 Introduction of Glimpses of Bengal. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bhavya. Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore. Introduction. The letters translated in this book span the most productive period of my literary life. When, owing to great good fortune, I was young and less known. Youth being exuberant and leisure ample, I felt a writing of letters other than business ones to be a delightful necessity. This is a form of literary extravagance only possible when a surplus of thought and emotion accumulates. Other forms of literature remain the authors and are made public for his good. Letters that have been given to private individuals, once for all, are therefore characterized by the more generous abandonment. It so happened that selected extracts from a large number of such letters found their way back to me years after they had been written. It had been rightly conjected that they would delight me by bringing to mind the memory of days when, under the shelter of obscurity, I enjoy the greatest freedom my life has ever known. Since these letters synchronized with the considerable part of my published writings, I thought their parallel course would broaden my readers' understandings of my poems as a track is widened by retreating the same ground. Such was my justification for publishing them in a book for my countrymen. Hoping that the descriptions of village scenes in Bengal contained in these letters would also be of interest to English readers, the translation of a selection of that selection has been entrusted to one who, among all those whom I know, was best fitted to carry it out. Rabindranath Tagore, 20 June 1920, End of Introduction. Section number two of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore. This Liberty Box recording is in the public domain. Bandora by The Sea, October 1885. The unsheltered sea heaves and heaves and blanches into foam. The unsheltered sea heaves and heaves and blanches into foam. It sets me thinking of some tied up monsters, training at its bonds in front of whose gaping jaws we build our homes on the shore and watch it lashing its tail. What immense strength with waves swelling like the muscles of a giant. From the beginning of creation there has been this feud between land and water. The dry earth slowly and silently adding to its domain and spreading a broader and broader lap for its children, the ocean receding step by step, heaving and sobbing and beating its breast in despair. Remember, the sea was once sole monarch, utterly free. Land rose from its womb, acerbed its throne and ever since the maddened old creature with a hoary crust of foam veiled and laments continually, like King Lear exposed to the fury of the elements. July 1887. I am in my 27th year. This event keeps thrusting itself before my mind. Nothing else seems to have happened of late. But to reach 27, is that a trifling thing? To pass the meridian of the 20s on one's progress towards 30? 30. That is to say maturity, the age at which people expect fruit rather than fresh foliage. But alas, where is the promise of fruit? As I shake my head, it stills feels brimful of luscious frivolity with not a trace of philosophy. Folks are beginning to complain. Where is that which we expected of you, that in hope of which we admired the soft green of the shoot? Are we to put up with the maturity forever? It is high time for us to know what we shall gain from you. We want an estimate of the proportion of oil which the blindfold, mill turning, unbiased critic can squeeze out of you. It has ceased to be possible to delude these people into waiting expectantly any longer. While I was underage, they trustfully gave me credit. It is sad to disappoint them now that I am on the verge of 30. But what am I to do? Words of wisdom will not come. I am utterly incompetent to provide things that may profit the multitude. Beyond a snatch of song, some tittle-tattle, a little merry fooling, I have been unable to advance. And as the result, those who held high hopes will turn their wrath on me. But did anyone ever beg them to nurse these expectations? Such are the thoughts which have sailed me since one final bisack morning. I awoke amidst fresh breeze and light, new leaf and flower to find that I had stepped into my 27th year. End of Section 2. Section No. 3 of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Shalida, 1888. Our houseboat is moored to a sand bank on the father's side of the river. A vast expanse of sand stretches away out of sight on every side, with here and there a streak as a water running across, though sometimes what gleams like water is only sand. Not a village, not a human being, not a tree, not a blade of grass. The only breaks in the monotonous whiteness are gaping cracks, which, in places, show the layer of moist black clay underneath. Looking towards the east, there is endless blue above, endless white beneath. Sky empty, empty too, the emptiness below hard and barren, that overhead arced and ethereal. One could hardly find elsewhere such a picture of stark desolation. But on turning to the west, there is water, the currentless bend of the river, fringed with its high bank, up to which spread the village grooves with cartridges peeping through, all like an enchanting dream in the evening light. I say the evening light, because in the evening, we wander out, and so that aspect is impressed on my mind. End of section number three. Section number four of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Shazadpur, 1890. The magistrate was sitting in the veranda of his tent dispensing justice to the crowd, awaiting their terms under the shade of a tree. They set my palanquin down right under his nose, and the young Englishman received me courteously. He had very light hair, with darker patches here and there, and a moustache, just beginning to show. One might have taken him for a white-haired old man, but for his extremely youthful face. I asked him over to dinner, but he said he was due elsewhere to arrange for a pig-sticking party. As I returned home, great black clouds came up, and there was a terrific storm with torrents of rain. I could not touch a book, it was impossible to write, so in the I-know-not-what mood I wandered about from room to room. It had become quite dark, the thunder was continually peeling, the lightning gleaming, flash after flash, and every now and then, sudden gusts of wind would get hold of the big leechy tree by the neck and give its shaggy top a thorough shaking. The hollow, in front of the house, soon filled with water, and as I paced about, it suddenly struck me that I ought to offer the shelter of the house to the magistrate. I sent off an invitation, then after investigation I found the only spare room encumbered with a platform of planks hanging from the beams piled with dirty old quilts and balsters. Servants' belongings an excessively grimy mat, Hubble bubble pipes, tobacco, tinder, and two wooden chests, littered the floor besides sundry packing cases full of useless odds and ends such as a rusty kettle lid, a bottomless iron stove, a discolored old nickel teapot, a soup plate full of treacle, blackened with dust. In a corner was a tub for washing dishes, and from nails in the wall hung moist dish clouds and the cook's livery and skull cap. The only piece of furniture was a rickety dressing table with water stains, oil stains, milk stains, black, brown, and white stains, and all kinds of mixed stains. The mirror, detached from it, rested against another wall and the drawers with receptacles for miscellaneous assortment of articles from soil napkins down to bottle wires and dust. For a moment I was overwhelmed with dismay. Then it was a case of send for the manager, send for the storekeeper, call up all the servants, get hold of extra men, fetch water, put up ladders, unfastened ropes, pull down planks, take away bedding, pick up broken glasses bit by bit, wrench nails from the wall one by one. The chandelier falls and its pieces through the floor, pick them up again piece by piece. I myself this the dirty mat off the floor and out of the window, dislarching a horde of cockroaches, mess mates who dine off my bread, my treacle, and the polish on my shoes. The magistrate's reply is brought back. His tent is in an awful state and he's coming at once. Hurry up! Hurry up! Presently comes the shout. The sahib has arrived. All in a flurry I brush the dust off hair, beard and the rest of myself and as I go to receive him in the drawing room I try to look as respectable as if I had been reposing there comfortably all the afternoon. I went through the shaking of hands and conversed with the magistrate outwardly serene. Still misgivings about his accommodation would now and then well up within. When at length I had to show my guest to his room I found it possible and if the homeless cockroaches do not take all the salt off his feet he may manage to get a night's rest. End of section number four. Section number five of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabinina Tagore. This liberal's recording is in the public domain. Kaligram 1891. I am feeling listlessly comfortable and delightfully irresponsible. This is the prevailing mood all around here. There is a river but it has no current to speak of and lines snugly tucked up in its coverlet of floating weeds seems to think since it is possible to get on without getting along why should I best steer myself to steer. So the edge which lines the banks snows hardly any disturbance until the fishermen come with their nets. Four or five large sized boats are more nearby alongside each other. On the upper deck of one the boatman is fast asleep rolled up in a sheet from head to foot. On another the boatman also basking in the sun leisurely twists some yarn into a rope. On the lower deck in a third and oldest looking bare-bodied fellow is leaning over an ore staring vacantly at our boat. Along the bank there are various other people but why they come or go with the slowest of idle steps or remain seated on their haunches embracing their knees or keep on gazing at nothing in particular no one can guess. The only signs of activity are to be seen amongst the ducks who quacking clamorously thrust their heads under and bob up again to shake off the water with equal energy as if they repeatedly try to explore the mysteries below the surface and every time shaking their head had to report nothing there nothing there. The days here drows all their twelve hours in the sun and silently sleep away the other twelve wrapped in the mantle of darkness. The only thing you want to do in a place like this is to gaze and gaze on the landscape swinging your fancies to and fro alternately humming a tune and nodding dreamily as the mother in a winter's noon day her back to the sun rocks and croons her baby to sleep. Caligram 1891 Yesterday while I was giving audience to my tenants five or six boys made their appearance in student primly proper row before me before I could put any question their spokesman in the choicest of high-flown language started sire the grace of the almighty and the good fortune of your benighted children have once more brought about your lordship's auspicious arrival into this locality. He went on in this train for nearly half an hour here and there he would get his lesson wrong, pause, look up at the sky, correct himself and then go on again. I gathered that their school was shorter benches and stools for one of these wood bill seats as they put it. We know not where to sit ourselves, where to seat our revered teachers or what to offer our most respected inspector when he comes on a visit. I