SHORT STORY Aparichita - manushi-india.org

1 31 AparichitaRabindranath Tagore, 1916 Translated byMeenakshi Mukherjee ,1992 Translated into English for the first timeSHORT STORYI am twenty-seven now. My lifeso far has been remarkable neither inachievement nor in its length. Yet, forme it has acquired a certain value ofits own. It is like a flower ripening intofruit, cherishing all the while thememory of the chance contact with ahoney-bee which made it all was a brief encounter and I shall tellit briefly for the appreciation ofthose who do not confuse brevitywith have come successfully throughall the examinations in the teachers used to compare me withthe silk cotton flower and the brightbut useless maakal fruit, in anobvious reference to my good used to be embarrassed by thesecomparisons but now I feel that if Iwere to be born again, I would like tolook the same and gladly bear thetaunts of my father had been poor he earned a great deal of moneyas a lawyer, but never had the leisureto enjoy his hard earned wealth.

2 Theonly rest he had was when hebreathed his last. It was really mymother who brought me up. Beingfrom a poor household herself shemade sure that I should never forgetthat we were rich now. I was pamperedand fussed over as a child so muchthat I probably never grew up. Eventoday I look as if I am the little brotherof Ganesh, sitting in the lap ofAnnapurna, the mother guardian was my mother sbrother, barely six years older than had absorbed all the cares of ourfamily, rather like the legendary riverPhalgu which runs underground. Youhave to dig through the sand for evena drop of water. Because of him, I wasspared all fathers of all marriageabledaughters would find me a highlyeligible bachelor. I have no bad habits,not even smoking. I find it easy to begood because it calls for leastresistance. I am an obedient son,because I lack the ability to woman seeking a husbandwould do well to remember that I havebeen trained under a feminine rich families sought amarriage alliance with us.

3 But myuncle, who was the arbiter of mydestiny, had certain fixed notions onmarriage. He was against daughtersof rich fathers. He preferred a bride toenter our house with her head boweddown in humility. Yet his love of lucre wasinstinctive. He wanted as my bride a girlwhose father would not be wealthy, but whocould be imposed upon to provide somecash. In SHORT , someone who couldbe squeezed, but need not berespected; if we offered the ordinaryhookah, instead of the more formalgargara reserved for the distinguishedguests, he would not friend Harish who works inKanpur came home to Calcutta duringthe vacation to plant the seed ofrestlessness in rne: My friend, hesaid if you are talking of girls, I knowof a very attractive one. I had already finished my Mastersdegree. A vast and arid expanse of idletime lay before me as far as I couldstretch my vision into the future.

4 Noexamination ahead, no need to takeup a job, nor look for one. I had neitherthe training nor the inclination to lookafter the affairs of the family or toprepare for any kind of work. All thatI had was my mother inside the house,and my uncle to negotiate with theworld the horizon of this desert ofleisure the mirage of the eternalfeminine loomed large for me. The skybore her gaze, her breath was in theair, the murmur of leaves whisperedher secrets. It was at this time thatHarish arrived with his provokingwords: Speaking of girls .. Mybody and mind began to weavetremulously a tapestry of light andshade as the new bakul leaves do atthe breath of spring. Harish was aconnoisseur; he could make hisdescriptions come alive withdelectable juice and in any case, mymind was suggested to Harish that heshould broach the topic to my had a knack of getting alongwith everyone.

5 Even my uncle soughthis company. The subject was duly32 MANUSHI mentioned to him. My uncle was moreconcerned with the father of the girlthan the girl herself. The father seemedto fit the bill admirably. At one timeLakshmi blessed their family coffers,filling them to the brim. These werenearly empty now but there were stillthe dregs left. Since it was no longerpossible to maintain the old life stylewith his reduced means, the father hadleft his ancestral place to movewestwards. In Kanpur he lived like anordinary householder with limitedmeans. Since this daughter was hisonly child, there was everylikelihood that he would nothesitate to scrape thebottom of the family chestfor her these were positivefactors. But my uncle wasnot pleased to know thatthe girl was already there some flawsomewhere along thefamily tree? No, nonewhatsoever. It was just thatthe father had been unableto find a bridegroom for hisdaughter to his bachelors wereexpensive and his own expectationswere pitched high.

