Read Online He: (Shey) (Modern Classics (Penguin)) by Rabindranath Tagore - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rabindranath Tagore
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fantastic tales, you see.’
‘Fantastic they may be, but even fantasy has its limits. Anybody could put together a string of commonplace, jumbled-up inventions.’
‘Let’s have a sample of your fantasy.’
‘All right, listen—’
Scholarly Smritiratnamashai, 32 the Mohun Bagan goalkeeper, had swallowed five goals in succession from the Calcutta team. But far from satisfying his appetite, they made his stomach growl for more. He found himself in front of the Ochterlony Monument. 33 He began by licking the bottom, but soon he had licked it up to its very tip. Badruddin Mian, cobbling shoes in the Senate Hall of the university, saw him and rushed out in horror. ‘You’re learned in the sacred books, and yet you contaminate this great monument with your spittle!’ he scolded.‘Fie, fie!’
He then himself spat thrice upon the monument and hurried off to report the matter at the Statesman House. 34
Smritiratna suddenly regained his wits. He realized his mouth, too, had been polluted by the monument.
He went to the guard at the museum gate, and said, ‘Pandeyji, you’re a Brahmin like me, you must do me a favour.’
‘ Comment vous portez vous, s’il vous plait ?’ 35 answered Pandey-ji, twirling his goatee and touching his cap in a salaam.
‘That’s a very difficult question,’ said the pandit, after some thought. ‘I’ll look up the Sankhyakarika 36 and tell you tomorrow. In any case, my mouth has been polluted today. I licked the monument.’
Pandey-ji struck a match and lit himself a Burma cheroot. He took two deep puffs and ordered, ‘Go home immediately, and look up the ritual of purification in Webster’s Dictionary.’
‘I’ll have to go all the way to Bhatpara 37 for that,’ protested Smritiratna. ‘It can wait. Meanwhile, I want you to lend me that brass-bound cudgel of yours.’
‘What for?’ asked Pandey. ‘Got a speck of coal dust in your eye?’
‘How did you know?’ replied Smriratna. ‘It happened the day before yesterday. I had to rush off to Ultadingi, to consult the famous doctor MacCartney-saheb; he specializes in complaints of the liver. He sent for a shovel from Narkeldanga and scraped the eye clean.’
Pandey-ji asked, ‘But why do you need my cudgel?’
‘It’ll serve for a toothbrush,’ answered the pandit.
‘Oh, that’s all right, then!’ exclaimed Pandeyji in relief. ‘I thought you were going to stick it up your nose to bring on a sneeze. In that case, I’d have had to purify it with Ganga water.’
Having reached this point, He pulled the hubble-bubble closer and inhaled deeply. ‘You see, Dada, this is your way of telling stories. Instead of tracing them out clearly and simply with your forefinger, you write them out in exaggerated curves and flourishes, as if you had Lord Ganesh’s trunk for a pen. 38 You must twist the familiar into the strange. It’s very easy. People might laugh when you say the viceroy’s set up trade in oil and is selling dried fish at Bagbazar, but the laughter you win by a cheap joke like that is of no worth.’
‘You seem out of temper.’
‘With good reason. The other day, you made up a string of stupid stories about me and reeled them off to Pupu-didi. Being a child, she swallowed it all. If you must tell fantastic tales, put some craftsmanship into the telling.’
‘You’re telling me there was no craftsmanship in my story?’
‘None at all. If you hadn’t got me involved, I would have kept quiet. But if you insist you’d treated your guest to curried giraffe, whale fried in mustard paste, pulao with a hippopotamus dragged kicking from the mud and stir-fried stumps of palm trees, I can’t but call it clumsy. Anyone can write like that.’
‘Well, how would you write if you had to?’
‘Are you sure you won’t be vexed? Dada, it’s not as if my powers of invention are any greater than yours. If it had been me, I’d have said—“I was invited to play cards in
‘Fantastic they may be, but even fantasy has its limits. Anybody could put together a string of commonplace, jumbled-up inventions.’
‘Let’s have a sample of your fantasy.’
‘All right, listen—’
Scholarly Smritiratnamashai, 32 the Mohun Bagan goalkeeper, had swallowed five goals in succession from the Calcutta team. But far from satisfying his appetite, they made his stomach growl for more. He found himself in front of the Ochterlony Monument. 33 He began by licking the bottom, but soon he had licked it up to its very tip. Badruddin Mian, cobbling shoes in the Senate Hall of the university, saw him and rushed out in horror. ‘You’re learned in the sacred books, and yet you contaminate this great monument with your spittle!’ he scolded.‘Fie, fie!’
He then himself spat thrice upon the monument and hurried off to report the matter at the Statesman House. 34
Smritiratna suddenly regained his wits. He realized his mouth, too, had been polluted by the monument.
He went to the guard at the museum gate, and said, ‘Pandeyji, you’re a Brahmin like me, you must do me a favour.’
‘ Comment vous portez vous, s’il vous plait ?’ 35 answered Pandey-ji, twirling his goatee and touching his cap in a salaam.
‘That’s a very difficult question,’ said the pandit, after some thought. ‘I’ll look up the Sankhyakarika 36 and tell you tomorrow. In any case, my mouth has been polluted today. I licked the monument.’
Pandey-ji struck a match and lit himself a Burma cheroot. He took two deep puffs and ordered, ‘Go home immediately, and look up the ritual of purification in Webster’s Dictionary.’
‘I’ll have to go all the way to Bhatpara 37 for that,’ protested Smritiratna. ‘It can wait. Meanwhile, I want you to lend me that brass-bound cudgel of yours.’
‘What for?’ asked Pandey. ‘Got a speck of coal dust in your eye?’
‘How did you know?’ replied Smriratna. ‘It happened the day before yesterday. I had to rush off to Ultadingi, to consult the famous doctor MacCartney-saheb; he specializes in complaints of the liver. He sent for a shovel from Narkeldanga and scraped the eye clean.’
Pandey-ji asked, ‘But why do you need my cudgel?’
‘It’ll serve for a toothbrush,’ answered the pandit.
‘Oh, that’s all right, then!’ exclaimed Pandeyji in relief. ‘I thought you were going to stick it up your nose to bring on a sneeze. In that case, I’d have had to purify it with Ganga water.’
Having reached this point, He pulled the hubble-bubble closer and inhaled deeply. ‘You see, Dada, this is your way of telling stories. Instead of tracing them out clearly and simply with your forefinger, you write them out in exaggerated curves and flourishes, as if you had Lord Ganesh’s trunk for a pen. 38 You must twist the familiar into the strange. It’s very easy. People might laugh when you say the viceroy’s set up trade in oil and is selling dried fish at Bagbazar, but the laughter you win by a cheap joke like that is of no worth.’
‘You seem out of temper.’
‘With good reason. The other day, you made up a string of stupid stories about me and reeled them off to Pupu-didi. Being a child, she swallowed it all. If you must tell fantastic tales, put some craftsmanship into the telling.’
‘You’re telling me there was no craftsmanship in my story?’
‘None at all. If you hadn’t got me involved, I would have kept quiet. But if you insist you’d treated your guest to curried giraffe, whale fried in mustard paste, pulao with a hippopotamus dragged kicking from the mud and stir-fried stumps of palm trees, I can’t but call it clumsy. Anyone can write like that.’
‘Well, how would you write if you had to?’
‘Are you sure you won’t be vexed? Dada, it’s not as if my powers of invention are any greater than yours. If it had been me, I’d have said—“I was invited to play cards in
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