could hardly repress a smile at this torrent of eloquence gushing from such a bit of a fellow which sounded especially out of place here where the riots are given to stating their profoundly vital ones in plain and direct vernacular of which even the more unusual words get sadly twisted in shape. The clerks and riots however seemed duly impressed and likewise envious as though deploring their parents' mission to endow them with so splendid a means of appealing to the the mean door. I interrupted the younger rater before he had done, promising to arrange for the necessary number of benches and stools. Nothing daunted, he allowed me to have my say then took up his discourse where he had left it, finished it to his word, saluted me profoundly and marched off his contingent. He probably would not have minded had I refused to supply the seats but after all, his trouble in getting it by heart, he would have resented bitterly being robbed of any part of his speech. So though it kept more important business waiting, I have to hear him out. Section Number 6 of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore. This liberal box recording is in the public domain. January 1891 We left the little river of Caligrum sluggish as a circulation in a dying man and dropped down the current of a briskly flowing stream which led to a region where land and water seemed to merge in each other, river and bank, without distinction of garb, like brother and sister in infancy. The river lost its coating of timeliness, scattered its current in many directions and spread out finally into a beel, marsh. With here a patch of grassy land and there is stretch of transparent water reminding me of the youth of this globe when through the limitless water land had just begun to raise its head the separate provinces of solid and fluid as yet undefined. Roundabout where we have moored the bamboo poles of fisherman are planted kites however ready to snatch out fish from the nets. On the use of the water's edge stand the saintly looking paddy birds in meditation all kinds of waterfowl abound patches of weeds float on the water, here and there rice fields untilled, untended footnote 1 On the rich river's site silt, price seed is simply scattered and the harvest reaped when ripe, nothing else has to be done. End of footnote Rise from the moist clay soil mosquitoes swarm over the still waters. We start again at dawn this morning and pass through Kachikata where the waters of the beel find an outlet in a winding channel only 6 or 7 yards wide through which they rush swiftly. To get our unwieldy houseboat through is indeed an adventure. The current hurries it along at lightning speed keeping the crew busy using their ores as poles to prevent the boat being dashed against the banks. We thus come out again into the open river. The sky had been heavily clouded, a damp wind blowing with occasional showers of rain. The crew were all shivering with cold, such wet and gloomy days in the cold weather are eminently disagreeable and I have spent a wretched, lifeless morning. At two in the afternoon the sun came out and since then it has been delightful. The banks were now high and covered with peaceful grooves and the dwellings of men secluded and full of beauty. The river winds in and out an unknown little stream in the inmost Zenana of Bengal. Neither lazy nor fussy lavishing the wealth of her affection on both sides. She pretends about common joys and sorrows in the household news of the village girls who come for water and sit by her side assiduously rubbing their bodies to a glowing freshness with their shovels. This evening we have moored our boat in a lonely bend. The sky is clear. The moon is at its full. Not another boat is to be seen. The moonlight glimmers on the ripples. Solitude rains on the banks. The distant will it sleeps nestling within a thick fringe of trees. The shrill sustained chirp of the cicadas is the only sound. Shazadpur, February 1891 Just in front of my window, on the other side of the stream, a band of gypsies have excounced themselves, putting up bamboo frameworks covered with split bamboo mats and pieces of cloth. There are only three of these little structures so low that you cannot stand upright inside. Their life is lived in the open and they only creep under these shelters at night to sleep huddled together. That is always a gypsy's way. No home anywhere. No land lot to pay rent to. They are wandering about as it places them with their children, their pigs and a dog or two and on them the police keep a vigilant eye. I frequently watch the doings of the family nearest me. They are dark but good looking with fine, strongly built bodies like Northwest country folk. Their women are handsome and have tall slim, well knit figures and with their free and easy movements and natural independent ears they look to me like swarthy English women. The man has just put a cooking pot on the fire and is now splitting bamboos and weaving baskets. The women first holds up a little mirror to her face and then puts a deal of pains into wiping and rubbing it over and over again with a moist piece of cloth and then to the folds of her upper garment adjusted and tidied. She goes all spick and span up to her man and sits beside him helping now and then in his work. These are truly children of the soil born on it somewhere by the wayside. Here, there and everywhere. Dying anywhere. Night and day under the open sky in the open air on the bare ground the lead a unique kind of life and yet work, allow, children and household duties, everything is there. They are not idle for a moment but always doing something. Her own particular task where one woman plumps herself down behind another unties the knot of her hair and cleans it for her. And whether at the same time they fall to talking over the domestic affairs of the three little mat covered households I cannot say for certain from this distance but shouldly suspect it. This morning a great disturbance invaded the peaceful gypsy settlement. It was about half past eight or nine. They were spreading out over the mat through statted quills and sundry other rags which served them for beds in order to sun and air them. The pigs with their litters lying in a hollow all of the heap and looking like a dab of mud had been routed out by two canine members to the family who fell upon them and sent them roaming in search of their breakfast, squealing their annoyance at being interrupted in enjoyment of the sun after the cold night. I was writing my letter and absolutely looking out now and then when the hubbub suddenly commenced. I rose and went to the window and found a crowd gather around the gypsy hermitage. A superior looking personage with flourishing a stick and indulging in the strongest language. The headman of the gypsies, cold and nervous was apparently trying to offer explanations. I gathered that some suspicious happenings in the locality had led to this visitation by a police officer. The woman so far had remained sitting, visibly scraping lengths of split bamboo as serenely as if she had been alone and no sort of row going on. Suddenly however she sprang to her feet, advanced on the police officer, gesticulated violently with her arms right in his face and gave him in strident tones a peace of her mind. In the twinkling of an eye three quarters of the officer's excitement had subsided. He tried to put in a word or two of mild protest but did not get a chance and so departed, crestfallen a different man. After he had retreated to a safe distance he turned and shouted back, all I say is you'll have to clear out from here. I thought my neighbors opposite would forthwith pack up their mats and bamboos and move away with their bundles, pigs and children but there is no sign of it yet. They are still non-collently engaged in splitting bamboos, cooking food or completing a toilet. Shazadpur, February 1891 The post office isn't a part of our estate office building. This is very convenient for we get our letters as soon as they arrive. Some evenings the postmaster comes up to have a chat with me. I enjoy listening to his yarns. He talks of the most impossible things in the gravest possible manner. Yesterday he was telling me in what great reverence people of this locality hold a sacred river Ganges. If another relative dies, he said and they have not the means of taking the ashes to the Ganges, they powder a piece of bone from his funeral pyre and keep it till they come across someone who sometime or other has drunk at the Ganges. To him they administer some of this powder hidden in the usual offering of taan. Footnote 1 Spices wrapped in beetle leaf and the footnote and thus are content to imagine that a portion of the remains of their deceased relative has gained purifying contact with the sacred water. I smiled as I remarked, this surely must be an invention. He ponded deeply before he admitted after a pause. Yes, it may be. End of section 6 Section number 7 Of The Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. On the way February 1891 We have got past the big rivers and just turned into a little one. The village women are standing in the water, bathing or washing clothes and some, in their dripping saris, with wails pulled well over their faces move homeward with their water vessels filled and clasped against the left flank the right arm swinging free. Children covered all over with clay are sporting boisterously splashing water on each other while one of them shouts a song regardless of the tune. Over the high banks the cottage rews in the tops of the bamboo clumps are visible. The sky has cleared and the sun is shining. Remnants of clouds cling to the horizon like puffs of cotton wool. The breeze is warmer. There are not many boats in this little river only a few dinghies laden with dry branches and twigs are moving leisurely along to the tide plush plush of their oars. At the river's edge the fishermen's nets are hung out to dry between bamboo poles and work everywhere seems to be over for the day. End of section 7 Section number 8 of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. June 1891 I had been sitting out on the deck for more than a quarter of an hour when heavy clouds rose in the west. They came up black, tumbled and tattered with streaks of lurid light showing through here and there. The little boats carried off into the smaller arm of the river and clung with their anchors safely to its banks. The reapers took up the cut sheaves on their heads and hide homewards. The cows followed and behind them frisked the calves waving their tails. Then came an angry roar torn off scraps of cloud hurried up from the west like panting messengers of evil tidings. Finally, lightning and thunder, rain and storm came on all together and executed a mad dervish dance. The bamboo clumps seemed to howl as the raging wind swept the ground with them. Now to the east, now to the west. Overall the storm droned like a giant snake charmer's pipe and to its rhythm swayed hundreds and thousands of crested waves like so many hooded snakes. The thunder was incessant as though a whole world was being pounded to pieces away there behind the clouds. With my chin resting on the ledge of an open window facing away from the wind, I allowed my thoughts to take part in this terrible revelry. They leapt into the open like a pack of schoolboys suddenly set free. When, however, I got thorough drenching from the spray of the rain, I had to shut up the window in my poetizing and retire quietly into the darkness inside like a caged bird. End of Section 8 Section 9 of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Shazidpur, June 