The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

R >> Rabindranath Tagore >> The Home and the World

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

For the matter of that, I have become unpopular 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 someone 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 terrorize
over us.

The other day when Sandip accused me of lack of imagination,
saying that this prevented me from realizing my country in a
visible image, Bimala agreed with him. I did not say anything in
my defence, because to win in argument does not lead to
happiness. Her difference of opinion is not due to any
inequality of intelligence, but rather to dissimilarity of
nature.

They accuse me of being unimaginative--that is, according to
them, I may have oil in my lamp, but no flame. Now this is
exactly the accusation which I bring against them. I would say
to them: "You are dark, even as the flints are. You must come to
violent conflicts and make a noise in order to produce your
sparks. But their disconnected flashes merely assist your pride,
and not your clear vision."

I have been noticing for some time that there is a gross cupidity
about Sandip. His fleshly feelings make him harbour delusions
about his religion and impel him into a tyrannical attitude in
his patriotism. His intellect is keen, but his nature is coarse,
and so he glorifies his selfish lusts under high-sounding names.
The cheap consolations of hatred are as urgently necessary for
him as the satisfaction of his appetites. Bimala has often
warned me, in the old days, of his hankering after money. I
understood this, but I could not bring myself to haggle with
Sandip. I felt ashamed even to own to myself that he was trying
to take advantage of me.

It will, however, be difficult to explain to Bimala today that
Sandip's love of country is but a different phase of his covetous
self-love. Bimala's hero-worship of Sandip makes me hesitate all
the more to talk to her about him, lest some touch of jealousy
may lead me unwittingly into exaggeration. It may be that the
pain at my heart is already making me see a distorted picture of
Sandip. And yet it is better perhaps to speak out than to keep
my feelings gnawing within me.

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 realize 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."

"Then let me speak out my mind," said Sandip. "I have never yet
found any one source of inspiration suffice me for good. That is
why I have been constantly moving about, rousing enthusiasm in
the people, from which in turn I draw my own store of energy.
Today you have given me the message of my country. Such fire I
have never beheld in any man. I shall be able to spread the fire
of enthusiasm in my country by borrowing it from you. No, do not
be ashamed. You are far above all modesty and diffidence. You
are the Queen Bee of our hive, and we the workers shall rally
around you. You shall be our centre, our inspiration."

Bimala flushed all over with bashful pride and her hand shook as
she went on pouring out the tea.

Another day my master came to me and said: "Why don't you two go
up to Darjeeling for a change? You are not looking well. Have
you been getting enough sleep?"

I asked Bimala in the evening whether she would care to have a
trip to the Hills. I knew she had a great longing to see the
Himalayas. But she refused ... The country's Cause, I suppose!

I must not lose my faith: I shall wait. The passage from the
narrow to the larger world is stormy. When she is familiar with
this freedom, then I shall know where my place is. If I discover
that I do not fit in with the arrangement of the outer world,
then I shall not quarrel with my fate, but silently take my leave
... Use force? But for what? Can force prevail against Truth?

Sandip's Story

I

The impotent man says: "That which has come to my share is mine."
And the weak man assents. But the lesson of the whole world is:
"That is really mine which I can snatch away." My country does
not become mine simply because it is the country of my birth. It
becomes mine on the day when I am able to win it by force.

Every man has a natural right to possess, and therefore greed is
natural. It is not in the wisdom of nature that we should be
content to be deprived. What my mind covets, my surroundings
must supply. This is the only true understanding between our
inner and outer nature in this world. Let moral ideals remain
merely for those poor anaemic creatures of starved desire whose
grasp is weak. Those who can desire with all their soul and
enjoy with all their heart, those who have no hesitation or
scruple, it is they who are the anointed of Providence. Nature
spreads out her riches and loveliest treasures for their benefit.
They swim across streams, leap over walls, kick open doors, to
help themselves to whatever is worth taking. In such a getting
one can rejoice; such wresting as this gives value to the thing
taken.

Nature surrenders herself, but only to the robber. For she
delights in this forceful desire, this forceful abduction. And
so she does not put the garland of her acceptance round the lean,
scraggy neck of the ascetic. The music of the wedding march is
struck. The time of the wedding I must not let pass. My heart
therefore is eager. For, who is the bridegroom? It is I. The
bridegroom's place belongs to him who, torch in hand, can come in
time. The bridegroom in Nature's wedding hall comes unexpected
and uninvited.

Ashamed? No, I am never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and
I do not always wait to ask before I take it. Those who are
deprived by their own diffidence dignify their privation by the
name of modesty. The world into which we are born is the world
of reality. When a man goes away from the market of real things
with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling his bag with
big sounding words, I wonder why he ever came into this hard
world at all. Did these men get their appointment from the
epicures of the religious world, to play set tunes on sweet,
pious texts in that pleasure garden where blossom airy nothings?
I neither affect those tunes nor do I find any sustenance in
those blossoms.

