Glimpses of Bengal | Page 8

on and on, while for the life of me I could not find a word
to say. I managed a question or so every five minutes, to which they
offered the briefest replies; and then I sat vacantly, twirling my pen,
and scratching my head.
At last I ventured on a question about the crops, but being

schoolmasters 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 eighty, another said a hundred and seventy-five. I hoped that
this might lead to an argument, but no, they made up their difference.
Why, after an hour and a half, they should have thought of taking leave,
I cannot tell. They might have done so with as good a reason an hour
earlier, or, for the matter of that, twelve hours later! Their decision was
clearly arrived at empirically, entirely without method.

SHAZADPUR,
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 and the others seeing them off; infants, veils, and grey hairs are
all mixed up in the gathering.
One girl in particular attracts my attention. She must be about eleven or
twelve; but, buxom and sturdy, she might pass for fourteen or fifteen.
She has a winsome face--very dark, but very pretty. Her hair is cut
short like a boy's, which well becomes her simple, frank, and alert
expression. She has a child in her arms and is staring at me with
unabashed 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 nonchalance 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 combing it out
with her ringers, while conversing about their domestic affairs at the
top of 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
learn that Gopal's son-in-law has turned out a ne'er-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, one or two wiping their eyes with the
loose end of their saris. A little girl, with her hair 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 Didimani [1] who joined in
her doll games and also slapped her when she was naughty....
[Footnote 1: An elder sister is often called sister-jewel (Didimani).]
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 wearing off both in
those who have gone and those who remain,--pain being temporary,
oblivion permanent. But none the less it is not the forgetting, but the
pain which is true; and every now and then, in separation or in death,
we realise how terribly true.

ON BOARD A CANAL STEAMER GOING TO CUTTACK,
August 1891.
My bag 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 fain would skulk
in corners, away from the glances of the crowd. I go to bed in these
clothes and in them 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 am having quite a time of it on board the steamer.
My fellow-passengers are of inexhaustible variety. There is one,
Aghore Babu, who cannot allude to anything, animate or inanimate,
except in terms of personal abuse. There is another, a lover of music,
who persists in attempting variations on the Bhairab[1] mode at dead of
night,