1891 From the bank to which the boat is tied a kind of scent rises out of the grasses and the heat of the ground given off in gasps actually touches my body. I feel that the warm living earth is breathing upon me and that she also must feel my breath. The young shoots of rice are waving in the breeze and the ducks are in turn trusting their heads beneath the water and preening their feathers. There is no sound save the faint mournful creaking of the gangway against the boat as she receptably swings to and fro in the current. Not far off there is a ferry. A motley crowd is assembled under the banyan tree awaiting the boat's return and as soon as it arrives they eagerly scramble in. I enjoy watching this for hours together. It is market day in the village on the other bank that is why the ferry is so busy. Some carry bundles of hay some baskets, some sacks some are going to the market and others coming from it. Thus in the silent noon day the stream of human activities slowly flows across the river between two villages. I start wondering why is there always this deep shade of melancholy over the fields arid river banks the sky and the sunshine of our country and I came to the conclusion that it is because with us nature is obviously the more important thing. The sky is free the fields limitless and the sun merges them into one blazing hole. In the midst of this man seems so trivial. He comes and goes like the ferry boat from this shore to the other the babbling hum of his talk the fitful echo of his song is heard the slight movement of his pursuit of his own petty desires is seen in the world's marketplaces. But how feeble how temporary how tragically meaningless seems amidst the immense aloofness of the universe the contrast between the beautiful broad unalloyed piece of nature calm passive silent unfathomable and our own everyday worries paltry, sorrel addons strife tormented puts me beside myself as I keep staring at the hazy distant blue lines of trees which fringe the fields across the river where nature is ever hidden in chorus under mist and cloud snow and darkness their man feels himself master he regards his desires his works as permanent he wants to perpetuate them he looks towards posterity he raises monuments he writes biographies he even goes to length of erecting tombstones over the dead so busy is he that he has no time to consider how many monuments crumble how often the names are forgotten shazid poor june 1891 there was a great big mast lying on the river bank in some little village urchins with never a scrap of clothing decided after a long consultation that if it could be rolled along to the accompaniment of a sufficient amount of waspiferous clamor it would be a new and altogether satisfactory kind of game the decision was no sooner come to then act it upon with the shabash brothers altogether he bow and at every turn it rolled there was a prorious laughter the demeanor of one girl in the party was very different she was playing with the boys for want of other companions but she clearly viewed with disfavor these loud and strenuous games at last she stepped up to the mast and without a word deliberately sat on it so rare a game to come to so abrupt a stop the players seemed to resign themselves to giving it up as a bad job and retiring a little way off they sulkily glared at the girl in her impassive gravity one made us if he would push her off but even this did not disturb the careless ease of her pose the eldest lad came up to her and pointed to other equally suitable places for taking a rest at which she energetically shook her head and putting her hands in her lap steadied herself down still more firmly on her seat at last they had recourse to physical argument and were completely successful once again joyful shouts rend the skies in the mast rolled along so gloriously that even the girl had to cast aside her pride and her dignified exclusiveness and make a pretence of joining in the unmeaning excitement but one could see all the time that she was sure boys never know how to play properly and are always so childish if only she had a regulation yellow earthen doll handy with its big black top knot would she ever have day to join in this silly game with these foolish boys all of a sudden the idea of another splendid pastime occurred to the boys two of them got hold of a third by the arms and legs and began to swing him this must have been great fun for they all waxed enthusiastic over it but it was more than the girl could stand so she disdainfully left the playground and marched off home then there was an accident the boy who was being swung was let fall he left his companions in a pet and went and lay down on the grass with his arms crossed under his head desiring to convey thereby that never again would he have anything to do with this bad hard world but would forever lie alone by himself with his arms under his head and count the stars and watch the play of the clouds the eldest boy unable to bear the idea of such untimely world renunciation ran up to the disconsolate one and taking his head on his own knees repentently coaxed him come my little brother do get up little brother have he hurt you little brother and before long I found them playing like two pups at catching and snatching away each other's hands two minutes had hardly passed before the little fellow was swinging again Shazidpur, June 1891 I had a most extraordinary dream last night the whole of Calcutta seemed enveloped in some awful mystery the house was being only dimly visible through a dense dark mist within the veil of which there were strange doings I was going along Park Street in a hackney carriage and as I passed St. Xavier's College I found it had started growing rapidly and was fast getting impossibly high within its enveloping haze then it was born in on me that a band of magicians had come to Calcutta who, if they were paid for it could bring about many such wonders when I arrived at Arjurasanko house I found these magicians had turned up there too they were ugly looking of a Mongolian type with scanty mustaches and a few long hairs sticking out of their chins they could make men grow some of the girls wanted to be made taller and the magicians sprinkled some powder over their heads and promptly shot up to everyone I met I kept repeating this is most extraordinary just like a dream and someone proposed that our house should be made to grow the magicians agreed and a preliminary began to take down some portions the dismantling over they demanded money or else they would not go on and the cashier strongly objected how could payment be made before the work was completed at this the magicians got wild the building most fearsomely so that men and brickwork got mixed up together bodies inside walls and only head and shoulders showing it had altogether the look of a thoroughly devilish business as I told my eldest brother you see said I the kind of thing it is we had better call upon God to help us but try as I might to anathematize them in the name of God my heart felt like breaking and no words would come then I awoke a curious dream was it not calcutta in the hands of satan and growing diabolically within the darkness of an unholy mist Shazidpur, June 1891 the school masters of this place paid me a visit yesterday they stayed on and on while for the life of me I could not find a word to say I managed the question or so every few minutes to wish they offered the briefest replies and then I sat awakeningly penance scratching my head at last I ventured on a question about the crops but being school masters they knew nothing whatever about crops about their pupils I had already asked them everything I could think of so I had to start over again how many boys had they in the school one said 80, another said 175 I hope that this might lead to an argument but no they made up their difference why after an hour and a half we should have thought of taking leave I cannot tell they might have done so with asking the reason an hour earlier or for the matter of that 12 hours later the decision was clearly arrived at empirically entirely without method Shazidpur, July 1891 there is another boat at this landing place and on the shore in front of it a crowd of village women some are evidently embarking on a journey together seeing them off infants, whales and grey hairs are all mixed up in the gathering one girl in particular attracts my attention she must be about 11 or 12 but buxom and sturdy she might pass for 14 or 15 she had a winsome face very dark but very pretty her hair is cut short like a boy's which well becomes her simple prank and alert expression she has a child in her arms and is staring at me with an abashed curiosity and certainly no lack of straightforwardness or intelligence in her glance her half-boyish, half-girlish manner is singularly attractive a novel blend of masculine non-kellence and feminine charm I had no idea there were such types among our village women in Bengal none of this family apparently is troubled with too much bashfulness one of them has unfastened her hair in the sun and is cooming it out with her fingers while conversing about their domestic affairs at the top her voice with another on board I gather she has no other children except a girl, a foolish creature who knows neither how to behave or talk nor even the difference between kin and stranger I also learned that Gopal's son-in-law has turned out a never-do-well and that his daughter refuses to go to her husband when at length it was time to start they escorted my short-haired damsel with plump shapely arms her gold bangles and her guileless radiant face into the boat I could divine that she was returning from her father's to her husband's home they all stood there following the boat with their gaze as it cast off wanted to wiping their eyes with the loose end of their saris a little girl with her hair tightly tied into an tightly tied into a knot clung to the neck of an older woman and silently wept on her shoulder perhaps she was losing a darling who joined in her doll games and also slapped her when she was naughty the quiet floating away of a boat on the stream seems to add to the pathos of a separation it is so like death the departing one lost to sight those left behind returning to their daily life wiping their eyes true, the pang lasts but a while and is perhaps already veering off both in those who have gone to her husband's home and she's lost her child already veering off both in those who have gone and those who remain pain being temporary, oblivion permanent but nonetheless it is not the forgetting but the pain which is true and every now and then in separation or in death we realize how terribly true end of section 9 section 10 of Glimpse of Bengal by Rabindranath Thakur is in the public domain on board a canal steamer going to Kathak August 1891 my back left behind my clothes daily get more and more intolerably disreputable this thought continually uppermost is not compatible with a due sense of self-respect with the bag I could have faced the world of men head erect and spirits high without it I feigned with skulking corners away from the glances of the crowd I go to bed in these clothes when I appear in the morning and on the top of that the steamer is full of soot and the unbearable heat of the day keeps one unpleasantly moist apart from this I'm having quite a time of it on board the steamer my fellow passengers are of inexhaustible variety there's one Aghor Babu who cannot allude to anything animator inanimate except in terms of personal abuse there is another a lover of music who persists in attempting creations on the