Glimpses of Bengal — Shazadpur
_June_ 1891. From the bank to which the boat is tied a kind of scent rises out of the grass, and the heat of the ground, given off in gasps, actually touches my body.
I feel that the warm, living Earth is breathing upon me, and that she, also, must feel my breath.
The young shoots of rice are waving in the breeze, and the ducks are in turn thrusting their heads beneath the water and preening their feathers.
There is no sound save the faint, mournful creaking of the gangway against the boat, as she imperceptibly swings to and fro in the current.
Not far off there is a ferry.
A motley crowd has assembled under the banyan tree awaiting the boat's return; and as soon as it arrives, they eagerly scramble in.
I enjoy watching this for hours together.
It is market-day in the village on the other bank; that is why the ferry is so busy.
Some carry bundles of hay, some baskets, some sacks; some are going to the market, others coming from it.
Thus, in this silent noonday, the stream of human activity slowly flows across the river between two villages.
I sat wondering: Why is there always this deep shade of melancholy over the fields arid river banks, the sky and the sunshine of our country?
And I came to the conclusion that it is because with us Nature is obviously the more important thing.
The sky is free, the fields limitless; and the sun merges them into one blazing whole.
In the midst of this, man seems so trivial.
He comes and goes, like the ferry-boat, from this shore to the other; the babbling hum of his talk, the fitful echo of his song, is heard; the slight movement of his pursuit of his own petty desires is seen in the world's market-places: but how feeble, how temporary, how tragically meaningless it all seems amidst the immense aloofness of the Universe!
The contrast between the beautiful, broad, unalloyed peace of Nature--calm, passive, silent, unfathomable,--and our own everyday worries--paltry, sorrow-laden, strife-tormented, puts me beside myself as I keep staring at the hazy, distant, blue line of trees which fringe the fields across the river.
Where Nature is ever hidden, and cowers under mist and cloud, snow and darkness, there man feels himself master; he regards his desires, his works, as permanent; he wants to perpetuate them, he looks towards posterity, he raises monuments, he writes biographies; he even goes the length of erecting tombstones over the dead.
So busy is he that he has not time to consider how many monuments crumble, how often names are forgotten!
SHAZADPUR.
_June_ 1891. There was a great, big mast lying on the river bank, and some little village urchins, with never a scrap of clothing, decided, after a long consultation, that if it could be rolled along to the accompaniment of a sufficient amount of vociferous clamour, it would be a new and altogether satisfactory kind of game.
The decision was no sooner come to than acted upon, with a "_Shabash_, brothers!
All together!
Heave ho!"
And at every turn it rolled, there was uproarious laughter.
The demeanour of one girl in the party was very different.
She was playing with the boys for want of other companions, but she clearly viewed with disfavour these loud and strenuous games.
At last she stepped up to the mast and, without a word, deliberately sat on it.
So rare a game to come to so abrupt a stop!
Some of the players seemed to resign themselves to giving it up as a bad job; and retiring a little way off, they sulkily glared at the girl in her impassive gravity.
One made as if he would push her off, but even this did not disturb the careless ease of her pose.
The eldest lad came up to her and pointed to other equally suitable places for taking a rest; at which she energetically shook her head, and putting her hands in her lap, steadied herself down still more firmly on her seat.
Then at last they had recourse to physical argument and were completely successful.
Once again joyful shouts rent the skies, and the mast rolled along so gloriously that even the girl had to cast aside her pride and her dignified exclusiveness and make a pretence of joining in the unmeaning excitement.
But one could see all the time that she was sure boys never know how to play properly, and are always so childish!
If only she had the regulation yellow earthen doll handy, with its big, black top-knot, would she ever have deigned to join in this silly game with these foolish boys?
All of a sudden the idea of another splendid pastime occurred to the boys.
Two of them got hold of a third by the arms and legs and began to swing him.
This must have been great fun, for they all waxed enthusiastic over it.
But it was more than the girl could stand, so she disdainfully left the playground and marched off home.
Then there was an accident.
The boy who was being swung was let fall.
He left his companions in a pet, and went and lay down on the grass with his arms crossed under his head, desiring to convey thereby that never again would he have anything to do with this bad, hard world, but would forever lie, alone by himself, with his arms under his head, and count the stars and watch the play of the clouds.
The eldest boy, unable to bear the idea of such untimely world-renunciation, ran up to the disconsolate one and taking his head on his own knees repentantly coaxed him.
"Come, my little brother!
Do get up, little brother!
Have we hurt you, little brother?"
And before long I found them playing, like two pups, at catching and snatching away each other's hands!
Two minutes had hardly passed before the little fellow was swinging again.
