Selected Short Stories

by Rabindranath Tagore

  Taraprasanna behaved quite differently with the people in his own home – so much so that even his wife Dakshayani could not beat him in an argument. She was forced to say, ‘All right, all right, I give in. I’ve got things to do now.’ Very few husbands have the skill or luck ever to get their wives to admit defeat in a verbal battle!

  Taraprasanna lived contentedly. Dakshayani firmly believed that no one equalled her husband in learning or intellect, and she did not hesitate to say so. He would reply, ‘You don’t have any other husband to compare me with’ – which made her very cross. Her only complaint was that her husband had never displayed his extraordinary talents to the outside world – had never made any effort to do so. Nothing that he had written had been published.

  Sometimes she asked to hear her husband’s writing, and the less she understood it the more it astonished her. She had read Krittibas’s Ramayana, Kashidas’s Mahabharata and Kabikankan’s Chandimangal, and had heard them being recited. They were all as clear as water – even illiterate people could easily understand them; but she had never encountered writing like her husband’s, so brilliant that it was unintelligible. She thought to herself, ‘When these books are printed and no one understands a word, how amazed everyone will be!’ Again and again she told her husband, ‘You should get your writings printed.’

  ‘With regard to the printing of books,’ he replied, ‘the great Manu has said: “It is a natural activity for created beings, but abstention brings great rewards.” ’1

  Taraprasanna had four children – all daughters. Dakshayani regarded this as a failing in herself, and therefore felt unworthy of so talented a husband. To be married to a man who produced, at the drop of a hat, such formidable tomes, and yet to have nothing but female offspring, was shameful incompetence on her part.

  When Taraprasanna’s eldest daughter reached his chest in height, his carefree contentment ended. He now remembered that one by one his four daughters would have to be married, and this would cost an enormous amount of money. His wife said confidently, ‘Just apply your mind a bit, and I’m sure we won’t need to worry.’

  ‘You really think so?’ said Taraprasanna rather anxiously. ‘All right, what do you suggest?’

  ‘Go to Calcutta,’ said Dakshayani, without hesitation or doubt. ‘Have your books printed, get yourself known to everyone. The money will soon roll in.’

  Taraprasanna was gradually encouraged by his wife, and decided that what he had written to date was enough to pay for the wedding of every girl in the village. But now a big dilemma arose about his visit to Calcutta. Dakshayani could not bear to let her innocent, helpless, pampered husband go away on his own. Who would feed him, dress him, remind him of his daily chores, protect him from the various hazards of the world? Her inexperienced husband, however, was equally unhappy about taking his wife to a strange place. In the end Dakshayani engaged a worldly-wise man from the village to go in her stead, giving him countless instructions about her husband’s daily needs. She extracted numerous vows from him as she saw him off, and loaded him with charms and amulets; and she threw herself to the ground weeping when he had gone.

  In Calcutta Taraprasanna, with the help of his astute minder, published his book The Radiance of Vedanta. Most of the money he had raised by pawning his wife’s jewellery was spent on this.

  He sent The Radiance of Vedanta to bookshops; and to every editor, however important or unimportant, he sent copies for review. He also sent one to his wife, by registered mail. He was afraid that otherwise it would be stolen by the postman.

  On the day that Dakshayani first saw the book, with her husband’s name printed on the title page, she invited all the women she knew in the village round for a meal. She left the book open near to where she asked them to sit, and when everyone was seated she said, ‘Oh dear, who’s dropped that book over there? Annada, dear, could you pick it up? I’ll put it away.’ Annada was the only one who could read. The book was put back on the shelf. For a few minutes Dakshayani busied herself with something else; then she said to her eldest daughter, ‘Do you want to read your father’s book, Shashi? Go ahead, child, read it. Don’t be shy.’ But Shashi showed no interest in it, so a little later her mother said crossly, ‘Don’t spoil your father’s book! Give it to Kamaladidi to put back on top of that cupboard.’ If the book had been conscious of anything, it would have felt like the death of Vedanta after such a day of torment.

  One by one reviews appeared in the papers. What Dakshayani had anticipated turned out to be largely correct: reviewers throughout the land, unable to understand a single word of the book, were mightily impressed by it. With one voice they said: ‘No book of such substance has been published before.’ Critics who never touched a book beyond Bengali translations of Reynolds’ London Mystery1 wrote with great enthusiasm: ‘If instead of sackfuls of plays and novels more books like this could come out, Bengali literature would really attract readers.’ Men who for generations had never heard of Vedanta wrote: ‘We do not concur with Taraprasanna Babu on every point – lack of space prevents us from saying where. On the whole, however, our views are in agreement with the author’s.’ On the basis of that statement, if true, the book ‘on the whole’ should have been thrown to the flames.

  From wherever there were libraries or no libraries, librarians wrote to Taraprasanna asking for the book, buying it with their official letter-heads rather than with money. Many wrote, ‘Your thoughtful book has met a great need in our country.’ Taraprasanna was not quite sure what they meant by ‘thoughtful’, but he proudly posted The Radiance of Vedanta to every library at his own expense.