Bayrab footnote 1 a raga or mode of ancient classical music supposed to be appropriate to the early dawn in the footnote mode a dead of night convincing me of the untimeliness of his performance in more senses than one the steamer has been aground in a narrow ditch of a canal ever since last evening and it is now past nine in the morning I spent the night in a corner of the crowded deck more dead than alive I had asked the steward to fry some luchis for my dinner and he brought me some nondescript slabs of fried dao with no vegetable accompaniments to eat them with on my expressing a pained surprise he was all contrition and over to make me some hodgepodge at once but the night being already far at once I declined his offer managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of the stuff dry and then all lights on in the deck packed with passengers laid myself down to sleep mosquitoes hovered about cockroaches wandered around there was a fellow sleeper stretched crosswise at my feet whose body my souls every now and then came up against four refined noses were engaged in snoring several mosquito tormented sleepless of wretches were consoling themselves by poles at their Hubble bubble pipes and above all there rose those variations on the mode bite up finally at half past three in the morning some fussy busy bodies began loudly inciting each other to get up in despair I also left my bed and dropped into my deck chair to wait the dawn thus passed that variegated nightmare of a night one of the hands tells me that the steamer has stuck so fast that it may take the whole day to get her off I inquire of another whether any Kolkata bound steamer will be passing and get the smiling reply that this is the only boat on this line and I may come back in hurry if I like after she has reached Kotak by its stroke of luck after a great deal of tugging and hauling they have just got her afloat at about 10 o'clock end of section 10 section number 11 of films as a Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Tiran 7 September 1891 the landing place at Balia makes a pretty picture with its fine big trees on either side and on the whole the canal somehow reminds me of the little river at Puna on thinking it over I am sure I should have liked the canal much better had it really been a river coconut palms as well as mangoes and other shady trees line its banks which turf the beautifully green grass so gently down to the water and are sprinkled over with sensitive plants and flower here and there are screw pine grooves and through gaps in the border of trees, glimpses can be caught of endless fields stretching away into the distance their crops so soft and velvety after the rains that the eye seems to sink into their depths then again there are the little villages under their clusters of coconut and date palms nestling under the moist cool shade of the low seasonal clouds through all these the canal with its gentle current winds gracefully between its clean grassy banks fringe in its narrower stretches with clusters of water lilies with reeds growing among them and yet the mind keeps fretting at the idea that after all it is nothing but an artificial canal the murmur of its waters does not reach back to the beginning of time it knows not of the mysteries of some distant inaccessible mountain cave it has not flowed for ages graced with an old world feminine name giving the villages on its sides the milk of its breast even old artificial lakes have acquired a greater dignity however when a hundred years hence the trees on its banks will have grown statelier its brand new milestones being worn down and mass-carried into Melanes the date 1871 and scribed on its lock gates left behind a mistake left behind at a respectable distance then if I am reborn as my great grandson and come again to inspect the katuk it states along this canal I may feel differently towards it end of section 11 section number 12 of Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this lip-a-boxer conning is in the public domain Shalada October 1891 boat after boat touches at the landing place and after a whole year exiles a returning home from distant fields of work for puja vacation their boxes baskets and bundles loaded with presents I notice one who as his boat nears the shore changes into a freshly folded and crinkled muslin doti dawns over his cotton tunic a china silk coat carefully adjusts around his neck a neatly twisted scarf and walks off towards the village umbrella held aloft rusting waves pass over the rice fields mango and coconut tree tops rise into the sky and beyond them there are fluffy clouds on the horizon the fringes of the palm leaves in the breeze the reeds on the sandbank on the point of flowering it is an altogether exhilarating scene the feelings of the man who has just arrived home the eager expectancy of his folk awaiting him this autumn sky this world the gentle morning breeze the universal responsive tremor in tree and shrubbing in the wavelets on the river conspired overwhelm this lonely youth gazing from his window with adorable joys and sorrows glimpses of the world received from wayside windows bring new desires or rather make old desires take on new forms the day before yesterday as I was sitting at the window of the boat a little fisher dingy floated past the boatman singing a song not a very tuneful song but it reminded me of a night years ago when I was a child we were going along the Padma in a boat I awoke one night at 2 o'clock and on raising the window and putting out my head I saw the waters without a ripple gleaming in the moonlight and the youth in a little dingy paddling along all by himself and singing oh so sweetly such sweet melody I had never heard before a sudden longing came upon me to go back to the day of that song to be allowed to make another essay at life this time not to leave it thus empty and unsatisfied but with song on my lips to float about the world on the crest of a rising tide to sing it to men and subdue their hearts to see for myself what the world holds and where to let men know me to get to know them to burst forth through the world and life and youth like the eager rushing breezes and then return home to a full filled and fruitful old age to spend it as a poet should not a very lofty ideal is it to benefit the world would have been much higher no doubt but being on the whole what I am that our mission does not even occur to me I cannot make up my mind to sacrifice this precious gift of life in a self wrought famine and disappoint the world and the hearts of men by fasts and meditations and constant arguments I count it enough to live and die as a man loving and trusting the world unable to look on it either as a delusion of the creator near of the devil it is not for me to strive to be wafted away into the airiness of an angel Shalida second Karthik October 1891 when I came to the country I seized a view of man as separate from the rest as the river runs through many a climb so does a stream of men babble on winding through woods and villages and towns it is not a true contrast that men may come and men may go but I go on forever humanity with all its confluence streams big and small flows on and on just as does the river from its source in birth to its sea of death two dark mysteries at either end and between them various play and work and chatter unceasing over there the cultivators sing in the fields here the fishing boats float by the day wears on and the heat of the sun increases some bathers are still in the river some bathers are finished and are taking home their filled water vessels thus past both banks of the river hundreds of years have harmed their way while the refrain rises in a mournful chorus I go on forever amid the noonday silence some yutful cowherd is a herd calling at the top of his voice for his companion some boat splashes its way homewards the ripples lap against the empty jar with some village woman rests on the water and with these mingles several other less definite sounds the twittering of birds the humming of bees the plaintive creaking of the house boat as it gently swings to and fro the whole making a tender lullaby as if a mother trying to quiet a suffering child fret not she sings as she soothingly passes fever forehead worry not weep no more let be your struggleings and grabbing and fighting forget a while sleep a while Shalida 3rd Karthik October 1891 it was the Kojagar fool moon and I was slowly pacing the river side conversing with myself it could hardly be called a conversation as I was doing all the talking in my imaginary companion all the listening the poor fellow had no chance of speaking up for himself for was not mind the power to compel him helplessly to answer like a fool how often have I tried to write of such but never got it done there was not a line of ripple on the river and from a wave over there where the farthest shore of the distant mainstream is seen beyond the other edge of the midway belt of sand right up to this shore glimmers a broad band of moonlight not a human being not a boat inside not a tree nor blade of grass on the fresh formed island sandbank it seemed as though a desolate moon was rising upon a devastated earth a random river wandering through a lifeless solitude a long drawn fairytale coming to a close over a deserted world all the kings and princesses their ministers and friends in their golden castles vanished leaving the seven seas and thirteen rivers and the unending moor over which the adventurous princess fared forth vanley gleaming in the pale moonlight i was facing up and down like the last pulse beats of this dying world everyone else seemed to be on the opposite shore the shore of life where the british government and the 19th century holds sway and tea and cigarettes shalida 9th january 1892 for some days the weather here has been wavering between winter and spring in the morning perhaps shivers will run over both land and water at the touch of the north wind while the evening will thrill with the south breeze coming through the moonlight there is no doubt that spring is well on its way after a long interval the papaya once more calls out from the groves on the opposite bank the hearts of men too are stirred and after evening falls sounds of singing are heard in the village showing that they are no longer in such a hurry to close doors and windows and cover themselves up snugly for the night tonight the moon is at its full and its large round face pierces at me through the open window on my left as of trying to make out whether I have anything to say against it in my letter it suspects maybe that we mottles concern ourselves more with its stains than its beams a bird is plentifully crying TT on the sand bank the river seems not to move there are no boats the motionless groves on the bank cast an equivering shadow on the waters the haze over the sky makes the moon look like a sleepy eye kept open henceforward the evenings will grow darker and darker and when tomorrow I come over from the office this moon the favorite companion of my exile will already have drifted a little farther from me doubting whether she had been wise to lay her heart so completely bare last evening and so covering it up again little by little nature becomes really truly intimate and strange and lonely places have been actually worrying myself for days of the thought that after the moon is past her full I shall daily miss the moonlight more and more feeling further and further exiled when the beauty and peace which awaits my return to the riverside will no longer be there and I shall have to come back through the darkness anyhow I put