My Reminiscences | Page 6

can
hardly tell of the wealth of play and freedom which these unknown
dwellings seem to me crowded with. From the furthest depth of the sky
full of burning sunshine overhead the thin shrill cry of a kite reaches
my ear; and from the lane adjoining Singhi's Garden comes up, past the
houses silent in their noonday slumber, the sing-song of the
bangle-seller--chai choori chai ... and my whole being would fly away
from the work-a-day world.
My father hardly ever stayed at home, he was constantly roaming about.
His rooms on the third storey used to remain shut up. I would pass my
hands through the venetian shutters, and thus opening the latch get the
door open, and spend the afternoon lying motionless on his sofa at the
south end. First of all it was a room always closed, and then there was
the stolen entry, this gave it a deep flavour of mystery; further the
broad empty expanse of terrace to the south, glowing in the rays of the
sun would set me day-dreaming.
There was yet another attraction. The water-works had just been started
in Calcutta, and in the first exuberance of its triumphant entry it did not

stint even the Indian quarters of their supply. In that golden age of pipe
water, it used to flow even up to my father's third storey rooms. And
turning on the shower tap I would indulge to my heart's content in an
untimely bath. Not so much for the comfort of it, as to give rein to my
desire to do just as I fancied. The alternation of the joy of liberty, and
the fear of being caught, made that shower of municipal water send
arrows of delight thrilling into me.
It was perhaps because the possibility of contact with the outside was
so remote that the joy of it came to me so much more readily. When
material is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything to it,
forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipment counts
for more than the external. This is the chief lesson which his infant
state has to teach to man. There his possessions are few and trivial, yet
he needs no more for his happiness. The world of play is spoilt for the
unfortunate youngster who is burdened with an unlimited quantity of
playthings.
To call our inner garden a garden is to say a deal too much. Its
properties consisted of a citron tree, a couple of plum trees of different
varieties, and a row of cocoanut trees. In the centre was a paved circle
the cracks of which various grasses and weeds had invaded and planted
in them their victorious standards. Only those flowering plants which
refused to die of neglect continued uncomplainingly to perform their
respective duties without casting any aspersions on the gardener. In the
northern corner was a rice-husking shed, where the inmates of the inner
apartments would occasionally foregather when household necessity
demanded. This last vestige of rural life has since owned defeat and
slunk away ashamed and unnoticed.
None the less I suspect that Adam's garden of Eden could hardly have
been better adorned than this one of ours; for he and his paradise were
alike naked; they needed not to be furnished with material things. It is
only since his tasting of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and till he
can fully digest it, that man's need for external furniture and
embellishment persistently grows. Our inner garden was my paradise; it
was enough for me. I well remember how in the early autumn dawn I

would run there as soon as I was awake. A scent of dewy grass and
foliage would rush to meet me, and the morning with its cool fresh
sunlight would peep out at me over the top of the Eastern garden wall
from below the trembling tassels of the cocoanut palms.
There is another piece of vacant land to the north of the house which to
this day we call the golabari (barn house). The name shows that in
some remote past this must have been the place where the year's store
of grain used to be kept in a barn. Then, as with brother and sister in
infancy, the likeness between town and country was visible all over.
Now the family resemblance can hardly be traced. This golabari would
be my holiday haunt if I got the chance. It would hardly be correct to
say that I went there to play--it was the place not play, which drew me.
Why this was so, is difficult to tell. Perhaps its being a deserted bit of
waste land lying in an out-of-the-way corner gave it its charm for me. It
was entirely outside the living