  Just when his pleasure at all these words of praise had reached its height, a letter came from Dakshayani: she was expecting a fifth child very soon. He and his custodian now went round to the shops to collect the money the book had earned – but the shopkeepers all said the same: not a single copy had been sold. Only in one place did he hear that someone had written from the country asking for the book: it was sent cash-on-delivery and returned – no one had taken it. The bookseller had to pay for the postage, so he angrily insisted on returning all the copies to the author there and then.

  Taraprasanna went back to his lodgings, thinking and thinking but finding it impossible to comprehend what had happened. The more he thought about his ‘thoughtful’ book the more worried he became. At last he set off home, making do with the tiny amount of money he had left.

  He greeted his wife with an elaborate show of cheerfulness. She was smiling in anticipation of good news. He threw a copy of The Bengal Messenger on to her lap. As she read it, she bestowed inexhaustible blessings on the editor, made mental pūjā-offerings to his pen. Then she turned to her husband again: he took out a copy of New Dawn. Dakshayani read this too with immense delight, and again turned her tender, expectant gaze on her husband. He now took out The New Age; then India’s Fortune; then The Happy Awakening; then The Sun’s Light and The Wave of News; then Hope, The Dawn, Uplift, Blossom, The Companion, The Sita Gazette, The Ahalya Library Journal, Pleasant News, The Guardian, World Judge, Jasmine-creeper. The smiling Dakshayani wept tears of joy. Then, drying her eyes, she looked at her husband once more – at the light of fame in his beaming face.

  ‘There are lots more journals,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll look at them this afternoon,’ said Dakshayani. ‘Now give me the other news.’

  ‘Just as I was leaving Calcutta,’ said Taraprasanna, ‘I heard that the Governor-General’s wife had brought out a book – but she didn’t mention The Radiance of Vedanta in it.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about that,’ said Dakshayani. ‘Tell me what else you have brought.’

  ‘I have a few letters,’ said Taraprasanna.

  Then Dakshayani said straight out, ‘How much money have you brought?’

  ‘Five rupees borrowed from Bidhubhushan,’ said Taraprasanna.

  When at last Dakshayani had heard the whole story, all her trust in the honesty of the world was completely
destroyed. The booksellers had clearly cheated her husband, and all the book-buyers of Bengal had conspired to cheat the booksellers. Finally she concluded that Bidhubhushan, the man she had sent with her husband to deputize for her, had secretly been in league with the booksellers; and come to think of it, Bishvambhar Chatterjee from across the village – her husband’s chief enemy – had surely had a part in the plot. Yes, two days after her husband had left for Calcutta, she had seen Bishvambhar talking to Kanai Pal under the banyan tree: it did not occur to her that Bishvambhar quite often chatted to Kanai Pal, for the conspiracy was now as clear as daylight to her.

  Dakshayani’s domestic worries continued to grow. The failure of this one simple way of earning money redoubled her shame that she had so sinfully borne only daughters. Neither Bishvambhar, Bidhubhushan, nor all the inhabitants of Bengal could be held responsible for this: the shame rested on her alone, though she also blamed her daughters themselves – those that she had and those that she might yet have. She had not a moment’s peace of mind, day or night.

  Her state of health, as her confinement approached, became so bad that everyone was very alarmed. The helpless, distraught Taraprasanna went to Bishvambhar and said, ‘Dādā, if you could take fifty or so of my books as a pledge for a loan, I could send for a good midwife from town.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my friend,’ said Bishvambhar, ‘I’ll give you the money you need – you keep the books.’ He then persuaded Kanai Pal to lend him some money, and Bidhubhushan went to Calcutta at his own expense to fetch the midwife.

  Impelled by something, Dakshayani called her husband into her room and said, making him vow to her, ‘Whenever that pain of yours gets bad, don’t forget to take your Dream Medicine – and never take off the amulet the sannyāsī gave you.’ Taking her husband’s hands, she secured his promise on countless other minor matters. She also told him not to put any trust in Bidhubhushan, who had ruined him, so that now there was no question of putting her husband – medicine, amulet, blessings and all – into his hands. She repeatedly warned her husband – her trusting, forgetful, Shiva-like husband – about the heartless and crooked conspirators of this world. Finally, in a whisper, she said, ‘When my baby daughter is born, if she lives, see that she is called Vedantaprabha, “The Radiance of Vedanta”. Later you can call her simply “Prabha”.’ She took the dust of her husband’s feet. In her mind was the thought, ‘I came into his house to give him nothing but daughters. Perhaps his misfortunes will end now.’

  When the midwife cried out, ‘Mā, look here, what a beautiful little girl you have,’ Dakshayani took one look and then closed her eyes, saying faintly, ‘Vedantaprabha’. She had no time to say any more in this world.

  Wealth Surrendered

  I

  Brindaban Kunda was furious. He announced to his father, ‘I’m leaving – right now.’

  ‘You ungrateful scoundrel,’ said Yajnanath Kunda. ‘All I’ve spent feeding and clothing you over the years, with not a paisa back – and now see how you turn on me.’