it on record that today is the full moon the first full moon of this year springtime in years to come I may per chance be reminded of this night with the TT of the bird on the bank the glimmer of the distant light on the boat off the other shore the shining expanse of river the blur of shade thrown by the dark fringe of trees along its edge and the white sky gleaming overhead in unconcerned aloofness 7th April 1892 the river is getting low and the water in this arm of it is hardly more than vase deep anywhere so it is not at all extraordinary that the boat should be anchored in midstream on the bank to my right the riots are plowing and cows are now and then brought down to the water's edge for a drink to the left there are the mango and coconut trees of the old shelly the garden about and on the bathing slope below there are village women washing clothes filling water jars, bathing laughing and gossiping in their provincial dialect the young girls never seem to get through their sporting in the water it is a delight to hear their careless merry laughter the men gravely take the regulation number of dips and go away but girls are much more intimate terms with the water both alike babble and chatter and ripple and sparkle in the same simple and natural manner both me a languition fade away under a scorching glare yet both can take a blow without hopelessly breaking under it the hot world which but for them would be barren cannot fathom the mystery of the soft embrace of their arms Tennyson has it that woman to man is as water to wine I feel today it should be as water is to land woman is more at home with the water leaving in it playing with it holding her gatherings beside it and while for her other burdens are not seemly the carrying of water from the spring the well the bank of river or pool has ever been held to become her end of section 12 section 13 a glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Bolpur 2nd May 1892 there are many paradoxes in the world and one of them is this that where ever the landscape is immense the sky unlimited clouds intimately dense feelings unfathomable that is to say where infinitude is manifest its fit companion is one solitary person in multitude there seems so petty so distracting an individual and in finite or unequal terms worthy to gaze on one another each from his own throne but where many men are how small both humanity and infinitude become how much they have to knock off each other in order to fit in together each soul wants so much room to expand that in a crowd it needs must wait for gaps through which to thrust a little craning piece of a head from time to time so the only result of our endeavor to assemble is that we become unable to fill our joined hands with our stretched arms with his endless, fathomless expands 1892 women who try to be witty but only succeed in being pert are insufferable and as for attempts to be comic they are disgraceful in women whether they succeed or fail the comic is ungainly and exaggerated and so isn't some sort related to the sublime the elephant is comic all overgrowth is comic it is rather keenness that is akin to beauty as the thorn to the flower so sarcasm is not unbecoming in women though coming from her it hurts but ridicule with savers of bulkiness women had better leave to our sublime sex the masculine false staff makes our sides split but a feminine false staff would only rack our nerve Bolpur 12 Jaista, May 1892 I usually paste the roof terrace alone of an evening. Yesterday afternoon I felt at my duty to show my visitors the beauties of the local scenery so I strolled out with them taking a gore as a guide on the verge of the horizon where the distant fringe of trees was blue a thin line of dark blue cloud had risen over them and was looking particularly beautiful I tried to be poetical and said it was blue collirium on the fringe of lashes enhancing a beautiful blue eye of my companions one did not hear the remark another did not understand while the third dismissed it with a reply yes very pretty I did not feel encouraged to attempt a second poetical flight after walking about a mile we came to a dam and along the pool of water there was a row of thull fan palm trees under which was a natural spring we stood there looking at this we found that the line of cloud which we had seen in the north was making for us swollen and grown darker flashes of lightning gleaming the wild we unanimously came to the conclusion that viewing the beauties of nature could be better done from within the shelter of the house but no sooner had we turned homeward sent a storm making giant strides over the open moorland was on us with an angry roar I had no idea I was admiring the collirium on the eyelashes of beauty's dame nature that she would fly at us like an irate housewife threatening so tremendous a slap it became so dark with dust that we could not see beyond a few paces the fury of the storm increased and flying stony particles of the rubbly soils stung our bodies like shot as the wind took us by the scruff of the neck and thrust us along to the whipping of drops of rain which had begun to fall run run but the ground was not level being deeply scoured with watercourses and not easy to cross at any time much less in a storm I managed to get tangled in a thorny shrub and was nearly thrown on my face by the force of the wind as I stopped to free myself when we had almost reached the house a host of servants came hurrying towards us shouting and gesticulating and fell upon us like another storm some took us by the arms some called our plight some were eager to show the way others hung on our backs as a fearing that the storm might carry us off altogether we evaded their attentions with some difficulty and managed at length to get into the house panting with wet clothes dusty bodies and tumbled hair one thing I had learnt and will never again write in novel or story the lie that the hero with the picture of his lady love in his mind can pass unruffled through wind and rain with any face in mind however lovely in such a storm he has enough to do to keep the sand out of his eyes the Vaishnava poets have sung ravishly of Rada going to her trist with Krishna through a stormy night did they ever pass to consider I wonder in what condition she must have reached him the kind of tangle her hair got into is easily imaginable and also the state of the rest of her toilet when she arrived in her bore with the dust on her body soaked by the rain into a coating of mud she must have been a sight but when we read the Vaishnava poems these thoughts do not occur we only see on the canvas of our mind the picture of a beautiful woman passing under the shelter of the flowering Kadambas in the darkness of the stormy shravan footnote 1 July to August the rainy season end of footnote night towards the bank of the Jamna forgetful of wind or rain as in a dream drawn by her surpassing love she has tied up her anklets lest they should tinkle she is clad in dark blue raiment lest she be discovered but she holds no umbrella lest she gets wet carries no lantern lest she fall alas for useful things how necessary in practical life how neglected in poetry she will be with us always so much so we are told that with the march of civilization it is poetry that will become extinct but patent after patent will continue to be taken out for the improvement of shoes and umbrellas Bholpur May 1892 no church tower clock chimes here and there being no other human habitation nearby complete silence falls with the evening as soon as the birds have seized their song there is not much difference between early night and midnight a sleepless night in Kolkata flows like a huge slow river of darkness one can count the varied sounds of its passing lying on one's back in bed but here the night is like a washed still lake placidly reposing with no sign of movement and as I tossed from side to side last night I felt enveloped within a dense stagnation this morning I left my bed a little later than usual a little downstairs to my room leaned back on a bolster one leg rusting over the other knee there with a slate on my chest I began to write a poem to the accompaniment of the morning breeze and the singing birds I was getting along splendidly a smile playing over my lips my eyes half closed my head swaying to the rhythm the thing I hummed gradually taking shape when the poster arrived there was a letter of the Sadhana magazine one of the monist and some proof sheets I read the letter raised my eyes over the uncut pages of the Sadhana and then again felt nodding and humming through my poem I did not do another thing till I had finished it I wonder why the writings of pages of prose does not give one anything like the joy of completing a single poem once emotions take on such perfection of form in a poem they can as it were be taken up by the fingers but prose is like a sack full of loose material heavy and unwieldy incapable of being lifted as you please if I could finish writing one poem a day my life would pass in a kind of joy but though I have been busy telling poetry for many a year it has not been tamed yet and is not the kind of winged steel to allow me to bridle it whenever I like the joy of art is in the freedom to take a distant flight as fancy bill then even after return within the prison world an echo lingers in the year an exaltation in the mind short poems keep coming to me unsult and so prevent my getting on with the play had it not been for these I could have let in ideas for two or three plays which have been knocking at the door I am afraid I must wait for the cold weather all my plays except Chitra written in the winter in that season lyrical fervour is apt to grow cold and one gets leisure to write drama Bulpur 31st May 1892 it is not yet 5 o'clock but the light has dawned there is a delightful breeze and all the birds in the garden are awake and have started singing the coil seems beside itself it is difficult to understand why it should keep on going so untiringly certainly not to entertain us nor to distract the pining lover footnote 1 a favourite conceit of the old Sanskrit poets in the footnote it must have some personal purpose of its own but sadly enough that purpose never seems to get fulfilled yet it is not downhearted and it's coo coo keeps going with now and then an ultra fervent trill what can it mean and then in the distance there is some other bird with only a faint chuck chuck that has no energy or enthusiasm as if all hope are lost nonetheless from within some shady nook it cannot resist uttering this little plate chuck chuck chuck how little we really know of the household affairs of these innocent winged creatures with their soft breasts and necks and their many coloured feathers why not to define it necessary to sing so persistently End of section 13 section number 14 of glimpses of Bengal by Ravindranath Tagore this lip-a-box recording is in the public domain Shalida 31st Jayastha June 1892 I hate these polite formalities nowadays I keep repeating the line much rather would I be an Arab Bedouin a fine healthy strong and free barbarity I feel I want to quit this constant aging of mind and body with incessant argument nicety concerning ancient decaying things and to feel the joy of a free and vigorous life to have be they good or bad broad unhesitating unfettered ideas and aspirations free from everlasting friction between custom and sense sense and desire desire and action if only I could set utterly and boundlessly free this hampid life of mine I would storm the four quarters and raise wave upon wave called all around I would career away madly like a wild horse