Our postmaster belonged to Calcutta. He felt like a fish out of water on this remote village. His office and dwelling-room were in a dark thatched shed, no longer some distance from a inexperienced, slimy pond, surrounded on all facets by means of a dense growth.
The men employed within the indigo manufacturing unit had no amusement; furthermore, they had been infrequentlyacceptable companions for first rate folks. nor is a Calcutta boy an adept within the art of associating with others. amongst strangers he appears both proud or sick comfy. At any rate, the postmaster had but little agency; nor had he an awful lot to do.
At instances he attempted his hand at writing a verse or two. That the movement of the leaves and the clouds of the sky have been enough to fill existence with joy—such had been the sentiments to which he sought to provide expression. however God knows that the negative fellow would have felt it because the gift of a brand new life, if some genie of the Arabian Nights had in one night time swept away the timber, leaves and all, and changed them with a macadamised avenue, hiding the clouds from view with rows of tall houses.
The postmaster’s income turned into small. He needed to cook dinner his personal food, which he used to percentagewith Ratan, an orphan woman of the village, who did abnormal jobs for him.
while within the evening the smoke began to twist up from the village cowsheds, and the cicalas chirped in every bush; when the mendicants of the Baül sect sang their shrill songs of their every day meeting-vicinity, whilst any poet, who had attempted to watch the movement of the leaves in the dense bamboo thickets, would have felt a ghostly shiver run down his again, the postmaster might light his little lamp, and make contact with out “Ratan.”
Ratan would take a seat out of doors watching for this call, and, in place of coming in right now, might reply, “Did you callme, sir?”
“What are you doing?” the postmaster would ask.
“I should be going to light the kitchen fire,” would be the answer.
And the postmaster could say: “Oh, allow the kitchen hearth be for awhile; light me my pipe first.”
At remaining Ratan would enter, with puffed-out cheeks, vigorously blowing into a flame a live coal to mild the tobacco. this will deliver the postmaster an possibility of talking. “nicely, Ratan,” possibly he might begin, “do you recollect some thing of your mom?” That became a fertile difficulty. Ratan in part remembered, and in part didn’t. Her father were fonder of her than her mom; him she recollected extra vividly. He used to come home inside the evening after his work, and one or two evenings stood out greater absolutely than others, like photos in her reminiscence. Ratan could sit at the groundclose to the postmaster’s toes, as recollections crowded in upon her. She called to thoughts a touch brother that she had—and how on a few bygone cloudy day she had played at fishing with him on the edge of the pond, with a twig for a make-consider fishing-rod. Such little incidents could drive out greater events from her thoughts. for this reason, as they talked, it might frequently get very overdue, and the postmaster would feel too lazy to do any cooking in any respect. Ratan could then unexpectedly mild the hearth, and toast some unleavened bread, which, with the bloodless remnants of the morning meal, become enough for their supper.
On some evenings, seated at his desk within the corner of the large empty shed, the postmaster too would name up memories of his very own domestic, of his mother and his sister, of those for whom in his exile his heart changed intounhappy,—recollections which have been always haunting him, but which he could not talk about with the guys of the factory, though he observed himself naturally recalling them aloud inside the presence of the easy little girl. And so it happened that the female would allude to his people as mother, brother, and sister, as though she had known them allher life. In reality, she had a entire photo of every one among them painted in her little coronary heart.
One noon, throughout a spoil in the rains, there has been a groovy gentle breeze blowing; the smell of the damp grass and leaves within the hot sun felt like the warm respiration of the worn-out earth on one’s frame. A chronic hen went on all the afternoon repeating the load of its one criticism in Nature’s target market chamber.
The postmaster had not anything to do. The shimmer of the freshly washed leaves, and the banked-up remnants of the retreating rain-clouds had been attractions to see; and the postmaster become looking them and thinking to himself: “Oh, if only a few kindred soul were near—just one loving man or women whom I could maintain close to my coronary heart!” This changed into precisely, he went on to assume, what that hen changed into attempting to say, and it changed into the equal feeling which the murmuring leaves have been striving to express. however no person is aware of, or couldbelieve, that such an idea may also take possession of an sick-paid village postmaster inside the deep, silent mid-day c language of his work.
The postmaster sighed, and referred to as out “Ratan.” Ratan changed into then sprawling beneath the guava-tree, busily engaged in consuming unripe guavas. on the voice of her grasp, she ran up breathlessly, saying: “have been you calling me, Dada?” “i was questioning,” said the postmaster, “of teaching you to examine.” and then for the relaxation of the afternoon he taught her the alphabet.
therefore, in a very brief time, Ratan had were given as some distance because the double consonants.
It seemed as although the showers of the season would in no way cease. Canals, ditches, and hollows have been all overflowing with water. Day and night the patter of rain become heard, and the croaking of frogs. The village roads becameimpassable, and advertising needed to be accomplished in punts.