SHAZADPUR,
_June_ 1891. I had a most extraordinary dream last night.
The whole of Calcutta seemed enveloped in some awful mystery, the houses being only dimly visible through a dense, dark mist, within the veil of which there were strange doings.
I was going along Park Street in a hackney carriage, and as I passed St. Xavier's College I found it had started growing rapidly and was fast getting impossibly high within its enveloping haze.
Then it was borne in on me that a band of magicians had come to Calcutta who, if they were paid for it, could bring about many such wonders.
When I arrived at our Jorasanko house, I found these magicians had turned up there too.
They were ugly-looking, of a Mongolian type, with scanty moustaches and a few long hairs sticking out of their chins.
They could make men grow.
Some of the girls wanted to be made taller, and the magician sprinkled some powder over their heads and they promptly shot up.
To every one I met I kept repeating: "This is most extraordinary,--just like a dream!"
Then some one proposed that our house should be made to grow.
The magicians agreed, and as a preliminary began to take down some portions.
The dismantling over, they demanded money, or else they would not go on.
The cashier strongly objected.
How could payment be made before the work was completed?
At this the magicians got wild and twisted up the building most fearsomely, so that men and brickwork got mixed together, bodies inside walls and only head and shoulders showing.
It had altogether the look of a thoroughly devilish business, as I told my eldest brother.
"You see," said I, "the kind of thing it is.
We had better call upon God to help us!"
But try as I might to anathematise them in the name of God, my heart felt like breaking and no words would come.
Then I awoke.
A curious dream, was it not?
Calcutta in the hands of Satan and growing diabolically, within the darkness of an unholy mist!
SHAZADPUR,
_June_ 1891. The schoolmasters of this place paid me a visit yesterday.
They stayed on and on, while for the life of me I could not find a word to say.
I managed a question or so every five minutes, to which they offered the briefest replies; and then I sat vacantly, twirling my pen, and scratching my head.
At last I ventured on a question about the crops, but being schoolmasters they knew nothing whatever about crops.
About their pupils I had already asked them everything I could think of, so I had to start over again: How many boys had they in the school?
One said eighty, another said a hundred and seventy-five.
I hoped that this might lead to an argument, but no, they made up their difference.
Why, after an hour and a half, they should have thought of taking leave, I cannot tell.
They might have done so with as good a reason an hour earlier, or, for the matter of that, twelve hours later!
Their decision was clearly arrived at empirically, entirely without method.
SHAZADPUR,
_July_ 1891. There is another boat at this landing-place, and on the shore in front of it a crowd of village women.
Some are evidently embarking on a journey and the others seeing them off; infants, veils, and grey hairs are all mixed up in the gathering.
One girl in particular attracts my attention.
She must be about eleven or twelve; but, buxom and sturdy, she might pass for fourteen or fifteen.
She has a winsome face--very dark, but very pretty.
Her hair is cut short like a boy's, which well becomes her simple, frank, and alert expression.
She has a child in her arms and is staring at me with unabashed curiosity, and certainly no lack of straightforwardness or intelligence in her glance.
Her half-boyish, half-girlish manner is singularly attractive--a novel blend of masculine nonchalance and feminine charm.
I had no idea there were such types among our village women in Bengal.
None of this family, apparently, is troubled with too much bashfulness.
One of them has unfastened her hair in the sun and is combing it out with her fingers, while conversing about their domestic affairs at the top of her voice with another, on board.
I gather she has no other children except a girl, a foolish creature who knows neither how to behave or talk, nor even the difference between kin and stranger.
I also learn that Gopal's son-in-law has turned out a ne'er-do-well, and that his daughter refuses to go to her husband.
When, at length, it was time to start, they escorted my short-haired damsel, with plump shapely arms, her gold bangles and her guileless, radiant face, into the boat.
I could divine that she was returning from her father's to her husband's home.
They all stood there, following the boat with their gaze as it cast off, one or two wiping their eyes with the loose end of their _saris_.
A little girl, with her hair tightly tied into a knot, clung to the neck of an older woman and silently wept on her shoulder.
Perhaps she was losing a darling Didimani [1] who joined in her doll games and also slapped her when she was naughty....
[Footnote 1: An elder sister is often called sister-jewel (_Didimani_).
] The quiet floating away of a boat on the stream seems to add to the pathos of a separation--it is so like death--the departing one lost to sight, those left behind returning to their daily life, wiping their eyes.
True, the pang lasts but a while, and is perhaps already wearing off both in those who have gone and those who remain,--pain being temporary, oblivion permanent.
But none the less it is not the forgetting, but the pain which is true; and every now and then, in separation or in death, we realise how terribly true.
ON BOARD A CANAL STEAMER GOING TO CUTTACK,