for very joy of my own speed but I'm a Bengali, not a Bedouin I go on sitting in my corner and mope and worry and argue I turn my mind now this way up, now the other as a fish is fried and the boiling oil blisters first this side and then that let it pass since I cannot be thoroughly viled and endeavored to be thoroughly civil why a romantic quarrel between the two Shalida 16 June 1892 the more one lives alone on the river or in the open country the clearer it becomes that nothing is more beautiful or great than to perform the ordinary duties of one's daily life simply and naturally from the grasses in the field to the stars in the sky each one is doing just that and there is such refined peace and surpassing beauty in nature because none of these tries forcibly to transgress its limitations yet what each one does is by no means of little movement the grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass it does not only strive to become a banyan tree and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green and indeed what little beauty and peace is to be found in the societies of men owing to the daily performance and small duties not to big doings and fine talk perhaps because the whole of our life is not vividly present at each moment some imaginary hope may lure some glowing picture of a fortune untrammeled with everyday burdens may tempt us but these are illusory Shalida 2nd Assar June 1892 yesterday the first day of Assar footnote 1 June to July the commencement of the rainy season in the footnote the enthronement of the rainy season was celebrated with due palm in circumstance it was very hot the whole day but in the afternoon dense clouds rolled up in stupendous masses I thought to myself this first day of the rains I would rather risk getting wet than remain confined in my dungeon of the cabin the year 1293 footnote 1 of the Bengal era and the footnote will not come again in my life and for the matter of that how many more even of these first days of Assar will come my life would be sufficiently long could it number 30 of these first days of Assar to wish the poet of the Megadatta footnote 2 in the Megadatta cloud messenger of Kalidas a famous description of the burst of the monsoon begins with the words first day of Assar end of footnote has for me at least given special distinction it sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should take its place in my life either red end with the rising and setting sun or refreshingly cool with deep dark clouds or blooming like a white flower in the moonlight what untold wealth a thousand years ago Kalidas welcomed that first day of Assar every year of my life that same day of Assar dawns in all its glory that self same day of the poet of old Ujjain which has brought to countless men and women their joys of union their pangs of separation every year one such great time hallowed day drops out of my life and the time will come in this day of Kalidas this day of the Megadatta this eternal first day of the rains in Hindustan shall come no more for me when I realize this I feel I want to take a good look at nature to offer a conscious welcome to each day sunrise to say farewell to the each day setting sun as to an intimate friend what a grand festival what a vast theater of festivity and we cannot even fully respond to it so far away do we live from the world the light of the stars travels millions of miles to reach the earth but it cannot reach our hearts so many millions of miles further off RV the world into which I have tumbled as people with strange beings they are always busy erecting walls and rules around themselves and how careful they are with their curtains lest they should see it is a wonder to me they have not made drab covers for flowering plants and put up a canopy to ward off the moon if the next life is determined by the desires of this then I should be reborn from our inch outed planet into some free and open realm of joy only those who cannot steep themselves in beauty to the full despise it as an object of the senses but those who have tasted of its inexpressibility know how far it is beyond the highest powers of mere eye or year nay even the hardest power less to attain the end of its yearning PS I have left out the very thing I started to tell off don't be afraid it won't take four more sheets it is this that on the evening of the first day of usher it came on to rain very heavily in great lands like showers that is all and a section 14 section number 15 of glimpses of Bengal by Ravindranath Tagore this LibriVox recording is in the public domain on the way to Golunda 21st june 1892 pictures in an endless variety of sandbanks fields and their crops and villages gliding to view on either hand of clouds floating in the sky of colors blossoming when day meets night both steel by fisherman catch fish the waters make liquid kerosene sounds throughout the life long day the broad expanse calms down in the evening stillness like a child lulled to sleep over whom all the stars in the endless sky keep watch then as I sit up on the wakeful nights with sleeping banks on either side the silence is broken only by an occasional cry of a jacal in the woods near some village or by fragments undermined by the keen current of the Padma the tumble from the high cliff-like bank into the water not that the prospect is always of particular interest a yellowish sandbank any scent of grass or tree stretches away an empty boat is tied to its edge the bluish water of the same shade as the hazy sky flows past yet I cannot tell how it moves me I suspect that the old desires and longings of my servant-ridden childhood when in the solitary imprisonment of my room I poured over the Arabian nights and shared with Sinbad the sailor his adventures in many a strange land are not yet dead within me but are roused at the sight of an empty boat to a sandbank if I had not heard fairy tales and read the Arabian nights and Robinson Crusoe in childhood I am sure views of distant banks or the farther side of white fields would not have steered me so the whole world in fact would have had for me a different appeal what a maze of fancy in fact becomes tangled up within the mind of man the different strands petty and great glory and event and picture how they get knotted together end of section 15 section 16 of glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this Librabox recording is in the public domain Shalida 22nd June 1892 early this morning while still lying in bed I heard the women at the bathing place sending for its joyous fields of ulu ulu footnot worn a peculiar stroll chair given by women on a species or festive occasions end of footnote the sound moved me curiously though it is difficult to say why perhaps a joyful outburst put one in mind of the great stream of festive activity which goes on in this world which most of which the individual man has no connection the world is so immense the concourse of men so vast yet with how few has won any time of life wafted near bearing tidings from unknown homes make the individual realize that the greater part of the world of man does not cannot own or know him then he feels deserted loosely attached to the world and vague sadness creeps over him thus these cries of ulu ulu made my life past and future seem like a long long road from the very ends of which they come to me and this feeling colors for me the beginning of my day as soon as the manager with his staff and the riot seeking audience come upon the scene this faint wisdom of past and future will be promptly elbowed out and a very robust present will salute and stand before me end of section 16 section number 14 of blimpses of bengalba are being in a this the bravox recording is in the public to me Shazadpur 25th June 1892 in today's letters there was a touch about A's singing which made my heart yearn with a nameless longing each of the little joys of life which remain unappreciated amid the hubbub of the town sending their claims to the heartmen far from home I love news that there is no dirt the voices and instruments still cata yet I turn it deaf here to them but though I may fail to realize it at the time this needs must leave the heart at first as I read today's letters I felt such a point in desire to hear A's sweet song I was at once sure that one of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfillment is for neglected joys within reach while we are busy pursuing chimerical impossibilities we famish our lives the emptiness left by easy joys untasted is ever growing in my life and the day may come when I shall feel that could I but have the past back I would strive no more after the unattainable but drain to the full these little unsought everyday joys which life offers Shazadpur 27th June 1892 yesterday in the afternoon it clouded over so threateningly I felt a sense of dread I do not remember ever to have seen before such angry looking clouds swollen masses of the deepest indigo blue were piled one on top of the other just above the horizon looking like the puffed out mustaches a sum raging demon under the jagged lower edges of the clouds there shone forth a blood red glare as through the eyes of a monstrous sky-filling bison with tossing mane and with head lowered to strike the earth in fury the crops in the fields and the leaves of the trees trembled with fear of the impending disaster shudder after shudder ran across the waters the crows flew wildly about distractedly coin Shazadpur 29 June 1892 I wrote yesterday that I had an engagement with Khalidas the poet for this evening as I lit a candle drew my chair up to the table and made ready not Khalidas but the postmaster walked in a live postmaster cannot but claim precedence over a dead poet so I could not very well tell him to make way for Khalidas who was due by appointment he would not have understood me therefore I offered him a chair and gave old Khalidas the go-by and between this postmaster and me when the post office was in a part of this estate building I used to meet him every day I wrote my story of the postmaster one afternoon in this very room and when the story was out in the hitabadi he came to me with a succession of bashful smiles as he deprecatingly touched on the subject anyhow I like the man he has a fond of anecdote which I enjoy listening to though it was late when the postmaster left I started it once in the Raghuvansa footnote 1 book of poems by Khalidas was perhaps best known to European readers as the author of Shakuntala in the footnote 1 and read all about the Swayamwara footnote 2 an old Indian custom according to which a princess chooses among assembled rival suitors for her hand by placing a garland around the neck of Indumati the handsome gaily adorned princess are seated on rows of thrones in the assembly hall suddenly a blast of conch shell and trumpets resounds as Indumati in bridal robes supported by Sunanda is ushered in and stands in the walk left between them it was delightful to dwell on the picture then as Sunanda introduces to her each one of the suitors Indumati bows low in loveless meditation and passes on how beautiful is this humble courtesy they're all princes they're all her seniors for she is a mere girl had she not atoned for the inevitable rudeness of her rejection by the grace of her humility the scene would have lost its beauty end of section 17 section number 18 of glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore the last recording is in the public domain Shalida 28th June 1892 if only I could live there it's often thought when looking at a beautiful landscape painting that is the kind of longing which is satisfied here where one