An incident that occurred here is perhaps responsible for my remembering the name of the village to this day. It was a 'full-moon' day.[1] All three of us, by our guru's orders, had gone out to beg, each one in a different direction. If I had been the only one out begging I should probably have made greater efforts than I did, but as our meal was not dependent on my unaided efforts I merely did a great deal of aimless wandering. Suddenly I caught a glimpse, through the open door of a house, of the figure of a Bengali girl. Though the cloth she was wearing was evidently from an Indian loom[2] and very coarse in texture, the way she had draped it[3] excited my special interest. We had been five or six days in the village and I had been to most of the houses, but as yet I had seen no Bengali, male or female. Sannyasis have the right of free entry everywhere. As soon as I entered the house, the girl began to look intently at me. I can remember her face even to-day: for I do not remember to have seen so piteous, so sad and despairing a look on the face of any other girl of ten or eleven. Hopeless grief and despair were expressed in her dark eyes and in every line of her little figure. I asked straightaway in Bengali, 'Won't you give me some alms, little mother?' She said nothing at first: then her lips trembled and twitched several times, and she burst into tears.
- ↑ Full-moon day: a day on the evening of which the full-moon would rise; a day of peculiar sanctity to Hindus, when the alms collected would be expected to exceed in quantity those collected on other days.
- ↑ Indian loom: most Bengalis wear cloth imported from Lancashire, especially the poorer people.
- ↑ In different parts of India women drape their saris differently.
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