The Spoilt Child/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
The Poetaster.
The pandits of Agurpara were enjoying their usual evening lounge beneath their favourite tree: they were all either taking snuff or smoking, coughing and sneezing, chaffing each other and joking. One of them asked: "How is Vidyaratna? The good Brahman, in his zeal for gain, has lamed himself going to Manirampur in response to an invitation. I was concerned to see him leaping on a stick yesterday as he went to bathe." Vidyabhushan replied: "Oh! Vidyaratna is all right again: the pain in his foot has been considerably alleviated, what with warm lime and turmeric, and dry fomentations. Come, gentlemen, listen to the poetry which our friend the great poet Konkan has composed with special reference to the Manirampur entertainment."
Let the drum beat in triumph, uplift the glad song,
For the guests are assembled, a glittering throng;
In the gay halls of Madhub, as radiantly bright,
As the heaven of Indra, entrancing the sight.
How dazzling the glow that illuminates all,
How brilliant the flowers that engarland the wall!
See, apart sit the friends of the bridegroom and bride,
Retainers in scarlet on every side.
What ravishing melody floats on the air
With perfume of blossoms surpassingly rare!
Be sure, so celestial a scene to array
In Hymen's sweet honour, took many a day.
But the ground is just soaking here under the tent
Where the rain is descending through many a rent.
And these up-country durwans, offensively loud,
What business have they to be hustling the crowd?
Discordant the noises that deafen the ear,
And the shouts and the hubbub are awful to hear.
Yet in view of the sweets and the dainties in store,
You'd put up with annoyances double or more.
See those figures in paste on the walls stuck about!
How the pedigree-poets their rhapsodies shout!
Now list to these verses, and publish the fame
Of Kankan, -- the paragon verse-maker's name!
The bridegroom is coming! A silence profound
Is felt for a moment, and plaudits resound.
But the juvenile Babus are eager for fun,
And lo! in a minute the row has begun.
His schemes are miscarrying, Thakchacha fears,
As he listens aghast to the shouts and the jeers.
We too are astounded;-- this banging and crashing!
This rending of carpets and clanging and clashing!
Why, the glass chandeliers they are wantonly smashing!
We'd better be off, we are in for a thrashing!
In wonder sits Mati, revolving the thought,
"It seems my investiture's profiting nought!"
"The scoundrel Bakreshwar!" uprises a shout,
"Give him a caning and hustle him out!"
And Bancharam also, the schemer profound,
Is wriggling in torture and howls on the ground.
Says Becharam hastily, "Here, come aside;
Things do not look promising: where shall we hide?"
And carries off Beni, bereft of resource.
While ever the tumult increases in force.
"Help, help!" holloas Baburam, much in alarm,
For support round a pillar entwining his arm.
Ho, speed to the rescue Thakchacha the brave!
But to keep a whole skin's the one thought of the knave!
Whom, with head muffled up as he gingerly goes,
They arrest as chief culprit, and hurl on his nose,
And roll in the dust till his eyes are of sand full,
And tear out the hair of his head by the handful.
Hear "Tauba!" and "Tauba!" the Mussulman yell!
"Of my sins I repent, on the border of hell!
"But I'd nothing whatever to do with it, no!
"An innocent Moslem, -- why badger him so?
"Bismillah! alack! To appear on the scene
"Such an outrage to suffer, was folly I ween!
"Among the mild Hindus I guilelessly came
"From the purest of motives; and this is their game!
"Ah fool! the advice of thy friends to despise,
"At the cost of thy beauty, thy beard, and thine eyes!"
Now enter the durwans athirst for the fray,
And round them their lathis impartially lay;
Then howls of excitement and terror and pain,
The crack of the truncheon and swish of the cane!
The friends of the bridegroom and those of the bride
Are scuttling in terror on every side:
Within flies the bridegroom, the company's scattered,
And all the gay trappings of Hymen are shattered.
"Thakchacha still here!" some enthusiast shouts,
"Pour mud on his turban and tear off his clouts!"
In dishonour poor Baburam slinks from the hall
And all his brave show goes for nothing at all.
His costume's in tatters within and without,
And shawlless and shoeless he stumbles about,
Distractedly moaning:-- "How hard is my case
"Whom death from exposure now stares in the face!
"The oncoming tempest I hear from afar:
"'Tis the progress triumphal of Death on his car!
"Thus helpless and sole, not a creature to aid,
"Can his dire visitation be longer delayed?
"I am bruised and exhausted, and breath I have none:
"The Fates are against me! O what have I done?
"And my pitiful lot, if it reaches the ear
"Of the wife of my bosom, will kill her, I fear.
"Did the marriage come off I'm unable to tell!
"From a blow on the cranium unconscious I fell.
"These schemes matrimonial dictated by vanity
"Have landed me here on the verge of insanity!
Thus loudly bewailing, a cottage he spies.
Where no cruel warder an access denies.
And there in a corner, alone, on a mat,
Monumental in misery, -- Thakchacha sat!
"Ah traitor and craven, 'twas cruelly done,
"Thy comrade deserting, thou treacherous one!
"O frailty of mortals! how falleth the best,
"When the touchstone of peril puts love to the test!"
"Hush, check your emotion!" his champion replies,
"For where are we safe from our enemies' spies?
"You'll own, when you've heard me,-- my confident trust is --
"You've done your protector a grievous injustice!
'Tis daybreak, as homeward they ruefully wend,
And Konkan his epic thus brings to an end.
On hearing this lampoon upon Baburam Babu, Tarkavagish was furious, and exclaimed: "Ha, ha! this is poetry indeed! Sarasvati in the flesh! Kalidas come to life again! What profound learning too has the great poet Konkan displayed! So precocious a boy cannot possibly live long. The metre too, -- astounding, -- never heard anything like it, -- it runs like a nursery rhyme! Now a man who is a Brahman and a pandit to boot will always speak good of a rich man: there is nothing gentlemanly in mere abuse." With these words, he got up in a rage, and would have left the place, but the assembled pandits expressed their full approval of his words, and urging him to stop and be calm, got him at last by sheer force to sit down again. Another pandit then skilfully introduced other topics, and ignoring what had passed began to sing the praises of Baburam Babu and Madhab Babu. A Brahman, being generally rather dense, cannot easily see when a joke is intended: through constant study of the Shástras, his mind moves solely in the region of the Shástras and has no practice in worldly matters. Tarkavagish however was soon mollified and amused himself with the subject in hand.