feels alive in a brilliantly colored picture with none of the hardness a reality when I was a child illustrations of Woodland and Sea in Paul and Virginia or Robinson Crusoe waft me away from the everyday world and the sunshine here brings back to my mind the feeling with which I used to gaze on those pictures I cannot account for this exactly or explain definitely what kind of longing it is which is drowsed within me it seems like the throb of some current flowing through the artery connecting me with the larger world I feel as if dim distant memories come to me of the time when I was one with the rest of the earth when on me grew the green grass and on me fell the autumn light when a warm scent of youth would rise from every pore of my worst soft green body at the touch of the rays of the mellow sun and a fresh life a sweet joy would be half consciously secreted and inarticulately poured forth from all the immensity of my being as it lay dumbly stretched with its varied countries and seas and mountains under the bright blue sky my feelings seem to be those of our ancient earth in the daily ecstasy of its sun kissed life my unconsciousness seems to stream through each blade of grass each sucking root to rise with the sap through the trees to break out with joyous thrills in the waving fields of corn in the rustling palm leaves I feel impelled to give expression to my blood sigh with the earth and the silence meant love for her but I'm afraid I shall not be understood into section 18 section number 19 of glimpses of Bengal with Rabindranath Tagore this liberal box recording is in the public domain Boalia 18 November 1892 I am wondering where your train has got to by now this is the time for the sun to rise over the ups and downs of the endless rocky region near Navadi station the scene around there must be brightened by the fresh sunlight through which distant blue hills are beginning to be faintly visible cultivated fields are scarcely to be seen except where the primitive tribesmen have done a little plowing with their perfelos on each side of the railway cutting there are the heaped black rocks the bolder marked footprints dried up streams black tails pushed along the telegraph wires a wild, seamed and scarred nature lies there in the sun as though tamed at the touch of some soft, bright, cherubic hand do you know the picture which this calls up for me in the Shakuntala of Kalidas there is a scene where Bharat the infant son of King Dushyanta is playing with the lion cub the child is lovingly passing his delicate rosy fingers through the rough main great beast which lies quietly stretched in trustful repose now and then casting affection glances out to the corner of its eyes at its little human friend shall I tell you what those dry, boldest stream water crosses put me in mind of we read in the English fairy tale of the babes in the wood how the little brother and sister left a trace of their wanderings through the unknown forest into which their stepmother had turned them out as they went these streamlets are like lost babes in the great world into which they are sent to drift and that is why they leave stones as they go forth to mark their course so as to not lose their way when they may be returning but for them there is no return journey end of section 19 section number 20 of Lumsas of Bengal by Rabindranath Thakur this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Nathur 2nd December 1892 there is a depth of feeling and breath of peace in a Bengal sunset behind the trees which wrench the endless solitary fields spreading away to the horizon lovingly yet sadly with all does our evening sky bend over and meet the earth in the distance it casts a mournful light on the earth it leaves behind a light which gives us a taste of divine grief of the eternal separation footnote 1 that is between purusha and prakriti god and creation end of footnote 1 and eloquent is a silence which then broods over earth, sky and waters as I gaze on in rapt motionlessness I fall to wondering if ever the silence should fail to contain itself if the expression for which this hour has been seeking from the beginning of time should break forth would a profoundly solemn poignantly moving music rise from earth to starland with a little steadfast concentration of effort we can for ourselves translate the grand harmony of light and color which permeates the universe into music we have only to close our eyes and receive with the year of the mind the vibration of this ever flowing but how often shall I write of these sunsets and sunrises I feel the renewed freshness every time yet how am I to attain such renewed freshness in my attempts at expression end of section 20 section number 21 of glimpses of Bengal by Rubeena Tego this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Shalita 9th December 1892 I am feeling weak and relaxed after my painful illness and in this state the ministrations of nature are sweet indeed I feel as if, like the rest I too am lazily glittering out my delight at the rays of the sun and my letter writing progresses but absentmindedly the world is ever new to me like an old friend loved through this and former lives the acquaintance between us is both long and deep I can well realize how the ages passed when the earth in her first youth came forth from her seabed and saluted the sun in prayer I must have been one of the trees sprung from her new formed soil spreading my foliage in all the freshness of a primal impulse the great sea was rocking and swaying and smothering like a foolishly fond mudder its first born land with repeated caresses while I was drinking in the sunlight with the whole of my being with the unreasoning rapture of the newborn holding fast and sucking away at my mother earth with all my roots in blind joy my leaves burst forth and my flowers bloomed and when the dark clouds gathered their grateful shade would comfort me with a tender touch from age to age thereafter have I been diversely reborn on this earth so whenever we now sit face to face alone together various ancient memories gradually one after another come back to me my mother earth sits today in the corn fields by the riverside in her raiment a sunlit gold and near her feet her knees her lap I roll about and play mother of a multitude of children she attends but absently to their constant calls on her with an immense patience but also with a certain aloofness she is seated there far away look fastened on the verge of the afternoon sky while I keep chattering on untiringly end of section 21 section number 22 of glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this liberalist recording is in the public domain Bulja Tuesday, February 1893 I do not want to wonder about anymore I am pining for a corner in which to nestle down snugly away from the crowd India has two aspects in one she is a householder in the other a wandering aesthetic the former refuses to budge from the home corner the latter has no home at all I find both these within me I want to roam about and see all the wide world yet I also yearn for a little sheltered nook like a bird with its tiny nest for dwelling and the vast sky flight I hanker after a corner because it serves to bring calmness to my mind my mind really wants to be busy but in making the attempt it knocks so repeatedly against the crowd as to become utterly frenzied and to keep buffeting me it's cage from within if only it is allowed a little leisurely solitude and can look about and think to its heart's content it'll express its feelings to its own satisfaction this freedom of solitude is what my mind is expecting for it would be alone with its imaginings as the creator broods over his own creation end of section 22 section number 23 of glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Katak February 1893 till we can achieve something let us live in incognito say I so long as we are only fit to be looked down upon what shall we base our claim to respect when we have acquired a foothold of our own in the world when we have had some share in shaping its course then we can meet others smilingly till then let us keep in the background attending to our own affairs but our countrymen seem to hold the opposite opinion they set no store by our more modest intimate wants which have to be met behind the scenes the whole of their attention is directed towards momentary attitudinizing and display us is truly a god forsaken country difficult indeed is it for us to maintain the strength of will to do we get no help in any real sense there is no one within miles of us in converse with whom we might gain an accession of vitality no one here seems to be thinking or feeling or working not a soul has any experience of big striving or of really and truly living they all eat and drink do their office work smoke and sleep and chatter nonsensically when they touch upon emotion they grow sentimental when they reason they're childish one yearns for a full-blooded sturdy and capable personality these are all so many shadows flitting about out of touch with the world katak 10th February 1893 he was a fully developed John bull of the outrageous type with a huge beak of a nose cunning eyes and a yard long chin the curtailment of our right to be tried by jury is now under consideration by the government the fellow dragged in the subject by the years and insisted on arguing it out with our host for B. Babu he said the moral standard of the people of this country was low that they had no real belief in the sacredness of life so that they were unfit to serve on juries the utter contempt with which we are regarded by these people was brought home to me when I saw how they can accept a Bengali's hospitality and talked us seated at his table without a quiver of compunction as I sat in a corner of the drawing room after dinner everything around me looked blurred to my eyes I seemed to be seated by the head of my great insulted motherland who lay there in the dust before me disconsolate shorn of her glory I cannot tell what a profound distress overpowered my heart how incongruous seeing the ma'am sahibs there in their evening dresses the hum of English conversation and the ripples of laughter how richly true for us is our India of the ages how cheap and false the holocaught seas of an English dinner party katak march 1893 if we begin to attach too much importance to the applause of Englishmen we shall have to be rid of much in us that is good and to accept from them much that is bad we shall grow ashamed of going about without socks and cease to feel shame at the sight of their bald dresses we shall have no compunction in throwing over broad our ancient manners nor any in emulating their lack of courtesy we shall leave off wearing our achkans because they are susceptible of improvement but think nothing of surrendering our heads to their hats though no headgear could well be uglier in short consciously or unconsciously we shall have to cut our lives down according as they clap their hands or not before I apostrophize myself and say oh earthen pot for goodness sake keep away from that metal pot whether he comes to you in anger or merely to give you a patronizing pat on the back you are done for cracked in either case so bear heed to old ace of sage council I pray and keep your distance let the metal pot tournament well the homes you have work to do in those of the poor if you let yourself be broken you will have no place in either but merely return to the dust or at best you may secure a corner in a brick-a-brack cabinet as a curiosity and it is more glorious far to be used for fetching water by the meanest of village women end of