Short Stories By Rabindranath Tagore

the little Master's return

Part 1

Raicharan was twelve when he first came to work in the house. He was
from Jessore district and had long hair and large eyes; a slender boy
with gleaming dark skin. His employers, like him, were Kaisthas. His
main duty was to help with looking after their one-year-old son – who in
time progressed from Raicharan’s arms to school, from school to college,
and from college to being munsiff in the local court. Raicharan had
remained his servant. But now there was a mistress as well as a master
in the household, and most of the rights that Raicharan had hitherto had
over Anukul Babu passed to her.
Although his former responsibilities were diminished by her presence,
she largely replaced them with a new one. A son to Anukul was soon
born, and was won over completely by the sheer force of Raicharan’s
devotion. He swung him about with such enthusiasm, tossed him in the
air with such dexterity, cooed and shook his head in his face so
vigorously, chanted so many meaningless random questions for which
there could be no reply, that the very sight of Raicharan sent the little
master into raptures.
When the boy learnt to crawl stealthily over a door-sill, giggling with
merriment if anyone tried to catch him, and speedily making for
somewhere safe to hide, Raicharan was entranced by such uncommon
skill and quickness of decision. He would go to the child’s mother and
say admiringly, ‘Mā, your son will be a judge when he grows up – he’ll
earn a fortune.’ That there were other children in the world who could
at this young age dart over a door-sill was beyond Raicharan’s
imagination; only future judges could perform such feats. His first
faltering steps were amazing too, and when he began to call his mother
‘Ma’, his pisimā ‘Pishi’, and Raicharan ‘Channa’, Raicharan proclaimed
these staggering achievements to everyone he met. How astonishing it
was that he should not only call his mother ‘Ma’, his aunt ‘Pishi’, but also Raicharan ‘Channa’! Really, it was hard to understand where such
intelligence had sprung from. Certainly no adult could ever show such
extraordinary intelligence, and people would be unsure of his fitness to
be a judge even if he could.
Before long, Raicharan had to put a string round his neck and pretend
to be a horse; or he had to be a wrestler and fight with the boy – and if
he failed to let himself be defeated and thrown to the ground, there
would be hell to pay. By now, Anukul had been transferred to a Padma
river district. He had brought a push-chair from Calcutta for his son.
Raicharan would dress him in a satin shirt, gold-embroidered cap,
golden bangles and a pair of anklets, and take the young prince out in
his push-chair twice a day for some air.
The rainy season came. The Padma began to swallow up gardens,
villages and fields in great hungry gulps. Thickets and bushes
disappeared from the sandbanks. The menacing gurgle of water was all
around, and the splashing of crumbling banks; and swirling, rushing
foam showed how fierce the river’s current had become.
One afternoon, when it was cloudy but did not look like rain,
Raicharan’s capricious young master refused to stay at home. He climbed
into his push-chair and Raicharan gingerly pushed it to the river-bank
beyond the paddy-fields. There were no boats on the river, no people
working in the fields: through gaps in the clouds, the sun could be seen
preparing with silent fiery ceremony to set behind the deserted
sandbanks across the river. Suddenly peace was broken by the boy
pointing and calling, ‘Fowers, Channa, fowers!’ A little way off there was
a huge kadamba tree on a wet, muddy stretch of land, with some flowers
on its upper branches: these were what had caught the boy’s attention.
(A few days previously, Raicharan had strung some flowers on to sticks
and made him a ‘kadamba-cart’; he had had such fun pulling it along
with a string that Raicharan did not have to put on reins that day – an
instant promotion from horse to groom.)
‘Channa’ was not very willing to squelch through the mud to pick the
flowers. He quickly pointed in the other direction and said, ‘Look, look
at that bird – flying – now it’s gone. Come, bird, come!’ He pushed the
chair forward fast, burbling on in this way. But it was futile to try to
distract by so simple a device a boy who would one day become a judge – especially as there was nothing particular to attract his attention
anywhere, and imaginary birds would not work for very long. ‘All right,’
said Raicharan, ‘you sit in the chair and I’ll get you the flowers. Be good
now, don’t go near the water.’ Tucking his dhoti up above his knees, he
headed for the kadamba tree.
But the fact that he had been forbidden to go near the water
immediately attracted the boy’s mind away from the kadamba-flowers
and towards the water. He saw it gurgling and swirling along, as if a
thousand wavelets were naughtily, merrily escaping to a forbidden place
beyond the reach of some mighty Raicharan. The boy was thrilled by
their mischievous example. He gently stepped down from his chair, and
edged his way to the water. Picking a long reed, he leant forward,
pretending the reed was a fishing-rod: the romping gurgling wavelets
seemed to be murmuring an invitation to the boy to come and join their
game.
There was a single plopping sound, but on the bank of the Padma
river in monsoon spate many such sounds can be heard. Raicharan had
filled the fold of his dhoti with kadamba-flowers. Climbing down from
the tree, he made his way back towards the push-chair, smiling – but
then he saw that the child was not there. Looking all around, he saw no
sign of him anywhere. His blood froze: the universe was suddenly unreal
– pale and murky as smoke. A single desperate cry burst from his
breaking heart: ‘Master, little master, my sweet, good little master!’ But
no one called out ‘Channa’ in reply, no childish mischievous laugh came
back. The Padma went on rushing and swirling and gurgling as before,
as if it knew nothing and had no time to attend to the world’s minor
occurrences.
As evening fell the boy’s mother grew anxious and sent people out to
search with lanterns. When they reached the river-bank, they found
Raicharan wandering over the fields like a midnight storm-wind,
sobbing, ‘Master, my little master!’ At last he returned home and threw
himself at his mistress’s feet, crying in reply to all her questions, ‘I don’t
know, Mā, I don’t know.’
Although everyone knew in their hearts that the Padma was the
culprit, suspicion fell on a group of gypsies encamped at the edge of the
village. The mistress of the house even began to suspect that Raicharan had stolen the boy – so much so that she called him and entreated,
‘Bring back my child! I’ll give you whatever money you want.’ But
Raicharan could only beat his brow, and she ordered him from her sight.
Anukul Babu tried to dispel his wife’s unfounded suspicion: what motive
could Raicharan have had for so vile an act? ‘What do you mean?’ said
his wife. ‘The boy had gold ornaments on him.’