THE HOME AND THE WORLD (GHORE BAIRE) BY SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE (Page 2 of 2)

V

When I returned, Sandip Babu was tenderly apologetic. ‘I am afraid we have spoilt your appetite’ he said.

I felt greatly ashamed.’ Indeed, I had been too indecently quick over my dinner. With a little calculation, it would become quite evident that my non-eating had surpassed the eating. But I had no idea that any one could have been deliberately calculating.

I suppose Sandip Babu detected my feeling of shame, which only augmented it. ‘I was sure,’ he said, ‘that you had the impulse of the wild deer to run away, but it is a great boon that you took the trouble to keep your promise with me.’

I could not think of any suitable reply and so I sat down, blushing and uncomfortable, at one end of the sofa. The vision that I had of myself, as the Shakti of Womanhood, incarnate, crowning Sandip Babu simply with my presence, majestic and unashamed, failed me altogether.

Sandip Babu deliberately started a discussion with my husband. He knew that his keen wit flashed to the best effect in an argument. I have often since observed, that he never lost an opportunity for a passage at arms whenever I happened to be present.

‘I have 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 preachpatriotism ?’

‘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 recognise that there is such a thing as feeling ?’

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.’

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.’

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 to-day 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 1 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.

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

For the matter of that, I have become un-popular with all my countrymen because I have not joined them in their carousals. They are certain that either I have a longing for some title, or else that I am afraid of the police. The police on their side suspect me of harbouring some hidden design and protesting too much in my mildness.

What I really feel is this, that those who cannot find food for their enthusiasm in a knowledge of their country as it actually is, or those who cannot love men just because they are men, —who needs must shout and deify their country in order to keep up their excitement, —these love excitement more than their country.

To try to give our infatuation a higher place than Truth is a sign of inherent slavishness. Where our minds are free we find ourselves lost. Our moribund vitality must have for its rider either some fantasy, or some one in authority, or a sanction from the pundits, in order to make it move. So long as we are impervious to truth and have to be moved by some hypnotic stimulus, we must know that we lack the capacity for self-government. Whatever may be our condition, we shall either need some imaginary ghost or some actual medicine-man to terrorise over us.

II

I have known my master these thirty years. Neither calumny, nor disaster, nor death itself has any terrors for him. Nothing could have saved me, born as I was into the traditions of this family of ours, but that he has established his own life in the centre of mine, with its peace and truth and spiritual vision, thus making it possible for me to realise goodness in its truth.

My master came to me that day and said : ‘Is it necessary to detain Sandip here any longer ?’

His nature was so sensitive to all omens of evil that he had at once understood. He was not easily moved, but that day he felt the dark shadow of trouble ahead. Do I not know how well he loves me ?

At tea-time I said to Sandip : ‘I have just had a letter from Rangpur. They are complaining that I am selfishly detaining you. When will you be going there ?’

Bimala was pouring out the tea. Her face fell at once. She threw just one enquiring glance at Sandip.

‘I have been thinking’ said Sandip, ‘that this wandering up and down means a tremendous waste of energy. I feel that if I could work from a centre I could achieve more permanent results.’

With this he looked up at Bimala and asked : ‘Do you not think so too ?’

Bimala hesitated for a reply and then said : ‘Both ways seem good, —to do the work from a centre, as well as by travelling about. That in which you find greater satisfaction is the way for you’.