What I desire, I desire positively, superlatively. I want to
knead it with both my hands and both my feet; I want to smear it
all over my body; I want to gorge myself with it to the full.
The scrannel pipes of those who have worn themselves out by their
moral fastings, till they have become flat and pale like starved
vermin infesting a long-deserted bed, will never reach my ear.

I would conceal nothing, because that would be cowardly. But if
I cannot bring myself to conceal when concealment is needful,
that also is cowardly. Because you have your greed, you build
your walls. Because I have my greed, I break through them. You
use your power: I use my craft. These are the realities of life.
On these depend kingdoms and empires and all the great
enterprises of men.

As for those __avatars__ who come down from their paradise to
talk to us in some holy jargon--their words are not real.
Therefore, in spite of all the applause they get, these sayings
of theirs only find a place in the hiding corners of the weak.

They are despised by those who are strong, the rulers of the
world. Those who have had the courage to see this have won
success, while those poor wretches who are dragged one way by
nature and the other way by these ava tars, they set one foot in
the boat of the real and the other in the boat of the unreal, and
thus are in a pitiable plight, able neither to advance nor to
keep their place.

There are many men who seem to have been born only with an
obsession to die. Possibly there is a beauty, like that of a
sunset, in this lingering death in life which seems to fascinate
them. Nikhil lives this kind of life, if life it may be called.
Years ago, I had a great argument with him on this point.

"It is true," he said, "that you cannot get anything except by
force. But then what is this force? And then also, what is this
getting? The strength I believe in is the strength of
renouncing."

"So you," I exclaimed, "are infatuated with the glory of
bankruptcy."

"Just as desperately as the chick is infatuated about the
bankruptcy of its shell," he replied. "The shell is real enough,
yet it is given up in exchange for intangible light and air. A
sorry exchange, I suppose you would call it?"

When once Nikhil gets on to metaphor, there is no hope of making
him see that he is merely dealing with words, not with realities.
Well, well, let him be happy with his metaphors. We are the
flesh-eaters of the world; we have teeth and nails; we pursue and
grab and tear. We are not satisfied with chewing in the evening
the cud of the grass we have eaten in the morning. Anyhow, we
cannot allow your metaphor-mongers to bar the door to our
sustenance. In that case we shall simply steal or rob, for we
must live.

People will say that I am starting some novel theory just because
those who are moving in this world are in the habit of talking
differently though they are really acting up to it all the time.
Therefore they fail to understand, as I do, that this is the only
working moral principle. In point of fact, I know that my idea
is not an empty theory at all, for it has been proved in
practical life. I have found that my way always wins over the
hearts of women, who are creatures of this world of reality and
do not roam about in cloud-land, as men do, in idea-filled
balloons.

Women find in my features, my manner, my gait, my speech, a
masterful passion--not a passion dried thin with the heat of
asceticism, not a passion with its face turned back at every step
in doubt and debate, but a full-blooded passion. It roars and
rolls on, like a flood, with the cry: "I want, I want, I want."
Women feel, in their own heart of hearts, that this indomitable
passion is the lifeblood of the world, acknowledging no law but
itself, and therefore victorious. For this reason they have so
often abandoned themselves to be swept away on the flood-tide of
my passion, recking naught as to whether it takes them to life or
to death. This power which wins these women is the power of
mighty men, the power which wins the world of reality.

Those who imagine the greater desirability of another world
merely shift their desires from the earth to the skies. It
remains to be seen how high their gushing fountain will play, and
for how long. But this much is certain: women were not created
for these pale creatures--these lotus-eaters of idealism.

"Affinity!" When it suited my need, I have often said that God
has created special pairs of men and women, and that the union of
such is the only legitimate union, higher than all unions made by
law. The reason of it is, that though man wants to follow
nature, he can find no pleasure in it unless he screens himself
with some phrase--and that is why this world is so overflowing
with lies.

"Affinity!" Why should there be only one? There may be affinity
with thousands. It was never in my agreement with nature that I
should overlook all my innumerable affinities for the sake of
only one. I have discovered many in my own life up to now, yet
that has not closed the door to one more--and that one is clearly
visible to my eyes. She has also discovered her own affinity to
me.

And then?

Then, if I do not win I am a coward.

Chapter Three

Bimala's Story

VI

I WONDER what could have happened to my feeling of shame. The
fact is, I had no time to think about myself. My days and nights
were passing in a whirl, like an eddy with myself in the centre.
No gap was left for hesitation or delicacy to enter.

One day my sister-in-law remarked to my husband: "Up to now the
women of this house have been kept weeping. Here comes the men's
turn.