6 So he kept onwaiting endlessly but time did notstand still for the to Harish s eloquentpersuasion, eventually my uncleseemed to relent. The preliminary partof the negotiations went off place outside Calcutta could aswell be a part of the Andaman islandsas far as my uncle was concerned. Thefarthest he had ever travelled in hislife was nearby Konnagar where hewas once forced to go on some he the law-giver Manu, crossingof the Howrah bridge would havebeen forbidden in his code. I couldnot summon up courage to mentionthat I would have liked to go toKanpur once to see the person sent to Kanpur on ourbehalf to the negotiations was noneother than my elder cousin Binu. I hadfull faith in his taste and his return his comment to me aboutthe girl was, Not bad at all, my gold, to be sure. Binu-dada is known for hisunderstatements.

7 What we describeas excellent, he prefers to calladequate. So I knew that in my casethere would be no conflict betweenthe deity of marriage and the god ofromance. IINeedless to say, the bride s partyhad to come to Calcutta for thewedding. Shambhunath Babu, thebride s father, must have trustedHarish implicitly because he saw mefor the first time only three days beforethe wedding when he came to formallybless me. He was a remarkablyhandsome man of around forty whiskers were turning grey, buthis hair was still black. He was thekind of person who would stand outin a hoped that he approved of me. Itwas difficult to tell because he was aman of few words. Even when hespoke, he did so without too muchemphasis. My uncle on the otherhand was in his element; he spokeincessantly to prove to him on everypretext that we were among the bestand the wealthiest families in the Babu did notparticipate in this discussion, noteven with occasional nods of assentof dissent.

8 I would have been put offby his lack of response, but my uncleis not easily Babu s silenceconvinced him that the man lackedspirit. In a way this pleased himbecause as a rule he preferred fathersof daughters to be subdued anddiffident. When Shambhunath Babuleft, my uncle bid him a curt goodbyeand did not bother to godown to see him off to thecarriage amount of dowryhad already been uncle prided himselfon being extremelyshrewd. He would notallow any vagueness infinancial matters. Not onlywas the exact amount tobe paid in cash stipulated,but the weight and qualityof the gold to be givenwas also specified. Notbeing involved in thesetransactions l did notknow the details. But I knew that thesecrude calculations were an importantpart of marriage and the person incharge of it in our family would notsettle for a fraction less than what hehad demanded.

9 In fact hisshrewdness was a matter of pride inour family. It was taken for grantedthat he would win in any battle of witswherever our family interest wasinvolved. Even if we did not need themoney, or the other party could illafford to pay, our family pride requiredus to win at any turmeric ceremony was heldwith unprecedented pomp. Indeed,one could have engaged a clerk tokeep tally of the many men from ourside who went bearing gifts to thebride s house. My mother and unclechuckled at the thought of the 33time the bride s people would have intipping our arrived at the wedding place withthe accompaniment of a brassband,flutes, cornets and all possiblenoisemakers, trampling underfoot thelotus pool of Saraswati the muse ofmelody rather like a mad elephant,a demon of barbaric in a glittering cloth of goldwith rings and necklaces, I looked likea jewellery shop on display forauction.

10 I was going to confront myfuture father-in-law with a price-tagon my uncle was upset as soon ashe entered the house where thewedding ceremonywas to take courtyard wasnot large enough forthe bridegroom sparty to becomfortable and thearrangements were farfrom lavish. On top ofit ShambhunathBabu s welcome alsowas not sufficientlyeffusive orobsequious. Hehardly spoke. Animmediateconfrontation wasaverted by a lawyerfriend ofShambhunath Babu who made up forthe host s reserve by his exaggeratedpoliteness. A plump, dark and bald-headed man, he tied a shawl aroundhis waist, and went around with foldedhands, bowing his head, smilingingratiatingly, and in his hoarse voicegenerally entertaining everybodyfrom the groom s party including eventhe lowly after I sat down in the sabha,my uncle took Shambhunath Babuaside.