantry. Pandits Kaviratna and Vidyavagish

had been commissioned to compose a hymn with a double meaning.

My master has just had a passage at arms with Sandip over this.

"Evolution is at work amongst the gods as well," says Sandip.

"The grandson has to remodel the gods created by the grandfather

to suit his own taste, or else he is left an atheist. It is my

mission to modernize the ancient deities. I am born the saviour

of the gods, to emancipate them from the thraldom of the past."

I have seen from our boyhood what a juggler with ideas is Sandip.

He has no interest in discovering truth, but to make a quizzical

display of it rejoices his heart. Had he been born in the wilds

of Africa he would have spent a glorious time inventing argument

after argument to prove that cannibalism is the best means of

promoting true communion between man and man. But those who deal

in delusion end by deluding themselves, and I fully believe that,

each time Sandip creates a new fallacy, he persuades himself that

he has found the truth, however contradictory his creations may

be to one another.

However, I shall not give a helping hand to establish a liquor

distillery in my country. The young men, who are ready to offer

their services for their country's cause, must not fall into this

habit of getting intoxicated. The people who want to exact work

by drugging methods set more value on the excitement than on the

minds they intoxicate.

I had to tell Sandip, in Bimala's presence, that he must go.

Perhaps both will impute to me the wrong motive. But I must free

myself also from all fear of being misunderstood. Let even

Bimala misunderstand me ...

A number of Mahomedan preachers are being sent over from Dacca.

The Mussulmans in my territory had come to have almost as much of

an aversion to the killing of cows as the Hindus. But now cases

of cow-killing are cropping up here and there. I had the news

first from some of my Mussulman tenants with expressions of their

disapproval. Here was a situation which I could see would be

difficult to meet. At the bottom was a pretence of fanaticism,

which would cease to be a pretence if obstructed. That is just

where the ingenuity of the move came in!

I sent for some of my principal Hindu tenants and tried to get

them to see the matter in its proper light. "We can be staunch

in our own convictions," I said, "but we have no control over

those of others. For all that many of us are Vaishnavas, those

of us who are Shaktas go on with their animal sacrifices just the

same. That cannot be helped. We must, in the same way, let the

Mussulmans do as they think best. So please refrain from all

disturbance."

"Maharaja," they replied, "these outrages have been unknown for

so long."

"That was so," I said, "because such was their spontaneous

desire. Let us behave in such a way that the same may become

true, over again. But a breach of the peace is not the way to

bring this about."

"No, Maharaja," they insisted, "those good old days are gone.

This will never stop unless you put it down with a strong hand."

"Oppression," I replied, "will not only not prevent cow-killing,

it may lead to the killing of men as well."

One of them had had an English education. He had learnt to

repeat the phrases of the day. "It is not only a question of

orthodoxy," he argued. "Our country is mainly agricultural, and

cows are ..."

"Buffaloes in this country," I interrupted, "likewise give milk

and are used for ploughing. And therefore, so long as we dance

frantic dances on our temple pavements, smeared with their blood,

their severed heads carried on our shoulders, religion will only

laugh at us if we quarrel with Mussulmans in her name, and

nothing but the quarrel itself will remain true. If the cow

alone is to be held sacred from slaughter, and not the buffalo,

then that is bigotry, not religion."

"But are you not aware, sir, of what is behind all this?"

pursued the English-knowing tenant. "This has only become

possible because the Mussulman is assured of safety, even if he

breaks the law. Have you not heard of the Pachur case?"

"Why is it possible," I asked, "to use the Mussulmans thus, as

tools against us? Is it not because we have fashioned them into

such with our own intolerance? That is how Providence punishes

us. Our accumulated sins are being visited on our own heads."

"Oh, well, if that be so, let them be visited on us. But we

shall have our revenge. We have undermined what was the greatest

strength of the authorities, their devotion to their own laws.

Once they were truly kings, dispensing justice; now they

themselves will become law-breakers, and so no better than

robbers. This may not go down to history, but we shall carry it

in our hearts for all time ..."

The evil reports about me which are spreading from paper to paper

are making me notorious. News comes that my effigy has been

burnt at the river-side burning-ground of the Chakravartis, with

due ceremony and enthusiasm; and other insults are in

contemplation. The trouble was that they had come to ask me to

take shares in a Cotton Mill they wanted to start. I had to tell

them that I did not so much mind the loss of my own money, but I

would not be a party to causing a loss to so many poor

shareholders.

"Are we to understand, Maharaja," said my visitors, "that the

prosperity of the country does not interest you?"

"Industry may lead to the country's prosperity," I explained,

"but a mere desire for its prosperity will not make for success

in industry. Even when our heads were cool, our industries did

not flourish. Why should we suppose that they will do so just

because we have become frantic?"

"Why not say plainly that you will not risk your money?"

"I will put in my money when I see that it is industry which

prompts you. But, because you have lighted a fire, it does not

follow that you have the food to cook over it."

XIII

What is this? Our Chakua sub-treasury looted! A remittance of

seven thousand five hundred rupees was due from there to

headquarters. The local cashier had changed the cash at the

Government Treasury into small currency notes for convenience in

carrying, and had kept them ready in bundles. In the middle of

the night an armed band had raided the room, and wounded Kasim,

the man on guard. The curious part of it was that they had taken

only six thousand rupees and left the rest scattered on the

floor, though it would have been as easy to carry that away also.

Anyhow, the raid of the dacoits was over; now the police raid

would begin. Peace was out of the question.

When I went