Glimpses of Bengal — Bolpur
BOLPUR,
2_nd May_ 1892. There are many paradoxes in the world and one of them is this, that wherever the landscape is immense, the sky unlimited, clouds intimately dense, feelings unfathomable--that is to say where infinitude is manifest--its fit companion is one solitary person; a multitude there seems so petty, so distracting.
An individual and the infinite are on equal terms, worthy to gaze on one another, each from his own throne.
But where many men are, how small both humanity and infinitude become, how much they have to knock off each other, in order to fit in together!
Each soul wants so much room to expand that in a crowd it needs must wait for gaps through which to thrust a little craning piece of a head from time to time.
So the only result of our endeavour to assemble is that we become unable to fill our joined hands, our outstretched arms, with this endless, fathomless expanse.
BOLPUR,
8_th Jaistha_ (_May_) 1892. Women who try to be witty, but only succeed in being pert, are insufferable; and as for attempts to be comic they are disgraceful in women whether they succeed or fail.
The comic is ungainly and exaggerated, and so is in some sort related to the sublime.
The elephant is comic, the camel and the giraffe are comic, all overgrowth is comic.
It is rather keenness that is akin to beauty, as the thorn to the flower.
So sarcasm is not unbecoming in woman, though coming from her it hurts.
But ridicule which savours of bulkiness woman had better leave to our sublime sex.
The masculine Falstaff makes our sides split, but a feminine Falstaff would only rack our nerves.
BOLPUR,
12_th Jaistha_ (_May_) 1892. I usually pace the roof-terrace, alone, of an evening.
Yesterday afternoon I felt it my duty to show my visitors the beauties of the local scenery, so I strolled out with them, taking Aghore as a guide.
On the verge of the horizon, where the distant fringe of trees was blue, a thin line of dark blue cloud had risen over them and was looking particularly beautiful.
I tried to be poetical and said it was like blue collyrium on the fringe of lashes enhancing a beautiful blue eye.
Of my companions one did not hear the remark, another did not understand, while the third dismissed it with the reply: "Yes, very pretty."
I did not feel encouraged to attempt a second poetical flight.
After walking about a mile we came to a dam, and along the pool of water there was a row of _tâl_ (fan palm) trees, under which was a natural spring.
While we stood there looking at this, we found that the line of cloud which we had seen in the North was making for us, swollen and grown darker, flashes of lightning gleaming the while.
We unanimously came to the conclusion that viewing the beauties of nature could be better done from within the shelter of the house, but no sooner had we turned homewards than a storm, making giant strides over the open moorland, was on us with an angry roar.
I had no idea, while I was admiring the collyrium on the eyelashes of beauteous dame Nature, that she would fly at us like an irate housewife, threatening so tremendous a slap!
It became so dark with the dust that we could not see beyond a few paces.
The fury of the storm increased, and flying stony particles of the rubbly soil stung our bodies like shot, as the wind took us by the scruff of the neck and thrust us along, to the whipping of drops of rain which had begun to fall.
Run!
Run!
But the ground was not level, being deeply scarred with watercourses, and not easy to cross at any time, much less in a storm.
I
managed to get entangled in a thorny shrub, and was nearly thrown on my face by the force of the wind as I stopped to free myself.
When we had almost reached the house, a host of servants came hurrying towards us, shouting and gesticulating, and fell upon us like another storm.
Some took us by the arms, some bewailed our plight, some were eager to show the way, others hung on our backs as if fearing that the storm might carry us off altogether.
We evaded their attentions with some difficulty and managed at length to get into the house, panting, with wet clothes, dusty bodies, and tumbled hair.
One thing I had learnt; and will never again write in novel or story the lie that the hero with the picture of his lady-love in his mind can pass unruffled through wind and rain.
No one could keep any face in mind, however lovely, in such a storm,--he has enough to do to keep the sand out of his eyes!...
The Vaishnava-poets have sung ravishingly of Radha going to her tryst with Krishna through a stormy night.
Did they ever pause to consider, I wonder, in what condition she must have reached him?
The kind of tangle her hair got into is easily imaginable, and also the state of the rest of her toilet.
