Read Online Letters from a Young Poet by Rosinka Chaudhuri - Free Book Online Page A

is making a deep, sorrowful, piteous
r
ā
gin
і well up from the entire universe’s innermost being—all the morning light of the sun pales, the trees stand silently as if listening to something, and the world over the sky seems overcast with misty tears—that is, if you look at the distant sky, it seems as if an unblinking blue eye, swimming with tears, is looking at you. Near Khirkee station I could see those sugar-cane fields of ours, the rows of trees, the tennis courts, the glass window–covered house; seeing these my mind suddenly filled with emptiness and despair. How surprising! When I used to live there, it wasn’t as if I was particularly fond of this house—even when I left it to go to Solapur with all of you I can’t say that I was very distressed—yet when I glimpsed it for an instant from the speeding train window—that solitary house, standing with its playing fields and empty rooms—then it was as if my entire heart leapt upon that house at lightning pace, and it began to seem to me that if we could somehow all sit down in that house again in a group, temporarily life would somehow be fulfilled and the emptiness of this world somehow banished…. As soon as I saw the house, it struck my heart with a thump—from the left side to the right a thudding sound—while the train went whistling past, whoosh—the sugar-cane fields dissolved—that’s all, it’s all over—only, because of the sudden attack, two or three strings in my heart descended by a few scales. But the train’s engine doesn’t think very much on all these issues, it keeps going single-mindedly on the steel tracks, it doesn’t have the time to think about who is going where and in what way—it only glugs down water, lets out steam in spurts, shouts out loud and rolls on. It might have been possible to use this as a metaphor for the course of life, butthat would be so stale and unnecessary that one can only hint at it and stop. Near Khandala there was cloud and rain. Clouds had congealed at the top of all those hills and obscured them—exactly as if somebody had drawn hills and then rubbed an eraser over them—a few
outlines
were visible and in some the pencil lines had been smudged…. Finally the train bell rang—its red, wakeful eye could be seen from a distance; the earth began to tremble; the station officers began to come out of their many rooms wearing their sandals, buttoned official dress and liveried round caps over their tufts—their enormous handheld lanterns scattering light in all directions; the startled ranks of khansamas alertly guarded each one’s luggage; Beli continued to sleep; my heart began to beat very fast…. I said to the ayah, ‘Hurry, pick Beli up and bring her with you.’ As soon as Beli arrived a pair of
memsahebs
overtook me at great speed and made for the empty carriage. I thought to myself ‘Whatever happens, I
will
get into that coach.’ The memsahebs went and stood in front of the empty coach and I too stood there; the guard arrived, I asked him, ‘Is this a ladies’ compartment?’ Immediately the
mem
said to him, ‘Of course, if necessary it can always be
reserved
for ladies.’ The guard made no reply and inquired after my destination; I said, Calcutta. He said,
‘You may get in sir!’
The mem too began to try and get into the coach; her husband told her not to. Suddenly the guard asked me where my ‘lady’ was. I said I had no lady with me, but was accompanied by a
maid servant
, upon which the woman went a little distance away and began to laugh loudly, saying to the saheb,
His maid servant!
In other words, the woman this black man was calling his
maid servant might be his wife as well
! … At any rate, I said to myself, you can laugh, but I have the empty compartment. But one funny thing was that I saw that the saheb did not want to cause me any inconvenience. If he had not been there, the woman would have got into the carriage out of
spite
and occupied it—yet there was