Home and the World | Page 4

defects of her character.
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1. The mark of Hindu wifehood and the symbol of all the devotion that
it implies.
2. The __sari__ is the dress of the Hindu woman.
3. Taking the dust of the feet is a formal offering of reverence and is
done by lightly touching the feet of the revered one and then one's own
head with the same hand. The wife does not ordinarily do this to the
husband.
4. It would not be reckoned good form for the husband to be
continually going into the zenana, except at particular hours for meals
or rest.
5. __Bara__ = Senior; __Chota__ = Junior. In joint families of rank,
though the widows remain entitled only to a life-interest in their
husbands' share, their rank remains to them according to seniority, and
the titles "Senior" and "Junior" continue to distinguish the elder and
younger branches, even though the junior branch be the one in power.

II

My husband was very eager to take me out of __purdah__. [6]
One day I said to him: "What do I want with the outside world?"

"The outside world may want you," he replied.
"If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on for
some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me."
"Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am thinking
about myself."
"Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?"
My husband was silent, with a smile.
I knew his way, and protested at once: "No, no, you are not going to
run away from me like that! I want to have this out with you."
"Can one ever finish a subject with words?"
"Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me..."
"What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me, more
fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in debt to each
other."
"Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?"
"Here you are wrapped up in me. You know neither what you have, nor
what you want."
"I cannot bear to hear you talk like this."
"I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet
reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all your life
in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household
tasks--you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other,
in the real world, then only will our love be true."
"If there be any drawback here to our full recognition of each other,
then I have nothing to say. But as for myself, I feel no want."
"Well, even if the drawback is only on my side, why shouldn't you help
to remove it?"
Such discussions repeatedly occurred. One day he said: "The greedy
man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in cutting up the
fish according to his need. But the man who loves the fish wants to
enjoy it in the water; and if that is impossible he waits on the bank; and
even if he comes back home without a sight of it he has the consolation
of knowing that the fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if
that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing."
I never liked the way my husband had of talking on this subject, but
that is not the reason why I refused to leave the zenana. His
grandmother was still alive. My husband had filled more than a

hundred and twenty per cent of the house with the twentieth century,
against her taste; but she had borne it uncomplaining. She would have
borne it, likewise, if the daughter-in-law [7] of the Rajah's house had
left its seclusion. She was even prepared for this happening. But I did
not consider it important enough to give her the pain of it. I have read
in books that we are called "caged birds". I cannot speak for others, but
I had so much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the
universe--at least that is what I then felt.
The grandmother, in her old age, was very fond of me. At the bottom of
her fondness was the thought that, with the conspiracy of favourable
stars which attended me, I had been able to attract my husband's love.
Were not men naturally inclined to plunge downwards? None of the
others, for all their beauty, had been able to prevent their husbands
going headlong into the burning depths which consumed and destroyed
them. She believed that I had been the means of extinguishing this fire,
so deadly to the