"WE CROWN THEE KING."
(A Short Story)
From the Bengali of Ravindranath Tagore.
WHEN Navendu Sekhar was allied in matrimony to Arunlekha, the God of marriage smiled a little from behind the sacrificial fire. Alas, what is sport for the gods is not always a joke to us, poor mortals.
Purnendu Sekhar, the father of Navendu, was a man well-known amongst the English officials of the Government. In the voyage of life he had arrived at the high and dry desert shores of Rai Bahadurship by diligently plying his oars of salaams only. He held in reserve resources enough for further advancement, but at the age of fifty-five, with his tender gaze still fixed on the not-so-distant misty peak of Rajah-hood he suddenly found himself transported to a region where earthly honours and decorations were naught and his salaam-wearied neck-bone found everlasting repose on the funeral pyre.
But according to modern science, force has no destruction but merely conversion of form and change of the point of its application. In this case the salaam-force, the constant hand-maid of the fickle Goddess of Fortune, descended from the shoulder of the father to that of his worthy son, and the youthful head of Navendu Sekhar began to move up and down at the doors of high-placed Englishmen, like unto a pumpkin[1] driven by gusts of wind.
The traditions of the family into which he had just married were of an entirely different character. Its eldest son, Pramathanath, had won for himself the love of his kinsfolk and the regard of all who knew him. His relations and his neighbours looked up to him as their ideal in everything.
Pramathanath was a University-man holding the degree of Banchelor of Arts and in addition was gifted with a large amount of common-sense. But he did not occupy any high official position carrying a handsome salary nor did he enjoy the reputation of wielding a mighty pen. There was no one among the powers that be, who would lend him a helping hand and this was because he was as anxious himself to keep his distance from Englishmen, as the latter themselves were in this respect. So it happened that Pramathanath shone within the limited sphere of his family and his friends, but failed to excite the admiration of those outside it.
Yet this Pramathanath, on a certain occasion, hade made a sojourn in England for a period of three years or so. During his stay there, the kindly treatment he received at the hands of the English people so overpowered him that he completely forgot the sorrow and the humiliation of his own country and returned home decked in European attire. It rather grieved his brothers and his sisters at first, but after a few days they began to think that European clothes suited nobody to better advantage, and gradually their minds became saturated with the pride and dignity of those clothes.
When returning from England, Pramathanath resolved that he would show the world how to associate with the Anglo-Indians on terms of equality. Those of our countrymen who thought that no such association was possible unless we bent our knees to them, showed their utter lack of self-respect and were also unjust to the English—so opined Pramathanath.
He had brought with him letters of introduction from many prominent Englishmen at home and these gave him some amount of recognition in Anglo-Indian society. He and his wife occasionally enjoyed their hospitality at tea, dinner, sports and other entertainments. Such good luck intoxicated him and began to produce a tingling sensation in every vein of his body.
- ↑ In Bengali parlance, pumpkin symbolises stupidity.