One heavily clouded morning, the postmaster’s little student were lengthy ready outside the door for her name, however, now not listening to it as traditional, she took up her dog-eared e-book, and slowly entered the room. She discovered her master stretched out on his mattress, and, questioning that he changed into resting, she became about to retire on tip-toe, while she unexpectedly heard her call—”Ratan!” She grew to become at once and asked: “were you slumbering, Dada?” The postmaster in a plaintive voice said: “i am not properly. sense my head; is it particularly warm?”
in the loneliness of his exile, and within the gloom of the rains, his unwell body wanted a bit smooth nursing. He longed to don't forget the contact at the forehead of soft hands with tinkling bracelets, to assume the presence of loving womanhood, the nearness of mom and sister. And the exile become now not disillusioned. Ratan ceased to be a touchlady. She without delay stepped into the put up of mom, called in the village physician, gave the patient his drugs on theproper intervals, sat up all night time by his pillow, cooked his gruel for him, and sometimes requested: “Are you feeling a bit better, Dada?”
It turned into some time earlier than the postmaster, with weakened body, turned into able to go away his sick-bed. “No extra of this,” stated he with selection. “I should get a switch.” He right now wrote off to Calcutta an utility for a switch, on the ground of the unhealthiness of the area.
Relieved from her duties as nurse, Ratan again took up her old region outside the door. but she now not heard the identical old call. She would occasionally peep internal furtively to locate the postmaster sitting on his chair, or stretched on his mattress, and staring absent-mindedly into the air. even as Ratan changed into looking ahead to her name, the postmaster changed into watching for a reply to his application. The lady study her old training over and over once more,—her incredible fear become lest, when the decision came, she might be discovered wanting in the double consonants. At final, after per week, the call did come one evening. With an overflowing coronary heart Ratan rushed into the room along with her—”were you calling me, Dada?”
The postmaster said: “i am going away to-morrow, Ratan.”
“where are you going, Dada?”
“i'm going domestic.”
“when will you return?”
“i'm not coming returned.”
Ratan asked no different query. The postmaster, of his own accord, went on to inform her that his utility for a transferhave been rejected, so he had resigned his put up and become going home.
For a long time neither of them spoke every other phrase. The lamp went on dimly burning, and from a leak in one cornerof the thatch water dripped regularly into an earthen vessel at the ground underneath it.
After a while Ratan rose, and went off to the kitchen to prepare the meal; but she become no longer so brief about it as on different days. Many new things to think about had entered her little brain. while the postmaster had completed his supper, the lady unexpectedly asked him: “Dada, will you're taking me to your private home?”
The postmaster laughed. “What an idea!” said he; however he did now not think it important to explain to the womanwherein lay the absurdity.
That whole night time, in her waking and in her goals, the postmaster’s laughing respond haunted her—”What an concept!”
On getting up within the morning, the postmaster discovered his bath ready. He had stuck to his Calcutta habit of bathing in water drawn and kept in pitchers, instead of taking a plunge within the river as changed into the custom of the village. For a few cause or different, the female couldn't ask him approximately the time of his departure, so she had fetched the water from the river long earlier than sunrise, that it have to be geared up as early as he would possibly need it. After the bathtub came a name for Ratan. She entered noiselessly, and seemed silently into her grasp’s face for orders. The mastersaid: “You need not be troubled approximately my going away, Ratan; I shall tell my successor to appearance after you.” these phrases had been kindly intended, absolute confidence: however inscrutable are the approaches of a lady’s coronary heart!
Ratan had borne many a scolding from her master without complaint, but those type words she could not bear. She burst out weeping, and stated: “No, no, you need now not tell each person something in any respect about me; I don’t want to live on right here.”
The postmaster become dumbfounded. He had in no way visible Ratan like this earlier than.
the new incumbent duly arrived, and the postmaster, having given over rate, prepared to leave. simply before starting he known as Ratan and said: “right here is some thing for you; i am hoping it's going to keep you for some little time.” He brought out from his pocket the entire of his month’s earnings, preserving most effective a trifle for his journeyingcharges. Then Ratan fell at his toes and cried: “Oh, Dada, I pray you, don’t deliver me anything, don’t in any manner hassleabout me,” after which she ran away out of sight.
The postmaster heaved a sigh, took up his carpet bag, put his umbrella over his shoulder, and, accompanied with the aid of a person carrying his many-coloured tin trunk, he slowly made for the boat.
whilst he were given in and the boat become under manner, and the rain-swollen river, like a movement of tears welling up from the earth, swirled and sobbed at her bows, then he felt a ache at heart; the grief- face of a village lady regarded to represent for him the incredible unspoken pervading grief of mother Earth herself. At one time he had an impulse to headback, and bring away along side him that lonesome waif, forsaken of the world. however the wind had simply filled the sails, the boat had got properly into the middle of the turbulent current, and already the village become left at the back of, and its outlying burning-floor came in sight.
So the traveler, borne at the breast of the rapid-flowing river, consoled himself with philosophical reflections on thenumberless conferences and partings happening within the global—on death, the superb parting, from which none returns.
however Ratan had no philosophy. She was wandering approximately the publish office in a flood of tears. it can be that she had still a lurking hope in a few nook of her heart that her Dada could go back, and this is why she couldn't tear herself away. unfortunately for our silly human nature! Its fond errors are continual. The dictates of motive take a long time to say their own sway. The finest proofs in the meantime are disbelieved. false hope is clung to with all one’s mayand major, till an afternoon comes whilst it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, after which over again the longing to get again into the maze of the equalerrors.
No comments:
Post a Comment