section 23 section number 24 of Limpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Shalida 8th May 1893 poetry is a very old love of mine I must have been engaged to her when I was only Rathi's footnote 1 Rathi, his son, was then 5 years old and the footnote H long ago the recesses under the old banyan tree beside her tank the inner gardens the unknown regions on the ground floor of the house the whole of the outside world the nursery rhymes and tales told by the maids created a wonderful fairer land within me it is difficult to give a clear idea of all the vague and mysterious happenings of that period but this much is certain that my exchange of garlands footnote 2 the betrothal ceremony and a footnote 2 with poetic fancy was already duly celebrated I must admit, however, that my betrothed is not an auspicious maiden whatever else she may bring one it is not good fortune I cannot say she has never given me happiness but peace of mind with her is out of the question the lover whom she favors may get his fill of bliss but his heart's blood is wrung out under her relentless embrace it is not for the unfortunate creature of a choice ever to become a staid and sober householder comfortably settle down on a social foundation consciously or unconsciously I may have done many things that were untrue but I have never uttered anything false in my poetry that is a sanctuary where the deepest truths of my life find refuge Shalida, 10th May 1893 here come black swollen masses of cloud they soak up the golden sunshine from the scene in front of me like great paths of blotting paper rain must be near for the breeze feels moist and tearful over there on the sky piercing peaks of Simla you will find it hard to realize exactly what an important event the coming of the clouds is here or how many are anxiously looking up to the sky hailing their advent I feel a great tenderness for these peasant folk our riots big helpless infantile children of Providence who must have food brought to their very lips or they are undone when the breasts of mother earth dry up they are at a loss what to do and can only cry but no sooner is their hunger satisfied than they forget all their past sufferings I know not whether the socialistic ideal of a more equal distribution of wealth is attainable but if not the dispensation of Providence is indeed cruel and man a truly unfortunate creature for if in this world misery must exist so be it but let some little loophole some glimpse of possibility at least be left which may serve to urge the nobler portion of humanity to hope and struggle unceasingly for its alleviation they say a terribly hard thing who assert that the division of the world's production to afford each one a mouthful of food a bit of clothing is only an utopian dream all these social problems are hard indeed fate has allowed humanity such a pitifully meager coverlet that in pulling it over one part of the world another has to be left bare in allying our poverty we lose our wealth and with this wealth what a world of grace and beauty and poverty is lost to us but the sun shines forth again through the clouds are still bent up in the west Shelley though 11th May 1893 there is another pleasure for me here sometimes one or other of our simple devoted old riots comes to see me and their worshipful homages so unaffected how much greater than I are they in the beautiful simplicity and sincerity of their reverence what if I'm unworthy of their veneration their feeling loses nothing of its value I regard these grown up children with the same kind of affection that I have for little children but there is also a difference they're more infantile still little children will grow up later on but these big children never a meek and radiantly simple soul shines through their worn and wrinkled old bodies little children are merely simple they have not the unquestioning unwavering devotion of these if there be any undercurrent along which the souls of men may have a communication with one another then my sincere blessing will surely reach and serve them Shelley though 16th May 1893 I walk about for an hour on the river bank fresh and clean after my afternoon bath then I get into the new jolly boat anchored in mid-stream and on a bed spread on the plankt over stern I lie silently there on my back in the darkness of the evening little s sits besides me and shatters away in the sky comes more and more thickly studded with stars each day the thought recurs to me shall I be reborn under this star-spangled sky will the peaceful rapture of such wonderful evenings ever again be mine on this silent Bengal river in so secluded a corner of the world perhaps not the scene may be changed I may be born with a different mind many such evenings may come but they may refuse to nestle so trustfully lovingly with such complete abandon to my breast curiously enough my greatest fear is lest I should be reborn in Europe for there one cannot recline like this with one's whole being laid open to the infinite bow one is liable, I am afraid, to be soundly rated for lying down at all I should probably have been hustling strenuously in some factory or bank or parliament like the rose there one's mind has to be stone-metalled for heavy traffic geometrically laid out and kept clear and regulated I'm sure I cannot exactly say why this lazy dreamy self-absorbed sky-filled state of mind seems to me the more desirable I feel no wit inferior to the busiest men of the world as I lie here in my jolly boat rather had I girded up my loins to be strenuous I might have seemed ever so feeble compared to those chips of old oaken blocks Shalida, 3rd July 1893 all last night the wind howled like a stray dog and the rain still pours on without a brick the water from the fields is rushing in numberless rolling streams to the river the dripping riots are crossing the river in the ferry boat some of their Tokas, footnote 1 conical hats of straw or split bamboo and a footnote 1 on others with yam leaves held over their heads big cargo boats are gliding along the boatman sitting drenched at his helm the crew straining at the towel ropes through the rain the birds remain gloomily confined to their nests but the sons of men fare forth for in spite of the weather the world's work must go on two coward lads are grazing their cattle just in front of my boat the cows are munching away with great gusto their noses plunged into the lush grass the tails incessantly busy flicking off the flies the raindrops and the sticks of the coward boys fall on their backs with the same unreasonable persistency and they bear both with equally uncritical resignation steadily going on with their munch, munch, munch these cows have such mild affectionate mournful eyes why, I wonder, should Providence have thought fit to impose all the burden of man's work on the submissive shoulders of these great gentle bees? the river is rising daily what I could see yesterday only from the upper deck I can now see from my cabin windows every morning I awake to find my field of vision growing larger not long since only the treetops near those distant villages used to appear like dark green clouds today the whole of the wood is visible land and water are gradually approaching each other like two bashful lovers the limit of their shyness has nearly been reached the arms will soon be around each other's necks I shall enjoy my trip along this brimpled river at the height of the rains I am fidgeting to give the order to cast off Shalida, 4th July, 1893 a little gleam of sunlight shows this morning there was a break in the rains yesterday but the clouds are banged up so heavily along the skirts of the sky that there is not much hope of the break lasting it looks as if a heavy carpet of cloud had been rolled up to one side and at any moment a fussy breeze may come along and spread it over the whole place again covering every trace of blue sky and golden sunshine what a storm of water must have been laid up in the sky this year the river has already risen over the low, chur, lands footnote one old sandbanks consolidated by the deposit of a layer of cultural bowl soil end of footnote one threatening to overwhelm all the standing crops the wretched riots in despair are cutting and bringing away in boats sheaves of half ripe rice as they pass my boat I hear them be veiling their fate it is easy to understand how heart-rending it must be for cultivators to have to cut down their rice on the very eve of its ripening the only hope left them being that some of the years may possibly have hardened into grain there must be some element of pity in the dispensations of providence else how did we get our share of it but it is so difficult to see where it comes in the lamentations of these hundreds of thousands of unoffending creatures do not seem to get anywhere the rain pours on as it lists the river still rises and no amount of petitioning seems to have the effect of bringing relief from any quarter one has to see consolation by saying that all this is beyond the understanding of man and yet it is so vitally necessary for man to understand that there are such things as pity and justice in the world however this is only sulking reason tells us that creation never can be perfectly happy so long as it is incomplete it must put up with imperfection and sorrow it can only be perfect when it seizes to be creation and as God do our prayers dare go so far the more we think over it the off-nervy come back the starting point why this creation at all if we cannot make up our minds to object to the thing itself it is futile complaining about its companion sorrow end of section number 24 section number 25 of glimpses of Bengal by Rabina Tagore this little box recording is in the public domain Shazadpur 7 July 1893 the flow of village life is not too rapid neither is it stagnant work and rest go together hand in hand the ferry crosses to and fro the passers-by with umbrellas up when their way along the towpath women are washing rice in split bamboo trays which they dip in water the riots are coming to the market with bundles of jute on their heads two men are chopping away at a log of wood with regular ringing blows the village carpenter is repairing an upturned dinghy under a big aswadhat tree a mongrel dog is prowling aimlessly along the canal bank some cows are lying there chewing the cud after a huge meal of the luxuriant grass lazily moving their ears backwards and forwards flicking off flies with their tails and occasionally giving an impatient toss of their heads when the crows perched on their backs take too much for liberty the monotonous blows of woodcutters axe or carpenter's mallet the splashing of oars, the merry voices of the naked little children at play the plaintive tune of the riot song the more dominant creaking of the turning oil mill all these sounds of activity do not seem out of harmony with murmuring leaves and singing birds and all combine like moving strains of some grand dream orchestra rendering a composition of immense, though restrained pathos Shazadpur, 10th July 1893 all I have to say about the discussion that is going on over silent poets is that though the strength of feeling may be the same in those who are silent as in those who are vocal that has nothing to do with poetry poetry is not a matter of feeling it is the creation of form ideas take shape by some hidden, subtle work at work within the poet this creative power is the origin of poetry perceptions, feelings or language are only raw material one may be gifted with feeling a second with language, a third with both but he who has as well a creative genius alone is a poet End of section 25