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

nothing against your worship as such, but how is it you

propose to conduct your worship of God by hating other countries

in which He is equally manifest?"

"Hate is also an adjunct of worship. Arjuna won Mahadeva's

favour by wrestling with him. God will be with us in the end, if

we are prepared to give Him battle."

"If that be so, then those who are serving and those who are

harming the country are both His devotees. Why, then, trouble to

preach patriotism?"

"In the case of one's own country, it is different. There the

heart clearly demands worship."

"If you push the same argument further you can say that since God

is manifested in us, our self has to be worshipped before

all else; because our natural instinct claims it."

"Look here, Nikhil, this is all merely dry logic. Can't you

recognize that there is such a thing as feeling?"

"I tell you the truth, Sandip," my husband replied. "It is my

feelings that are outraged, whenever you try to pass off

injustice as a duty, and unrighteousness as a moral ideal. The

fact, that I am incapable of stealing, is not due to my

possessing logical faculties, but to my having some feeling of

respect for myself and love for ideals."

I was raging inwardly. At last I could keep silent no longer.

"Is not the history of every country," I cried, "whether England,

France, Germany, or Russia, the history of stealing for the sake

of one's own country?"

"They have to answer for these thefts; they are doing so even

now; their history is not yet ended."

"At any rate," interposed Sandip Babu, "why should we not follow

suit? Let us first fill our country's coffers with stolen goods

and then take centuries, like these other countries, to answer

for them, if we must. But, I ask you, where do you find this

'answering' in history?"

"When Rome was answering for her sin no one knew it. All that

time, there was apparently no limit to her prosperity. But do

you not see one thing: how these political bags of theirs are

bursting with lies and treacheries, breaking their backs under

their weight?"

Never before had I had any opportunity of being present at a

discussion between my husband and his men friends. Whenever he

argued with me I could feel his reluctance to push me into a

corner. This arose out of the very love he bore me. Today for

the first time I saw his fencer's skill in debate.

Nevertheless, my heart refused to accept my husband's position.

I was struggling to find some answer, but it would not come.

When the word "righteousness" comes into an argument, it sounds

ugly to say that a thing can be too good to be useful.

All of a sudden Sandip Babu turned to me with the question: "What

do you say to this?"

"I do not care about fine distinctions," I broke out. "I will

tell you broadly what I feel. I am only human. I am covetous.

I would have good things for my country. If I am obliged, I

would snatch them and filch them. I have anger. I would be

angry for my country's sake. If necessary, I would smite and

slay to avenge her insults. I have my desire to be fascinated,

and fascination must be supplied to me in bodily shape by my

country. She must have some visible symbol casting its spell

upon my mind. I would make my country a Person, and call her

Mother, Goddess, Durga--for whom I would redden the earth with

sacrificial offerings. I am human, not divine."

Sandip Babu leapt to his feet with uplifted arms and shouted

"Hurrah!"--The next moment he corrected himself and cried:

"Bande Mataram."

A shadow of pain passed over the face of my husband. He said to

me in a very gentle voice: "Neither am I divine: I am human. And

therefore I dare not permit the evil which is in me to be

exaggerated into an image of my country--never, never!"

Sandip Babu cried out: "See, Nikhil, how in the heart of a woman

Truth takes flesh and blood. Woman knows how to be cruel: her

virulence is like a blind storm. It is beautifully fearful. In

man it is ugly, because it harbours in its centre the gnawing

worms of reason and thought. I tell you, Nikhil, it is our women

who will save the country. This is not the time for nice

scruples. We must be unswervingly, unreasoningly brutal. We

must sin. We must give our women red sandal paste with which to

anoint and enthrone our sin. Don't you remember what the poet

says:

/*

Come, Sin, O beautiful Sin,

Let thy stinging red kisses pour down fiery red wine into our

blood.

Sound the trumpet of imperious evil

And cross our forehead with the wreath of exulting lawlessness,

O Deity of Desecration,

Smear our breasts with the blackest mud of disrepute,

unashamed.

*/

Down with that righteousness, which cannot smilingly bring rack

and ruin."

When Sandip Babu, standing with his head high, insulted at a

moment's impulse all that men have cherished as their highest, in

all countries and in all times, a shiver went right through my

body.

But, with a stamp of his foot, he continued his declamation: "I

can see that you are that beautiful spirit of fire, which burns

the home to ashes and lights up the larger world with its flame.

