Glimpses of Bengal — Shazadpur
SHAZADPUR,
_25th June 1892. _ In to-day's letters there was a touch about A---'s singing which made my heart yearn with a nameless longing.
Each of the little joys of life, which remain unappreciated amid the hubbub of the town, send in their claims to the heart when far from home.
I love music, and there is no dearth of voices and instruments in Calcutta, yet I turn a deaf ear to them.
But, though I may fail to realise it at the time, this needs must leave the heart athirst.
As I read to-day's letters, I felt such a poignant desire to hear A---'s sweet song, I was at once sure that one of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach;
while we are busy pursuing chimerical impossibilities we famish our lives....
The emptiness left by easy joys, untasted, is ever growing in my life.
And the day may come when I shall feel that, could I but have the past back, I would strive no more after the unattainable, but drain to the full these little, unsought, everyday joys which life offers.
SHAZADPUR,
_27th June 1892. _ Yesterday, in the afternoon, it clouded over so threateningly, I felt a sense of dread.
I do not remember ever to have seen before such angry-looking clouds.
Swollen masses of the deepest indigo blue were piled, one on top of the other, just above the horizon, looking like the puffed-out moustaches of some raging demon.
Under the jagged lower edges of the clouds there shone forth a blood-red glare, as through the eyes of a monstrous, sky-filling bison, with tossing mane and with head lowered to strike the earth in fury.
The crops in the fields and the leaves of the trees trembled with fear of the impending disaster; shudder after shudder ran across the waters; the crows flew wildly about, distractedly cawing.
SHAZADPUR,
_29th June 1892. _ I wrote yesterday that I had an engagement with Kalidas, the poet, for this evening.
As I lit a candle, drew my chair up to the table, and made ready, not Kalidas, but the postmaster, walked in.
A live postmaster cannot but claim precedence over a dead poet, so I could not very well tell him to make way for Kalidas, who was due by appointment,--he would not have understood me!
Therefore I offered him a chair and gave old Kalidas the go-by.
There is a kind of bond between this postmaster and me.
When the post office was in a part of this estate building, I used to meet him every day.
I wrote my story of "The Postmaster" one afternoon in this very room.
And when the story was out in the _Hitabadi_ he came to me with a succession of bashful smiles, as he deprecatingly touched on the subject.
Anyhow, I like the man.
He has a fund of anecdote which I enjoy listening to.
He has also a sense of humour.
Though it was late when the postmaster left, I started at once on the _Raghuvansa_[1], and read all about the _swayamuara_[2] of Indumati.
[Footnote 1: Book of poems by Kalidas, who is perhaps best known to European readers as the author of _Sakuntala_.
] [Footnote 2: An old Indian custom, according to which a princess chooses among assembled rival suitors for her hand by placing a garland round the neck of the one whose love she returns.
] The handsome, gaily adorned princes are seated on rows of thrones in the assembly hall.
Suddenly a blast of conch-shell and trumpet resounds, as Indumati, in bridal robes, supported by Sunanda, is ushered in and stands in the walk left between them.
It was delightful to dwell on the picture.
Then as Sunanda introduces to her each one of the suitors, Indumati bows low in loveless salutation, and passes on.
How beautiful is this humble courtesy!
They are all princes.
They are all her seniors.
For she is a mere girl.
Had she not atoned for the inevitable rudeness of her rejection by the grace of her humility, the scene would have lost its beauty.
SHELIDAH,