"We must see that they do not miss it," she continued, turning to
me. "I see you are out for the fray, Chota [12] Rani! Hurl your
shafts straight at their hearts."

Her keen eyes looked me up and down. Not one of the colours into
which my toilet, my dress, my manners, my speech, had blossomed
out had escaped her. I am ashamed to speak of it today, but I
felt no shame then. Something within me was at work of which I
was not even conscious. I used to overdress, it is true, but
more like an automaton, with no particular design. No doubt I
knew which effort of mine would prove specially pleasing to
Sandip Babu, but that required no intuition, for he would discuss
it openly before all of them.

One day he said to my husband: "Do you know, Nikhil, when I first
saw our Queen Bee, she was sitting there so demurely in her gold-
bordered __sari__. Her eyes were gazing inquiringly into
space, like stars which had lost their way, just as if she had
been for ages standing on the edge of some darkness, looking out
for something unknown. But when I saw her, I felt a quiver run
through me. It seemed to me that the gold border of her
__sari__ was her own inner fire flaming out and twining round
her. That is the flame we want, visible fire! Look here, Queen
Bee, you really must do us the favour of dressing once more as a
living flame."

So long I had been like a small river at the border of a village.
My rhythm and my language were different from what they are now.
But the tide came up from the sea, and my breast heaved; my banks
gave way and the great drumbeats of the sea waves echoed in my
mad current. I could not understand the meaning of that sound in
my blood. Where was that former self of mine? Whence came
foaming into me this surging flood of glory? Sandip's hungry
eyes burnt like the lamps of worship before my shrine. All his
gaze proclaimed that I was a wonder in beauty and power; and the
loudness of his praise, spoken and unspoken, drowned all other
voices in my world. Had the Creator created me afresh, I
wondered? Did he wish to make up now for neglecting me so long?
I who before was plain had become suddenly beautiful. I who
before had been of no account now felt in myself all the
splendour of Bengal itself.

For Sandip Babu was not a mere individual. In him was the
confluence of millions of minds of the country. When he called
me the Queen Bee of the hive, I was acclaimed with a chorus of
praise by all our patriot workers. After that, the loud jests of
my sister-in-law could not touch me any longer. My relations
with all the world underwent a change. Sandip Babu made it clear
how all the country was in need of me. I had no difficulty in
believing this at the time, for I felt that I had the power to do
everything. Divine strength had come to me. It was something
which I had never felt before, which was beyond myself. I had no
time to question it to find out what was its nature. It seemed
to belong to me, and yet to transcend me. It comprehended the
whole of Bengal.

Sandip Babu would consult me about every little thing touching
the Cause. At first I felt very awkward and would hang back, but
that soon wore off. Whatever I suggested seemed to astonish him.
He would go into raptures and say: "Men can only think. You
women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was
created out of God's own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into
shape."

Letters used to come to Sandip Babu from all parts of the country
which were submitted to me for my opinion. Occasionally he
disagreed with me. But I would not argue with him. Then after a
day or two--as if a new light had suddenly dawned upon him--he
would send for me and say: "It was my mistake. Your suggestion
was the correct one." He would often confess to me that wherever
he had taken steps contrary to my advice he had gone wrong. Thus
I gradually came to be convinced that behind whatever was taking
place was Sandip Babu, and behind Sandip Babu was the plain
common sense of a woman. The glory of a great responsibility
filled my being.

My husband had no place in our counsels. Sandip Babu treated him
as a younger brother, of whom personally one may be very fond and
yet have no use for his business advice. He would tenderly and
smilingly talk about my husband's childlike innocence, saying
that his curious doctrine and perversities of mind had a flavour
of humour which made them all the more lovable. It was seemingly
this very affection for Nikhil which led Sandip Babu to forbear
from troubling him with the burden of the country.

Nature has many anodynes in her pharmacy, which she secretly
administers when vital relations are being insidiously severed,
so that none may know of the operation, till at last one awakes
to know what a great rent has been made. When the knife was busy
with my life's most intimate tie, my mind was so clouded with
fumes of intoxicating gas that I was not in the least aware of
what a cruel thing was happening. Possibly this is woman's
nature. When her passion is roused she loses her sensibility for
all that is outside it. When, like the river, we women keep to
our banks, we give nourishment with all that we have: when we
overflow them we destroy with all that we are.

------

12. Bimala. the younger brother's wife, was the __Chota__ or
Junior Rani.

Sandip's Story

II

I can see that something has gone wrong. I got an inkling of it
the other day.

Ever since my arrival, Nikhil's sitting-room had become a thing
amphibious--half women's apartment, half men's: Bimala had access
to it from the zenana, it was not barred to me from the outer
side. If we had only gone slow, and made use of our privileges
with some restraint, we might not have fallen foul of other
people. But we went ahead so vehemently that we could not think
of the consequences.