When she arrived in her bower with the dust on her body soaked by the rain into a coating of mud, she must have been a sight!
But when we read the Vaishnava poems, these thoughts do not occur.
We only see on the canvas of our mind the picture of a beautiful woman, passing under the shelter of the flowering kadambas in the darkness of a stormy _Shravan_[1] night, towards the bank of the Jumna, forgetful of wind or rain, as in a dream, drawn by her surpassing love.
She has tied up her anklets lest they should tinkle; she is clad in dark blue raiment lest she be discovered; but she holds no umbrella lest she get wet, carries no lantern lest she fall!
[Footnote 1: July-August, the rainy season.
] Alas for useful things--how necessary in practical life, how neglected in poetry!
But poetry strives in vain to free us from their bondage--they will be with us always; so much so, we are told, that with the march of civilisation it is poetry that will become extinct, but patent after patent will continue to be taken out for the improvement of shoes and umbrellas.
BOLPUR,
16_th Jaistha (May)_ 1892. No church tower clock chimes here, and there being no other human habitation near by, complete silence falls with the evening, as soon as the birds have ceased their song.
There is not much difference between early night and midnight.
A sleepless night in Calcutta flows like a huge, slow river of darkness; one can count the varied sounds of its passing, lying on one's back in bed.
But here the night is like a vast, still lake, placidly reposing, with no sign of movement.
And as I tossed from side to side last night I felt enveloped within a dense stagnation.
This morning I left my bed a little later than usual and, coming downstairs to my room, leant back on a bolster, one leg resting over the other knee.
There, with a slate on my chest, I began to write a poem to the accompaniment of the morning breeze and the singing birds.
I was getting along splendidly--a smile playing over my lips, my eyes half closed, my head swaying to the rhythm, the thing I hummed gradually taking shape--when the post arrived.
There was a letter, the last number of the _Sadhana Magazine_, one of the _Monist_, and some proof-sheets.
I read the letter, raced my eyes over the uncut pages of the _Sadhana_, and then again fell to nodding and humming through my poem.
I did not do another thing till I had finished it.
I wonder why the writing of pages of prose does not give one anything like the joy of completing a single poem.
One's emotions take on such perfection of form in a poem; they can, as it were, be taken up by the fingers.
But prose is like a sackful of loose material, heavy and unwieldy, incapable of being lifted as you please.
If I could finish writing one poem a day, my life would pass in a kind of joy; but though I have been busy tending poetry for many a year it has not been tamed yet, and is not the kind of winged steed to allow me to bridle it whenever I like!
The joy of art is in freedom to take a distant flight as fancy will; then, even after return within the prison-world, an echo lingers in the ear, an exaltation in the mind.
Short poems keep coming to me unsought, and so prevent my getting on with the play.
Had it not been for these, I could have let in ideas for two or three plays which have been knocking at the door.
I am afraid I must wait for the cold weather.
All my plays except "Chitra" were written in the winter.
In that season lyrical fervour is apt to grow cold, and one gets the leisure to write drama.
BOLPUR,
_31st May 1892. _ It is not yet five o'clock, but the light has dawned, there is a delightful breeze, and all the birds in the garden are awake and have started singing.
The _koel_ seems beside itself.
It is difficult to understand why it should keep on cooing so untiringly.
Certainly not to entertain us, nor to distract the pining lover[1]--it must have some personal purpose of its own.
But, sadly enough, that purpose never seems to get fulfilled.
Yet it is not down-hearted, and its Coo-oo!
Coo-oo!
keeps going, with now and then an ultra-fervent trill.
What can it mean?
[Footnote 1: A favourite conceit of the old Sanskrit poets.
] And then in the distance there is some other bird with only a faint chuck-chuck that has no energy or enthusiasm, as if all hope were lost;
none the less, from within some shady nook it cannot resist uttering this little plaint: chuck, chuck, chuck.
How little we really know of the household affairs of these innocent winged creatures, with their soft, breasts and necks and their many-coloured feathers!
Why on earth do they find it necessary to sing so persistently?
SHELIDAH,
