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

space in the other cars. I firmly believe that if these beauteous English women with their turned-up noses had never come to India then the Englishwould have behaved much better with us; it is they who are at the bottom of
Anglo-Indian
attitudes. They are supposed to be terribly
delicate
, their heads ache very easily and they are easily
shocked
, that’s why they cannot feel any empathy for the black races. Alas! After having undertaken such a lot of soap scrubbing, intake of khana, and emptying of so many bottles of
Cherry Blossom
, the tips of their white noses continue to remain crinkled. One feels like cursing, ‘May you be born in your next birth as women in the South and may your husbands pierce the tips of those noses of yours.’ … Beli pointlessly began to whimper a little. The day wore on, and although there was no sun, it began to feel hot…. Time refused to pass. Every minute seemed to have to be physically pushed forward…. Began to read
Anna Karenina
, but it was so dreadful that I couldn’t—what is the point of reading these sorts of
sickly
books, I don’t understand. I want writing that is quite simple, beautiful, sweet and generous—a strange mess of a situation full of convoluted turns doesn’t suit me for very long. Thankfully, it began to rain heavily after a while. It felt good to shut everything on all sides and sit down by the glass window to watch the clouds and the rain. At one place the sight of a monsoon river was quite amazing. It had become swollen and enlarged, frothing, twisting, muddied, racing, banging its head against the stones upon which it flung itself, hitting and falling over them, leaping over and whirling around them, behaving most terribly. I’ve never seen such madness anywhere else. By the time we got to Sohagpur in the evening and had our dinner, the rain had stopped; when the train started I noticed the sun setting brilliantly among the clouds. I was thinking often of all of you, that for you time was passing unnoticed while you ate, played, studied and conversed—time was flowing over you and you hadn’t even noticed its presence—and I was swimming through time, the entire expanse of time was hitting my face, my heart, my whole body….
    [In] due course the train reached Howrah. At first the house sweeper, after that Jogini, then Satya, all emerged into my field ofvision one by one. And then with the bedding on the second-class roof, the ayah’s battered tin trunk, and the bathing tub (which had a feeding bottle,
loṭā, hāňṛі
, tin pot, bundle, etc.) loaded, we managed to reach home. A commotion and a hubbub, a crowd of people,
dāroỵān’s
salaam, servants’
praṇām
, managers’ namaskar, the absolute difference of opinion among people generally on who has become fat and who thin, Swayamprabha and co. * tumbling about with Bela, everybody gathered around the tea table, a bath, food, etc.—all of this you can well imagine. Suddenly Dada arrived and began a tremendous lecture on common sense—a huge commotion ensued. † Khoka looked very novel to me when I saw him. ‡ A big round head, an absolute simpleton [
nitānta hādā
], quite dark, shaven head, chubby cheeks, the constantly wavering look on his face and eyes one of absolute brainlessness, plump hands curled into fat fists—if you make a movement or a sound of any sort to draw his attention, he smiles, if you give him a squeeze or a shake, he expresses his gratification with a loud
ho-ho
laugh. These are his
general characteristics
, but in all these departments I don’t see much difference between him and the rest of the children of the human race….

4
    Shilaidaha 29
November 1889
    [Our] boat is moored to the front of a sandbank on the other side of Shilaidaha. It’s a vast sandbank—utterly desolate—its limitscannot be seen—just sometimes, in some places, the river’s lines are visible—while again, sometimes you could mistake the sand for the river—no villages, no people,