Short Stories By Rabindranath Tagore

guest

Part 1

Matilal Babu, zamindar of Kathaliya, was returning home with his family
by boat. One afternoon he moored the boat near a riverside market so
that their meal could be prepared. A Brahmin boy came over and asked,
‘Where are you going, Babu?’ The boy was not more than fifteen or
sixteen.
‘Kathaliya,’ replied Matilal Babu.
‘Could you drop me at Nandigram on the way?’
Matilal consented. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Tarapada,’ said the boy.
The fair-skinned boy was beautiful to look at. His smile and his large
eyes had the grace of youth. His body – bare except for a stained dhoti –
was free of any excess: as if lovingly carved by a sculptor, or as if in a
previous life he had been a young sage whose pure religious devotion
had removed all grossness, honed him to gleaming, Brahminical
perfection.
‘Come and wash, bābā,’ said Matilal Babu tenderly. ‘You can eat with
us.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Tarapada, and without a moment’s hesitation
he joined in the cooking. Matilal’s servant was Hindusthani: he was not
very good at cutting up fish.
1 Tarapada took over, and soon had the dish
ready, and had cooked some vegetables too with practised skill. He then
took a dip in the river, and, opening his bundle, produced a clean white
garment and a small wooden comb. He sleeked his long hair away from
his forehead and down to his neck, adjusted his glistening sacred thread,
and stepped on to the boat.
Matilal Babu invited him into the cabin. His wife and his nine-year-old
daughter were there. His wife Annapurna was tenderly attracted to the
boy when she saw him, and wondered, ‘Whose child is he? Where has he come from? How could his mother bear to abandon him?’ She placed
mats for Matilal and the boy to sit on, side by side. The boy was not a
big eater. Annapurna felt he must be shy, and tried to get him to eat this
or that; but when he had finished, he would not be tempted to more. He
clearly did everything according to his own wishes – but with such ease
that there was nothing assertive about him. He was not at all shy.
When everyone had eaten, Annapurna sat him next to her and asked
him about his background. She didn’t gather much. All she could
establish was that the boy had run away from home of his own volition
at the age of seven or eight.
‘Isn’t your mother alive?’ asked Annapurna.
‘She is,’ said Tarapada.
‘Doesn’t she love you?’ asked Annapurna.
Tarapada seemed to find this question peculiar. ‘Why shouldn’t she
love me?’ he said, laughing.
‘Then why did you leave her?’ said Annapurna.
‘She has four more sons and three daughters,’ said Tarapada.
Pained by this odd reply, Annapurna said, ‘What a thing to say! Just
because I have five fingers, does it mean that I want to chop one off?’
Tarapada was young, so his life-story was brief; but the boy was a
complete original. He was his parents’ fourth son, and was still a baby
when his father died. Despite there being so many in the house,
Tarapada was the darling of all; mother, brothers, sisters and neighbours
doted on him. So much so, that his tutor never beat him – everyone
would have been appalled if he had. There was no reason for him to
leave. Half-starved boys who constantly stole fruit from trees and were
thrashed by the owners of the trees – they never strayed from the village
or their scolding mothers! But this darling of everyone joined a touring
yātrā-troupe and left his village without a thought.
Search-parties went out and he was brought back. His mother pressed
him to her breast and drenched him with tears; his sisters wept too. His
elder brother tried to perform his duty as guardian; but he soon
abandoned his feeble attempts at discipline, and welcomed him back
with open arms. Women invited him to their houses, plied him with
even greater displays of affection. But he would not accept ties, even ties of love: his stars had made him a wanderer. If he saw strange boats on
the river, or a sannyāsī from a distant region under the local peepul tree,
or if gypsies sat by the river, making mats or wicker baskets, his heart
would stir with longing to be free, to explore the outside world. And
after he had run away two or three times, family and villagers gave up
hope of him.
Again he joined a yātrā-troupe at first. But when the master of the
troupe began to treat him almost as a son, and the members of the
troupe, young and old, had all fallen for him – and even the people in
the houses where they performed (especially the women) began to make
a special fuss of him – one day, without saying a word, he disappeared,
and could not be found.
Tarapada was as wary of ties as a young fawn, and was also like a
deer in his love of music.
1 The songs of the yātrā were what had first
lured him away from home. Melodies sent a trembling through his veins,
and rhythms made his body swing. Even as a baby he had shown such
solemn, grown-up attention at musical gatherings, sitting and swaying
and forgetting himself, that his elders could hardly restrain their
amusement. Not only music: when the rains of Śrābaṇ fell on the thick
leaves, when the clouds thundered, when the wind moaned in the woods
like a motherless demon-child, his heart was swept away. The call of a
kite high in the sky in the still heat of noon, the croaking of frogs on
rainy evenings, the howling of jackals at night, all entranced him.
Impelled by this passion for music, it was not long before he had joined
a group of p cāli-singers. The leader of the group carefully taught him
songs and trained him to recite p cāli by heart. He too began to love
him as his own. Like a pet cage-bird, Tarapada learnt a few songs, and
then one morning flew away.
Finally he joined a troupe of gymnasts. From Jyaistha to Āṣāṛh a fair
toured the district. Yātrā-troupes, p cāli-singers, bards, dancers and
stallholders travelled by boat from one site to another. For the second
year running this round of entertainment included a small gymnastics-
troupe from Calcutta. At first Tarapada joined the stallholders – sold pān
at the fair. But then his natural curiosity drew him to the wonderful
skills of the gymnasts, and he joined their troupe. He had taught himself to play the flute very well: during the gymnastic display he had to play
Lucknow thuṃris at top speed on the flute – this was his only task.
It was from this troupe that he had most recently absconded. He had
heard that the zamindars at Nandigram had founded, on a lavish scale,
an amateur yātrā-group, so he tied up his bundle and headed for the
place, meeting Matilal Babu on the way.
Despite these connections with various groups, his nature had not
been corrupted by any. He was, deep down, entirely detached and free.
The foul language he had heard, the dreadful sights he had seen, had not
fixed themselves in his mind. They passed him by. He remained
unbound by any kind of habit or custom. He swam in the murky waters
of the world with pure white wings, like a swan. However many times
his curiosity made him dive in, his wings could not be soaked or soiled.
There was a pure and natural innocence in this runaway boy’s
expression. So much so, that the worldly-wise Matilal Babu invited him
in without doubt or question, and with great tenderness.