  In fact, the amount spent on food and clothing in Yajnanath’s house had never been great. The sages of old survived on impossibly little; Yajnanath presented an equally noble example. He could not go quite as far as he liked, partly because of the demands of modern life, partly because of the unreasonable rules for keeping body and soul together which Nature imposes. His son had put up with this while he was unmarried; but after marrying, his standards of food and dress began to clash with his father’s extreme austerity. Brindaban’s standards were material rather than spiritual. His requirements were in line with society’s changing response to cold, heat, hunger and thirst. There were frequent rows between father and son, and matters came to a head when Brindaban’s wife fell seriously ill. The kabirāj wanted to prescribe an expensive medicine for her, but Yajnanath questioned his competence and dismissed him. Brindaban pleaded with his father at first, then grew angry, but to no avail. When his wife died, he accused his father of murdering her. ‘What do you mean?’ said Yajnanath. ‘Do you suppose that no one who takes medicine dies? If expensive medicine were the answer, kings and emperors would be immortal. Why should your wife die with any more pomp than your mother or grandmother?’

  Truly if Brindaban had not been blinded with grief and seen things objectively, he would have found much consolation in this thought. Neither his mother nor grandmother had taken medicine when they were dying. It was an ancient custom in the household not to do so. But modern people do not want to die according to ancient rules. (I am speaking of the time when the British had newly arrived in this country, but the behaviour of the younger generation was already causing consternation among their elders.)

  This was why up-to-date Brindaban quarrelled with old-fashioned Yajnanath and said, ‘I’m leaving.’

  Giving him instant permission to go, his father said for all to hear that to give his son a single paisa would be as sinful as shedding a cow’s blood. Brindaban, for his part, said that to take any of his father’s money would be like shedding his mother’s blood. They then parted company.

  After so many undisturbed years, the people of the village were rather excited by this mini-revolution. And because Brindaban had been deprived of his inheritance, they all tried – as hard as they could – to distract Yajnanath from remorse at the rift with his son. They said that to quarrel with one’s father over a mere wife could happen only in this day and age. After all, if a wife goes she can quickly be replaced by another – but if a father goes a second father cannot be found for love or money! This was a sound argument; but in my view (Brindaban being what he was) it would have cheered him somewhat rather than making him penitent.

  It is unlikely that Yajnanath felt much distress at his son’s departure. It was a considerable financial saving, and furthermore it removed a dread that had plagued him constantly – that Brindaban might one day poison him: what little food he ate was tainted by this morbid notion. It lessened somewhat when his daughter-in-law died; and now that his son had left he felt much more relaxed.

  Only one thing pained him. Brindaban had taken his four-year-old son Gokulchandra with him. Gokul had cost relatively little to feed and clothe, so Yajnanath had felt quite easy towards him. (Despite his regret at the boy’s removal, however, he could not help making some rapid calculations: how much he would save each month now that they had both gone, how much each year, and how much capital would earn an equivalent amount of interest.) It became difficult living in an empty house, without Gokul’s mischief to disturb it. Yajnanath missed having no one to pester him during the pūjās, no one pinching his food at meal-times, no one running away with the inkpot when he did his accounts. Washing and eating with no one to disturb him was a melancholy business. Such undisturbed emptiness was what people gained after death, he thought. It tugged at his heart to see, in his bedding and quilt, holes made by his grandson, and, on the mat he sat on, ink-blots made by the same artist. For making his dhoti unfit to wear in less than two years, the pampered boy had been severely scolded by his grandfather. Now Yajnanath felt tears in his eyes when he saw that dhoti in Gokul’s bedroom, dirty, torn, abandoned, knotted all over. Instead of using it to make wicks for lamps or for some other domestic purpose, he carefully stored it in a trunk, and promised that if Gokul returned and ruined a dhoti in even a single year, he would not scold him. But Gokul did not return. Yajnanath seemed to be ageing much faster than before, and the empty house felt emptier every day.

  Yajnanath could not stay peacefully at home. Even in the afternoon, when all high-born people take a siesta, he roamed about the village with a hookah in his hand. During these silent afternoon walks, the village-boys would abandon their games and, retreating to a safe distance, bellow out locally composed rhymes about Yajnanath’s miserliness. They none of them dared – in case their next meal was spoiled by so bad an omen – to utter his real name: they gave him names of their choosing. Old folk called him ‘Yajnanash’;1 why exactly the boys should have called him
‘Bat’ is hard to explain. Perhaps they saw some resemblance in his pale, sickly skin.

  II

  One day Yajnanath was wandering along mango-tree-shaded paths in this way, when he saw a boy he had not previously seen taking command of the others and directing them in entirely new sorts of mischief. The boys were quite carried away by his forceful character and fresh imagination. Instead of retreating like them at the sight of the old man, the new boy went smartly right up to Yajnanath, and shaking out his chadar released a chameleon, which ran over Yajnanath’s body and off into the bushes – leaving him quivering and smarting at the shock. The boys roared with amusement. A few paces on, Yajnanath’s gāmchā was suddenly whipped off his shoulders, to reappear as a turban on the new boy’s head.