Give to us the indomitable courage to go to the bottom of Ruin

itself. Impart grace to all that is baneful."

It was not clear to whom Sandip Babu addressed his last appeal.

It might have been She whom he worshipped with his _Bande

Mataram_. It might have been the Womanhood of his country.

Or it might have been its representative, the woman before him.

He would have gone further in the same strain, but my husband

suddenly rose from his seat and touched him lightly on the

shoulder saying: "Sandip, Chandranath Babu is here."

I started and turned round, to find an aged gentleman at the

door, calm and dignified, in doubt as to whether he should come

in or retire. His face was touched with a gentle light like that

of the setting sun.

My husband came up to me and whispered: "This is my master, of

whom I have so often told you. Make your obeisance to him."

I bent reverently and took the dust of his feet. He gave me his

blessing saying: "May God protect you always, my little mother."

I was sorely in need of such a blessing at that moment.

Nikhil's Story

I

One day I had the faith to believe that I should be able to bear

whatever came from my God. I never had the trial. Now I think

it has come.

I used to test my strength of mind by imagining all kinds of evil

which might happen to me--poverty, imprisonment, dishonour,

death--even Bimala's. And when I said to myself that I should be

able to receive these with firmness, I am sure I did not

exaggerate. Only I could never even imagine one thing, and today

it is that of which I am thinking, and wondering whether I can

really bear it. There is a thorn somewhere pricking in my heart,

constantly giving me pain while I am about my daily work. It

seems to persist even when I am asleep. The very moment I wake

up in the morning, I find that the bloom has gone from the face

of the sky. What is it? What has happened?

My mind has become so sensitive, that even my past life, which

came to me in the disguise of happiness, seems to wring my very

heart with its falsehood; and the shame and sorrow which are

coming close to me are losing their cover of privacy, all the

more because they try to veil their faces. My heart has become

all eyes. The things that should not be seen, the things I do

not want to see--these I must see.

The day has come at last when my ill-starred life has to reveal

its destitution in a long-drawn series of exposures. This

penury, all unexpected, has taken its seat in the heart where

plenitude seemed to reign. The fees which I paid to delusion for

just nine years of my youth have now to be returned with interest

to Truth till the end of my days.

What is the use of straining to keep up my pride? What harm if I

confess that I have something lacking in me? Possibly it is that

unreasoning forcefulness which women love to find in men. But is

strength mere display of muscularity? Must strength have no

scruples in treading the weak underfoot?

But why all these arguments? Worthiness cannot be earned merely

by disputing about it. And I am unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.

What if I am unworthy? The true value of love is this, that it

can ever bless the unworthy with its own prodigality. For the

worthy there are many rewards on God's earth, but God has

specially reserved love for the unworthy.

Up till now Bimala was my home-made Bimala, the product of the

confined space and the daily routine of small duties. Did the

love which I received from her, I asked myself, come from the

deep spring of her heart, or was it merely like the daily

provision of pipe water pumped up by the municipal steam-engine

of society?

I longed to find Bimala blossoming fully in all her truth and

power. But the thing I forgot to calculate was, that one must

give up all claims based on conventional rights, if one would

find a person freely revealed in truth.

Why did I fail to think of this? Was it because of the husband's

pride of possession over his wife? No. It was because I placed

the fullest trust upon love. I was vain enough to think that I

had the power in me to bear the sight of truth in its awful

nakedness. It was tempting Providence, but still I clung to my

proud determination to come out victorious in the trial.

Bimala had failed to understand me in one thing. She could not

fully realize that I held as weakness all imposition of force.

Only the weak dare not be just. They shirk their responsibility

of fairness and try quickly to get at results through the short-

cuts of injustice. Bimala has no patience with patience. She

loves to find in men the turbulent, the angry, the unjust. Her

respect must have its element of fear.

I had hoped that when Bimala found herself free in the outer

world she would be rescued from her infatuation for tyranny. But

now I feel sure that this infatuation is deep down in her nature.

Her love is for the boisterous. From the tip of her tongue to

the pit of her stomach she must tingle with red pepper in order

to enjoy the simple fare of life. But my determination was,

never to do my duty with frantic impetuosity, helped on by the

fiery liquor of excitement. I know Bimala finds it difficult to

respect me for this, taking my scruples for feebleness--and she

is quite angry with me because I am not running amuck crying

Bande Mataram.

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