Whenever Bee comes into Nikhil's room, I somehow get to know of
it from mine. There are the tinkle of bangles and other little
sounds; the door is perhaps shut with a shade of unnecessary
vehemence; the bookcase is a trifle stiff and creaks if jerked
open. When I enter I find Bee, with her back to the door, ever
so busy selecting a book from the shelves. And as I offer to
assist her in this difficult task she starts and protests; and
then we naturally get on to other topics.

The other day, on an inauspicious [13] Thursday afternoon, I
sallied forth from my room at the call of these same sounds.
There was a man on guard in the passage. I walked on without so
much as glancing at him, but as I approached the door he put
himself in my way saying: "Not that way, sir."

"Not that way! Why?"

"The Rani Mother is there."

"Oh, very well. Tell your Rani Mother that Sandip Babu wants to
see her."

"That cannot be, sir. It is against orders."

I felt highly indignant. "I order you!" I said in a raised
voice.

"Go and announce me."

The fellow was somewhat taken aback at my attitude. In the
meantime I had neared the door. I was on the point of reaching
it, when he followed after me and took me by the arm saying: "No,
sir, you must not."

What! To be touched by a flunkey! I snatched away my arm and
gave the man a sounding blow. At this moment Bee came out of the
room to find the man about to insult me.

I shall never forget the picture of her wrath! That Bee is
beautiful is a discovery of my own. Most of our people would see
nothing in her. Her tall, slim figure these boors would call
"lanky". But it is just this lithesomeness of hers that I
admire--like an up-leaping fountain of life, coming direct out of
the depths of the Creator's heart. Her complexion is dark, but
it is the lustrous darkness of a sword-blade, keen and
scintillating.

"Nanku!" she commanded, as she stood in the doorway, pointing
with her finger, "leave us."

"Do not be angry with him," said I. "If it is against orders, it
is I who should retire."

Bee's voice was still trembling as she replied: "You must not go.
Come in."

It was not a request, but again a command! I followed her in,
and taking a chair fanned myself with a fan which was on the
table. Bee scribbled something with a pencil on a sheet of paper
and, summoning a servant, handed it to him saying: "Take this to
the Maharaja."

"Forgive me," I resumed. "I was unable to control myself, and
hit that man of yours.

"You served him right," said Bee.

"But it was not the poor fellow's fault, after all. He was only
obeying his orders."

Here Nikhil came in, and as he did so I left my seat with a rapid
movement and went and stood near the window with my back to the
room.

"Nanku, the guard, has insulted Sandip Babu," said Bee to Nikhil.

Nikhil seemed to be so genuinely surprised that I had to turn
round and stare at him. Even an outrageously good man fails in
keeping up his pride of truthfulness before his wife--if she be
the proper kind of woman.

"He insolently stood in the way when Sandip Babu was coming in
here," continued Bee. "He said he had orders ..."

"Whose orders?" asked Nikhil.

"How am I to know?" exclaimed Bee impatiently, her eyes brimming
over with mortification.

Nikhil sent for the man and questioned him. "It was not my
fault," Nanku repeated sullenly. "I had my orders."

"Who gave you the order?"

"The Bara Rani Mother."

We were all silent for a while. After the man had left, Bee
said: "Nanku must go!"

Nikhil remained silent. I could see that his sense of justice
would not allow this. There was no end to his qualms. But this
time he was up against a tough problem. Bee was not the woman to
take things lying down. She would have to get even with her
sister-in-law by punishing this fellow. And as Nikhil remained
silent, her eyes flashed fire. She knew not how to pour her
scorn upon her husband's feebleness of spirit. Nikhil left the
room after a while without another word.

The next day Nanku was not to be seen. On inquiry, I learnt that
he had been sent off to some other part of the estates, and that
his wages had not suffered by such transfer.

I could catch glimpses of the ravages of the storm raging over
this, behind the scenes. All I can say is, that Nikhil is a
curious creature, quite out of the common.

The upshot was, that after this Bee began to send for me to the
sitting-room, for a chat, without any contrivance, or pretence of
its being an accident. Thus from bare suggestion we came to
broad hint: the implied came to be expressed. The daughter-in-
law of a princely house lives in a starry region so remote from
the ordinary outsider that there is not even a regular road for
his approach. What a triumphal progress of Truth was this which,
gradually but persistently, thrust aside veil after veil of
obscuring custom, till at length Nature herself was laid bare.

Truth? Of course it was the truth! The attraction of man and
woman for each other is fundamental. The whole world of matter,
from the speck of dust upwards, is ranged on its side. And yet
men would keep it hidden away out of sight, behind a tissue of
words; and with home-made sanctions and prohibitions make of it a
domestic utensil. Why, it's as absurd as melting down the solar
system to make a watch-chain for one's son-in-law! [14]

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15