The Modern Review/Volume 8/Number 3/Subha
SUBHA
Translated from the Bengali of Sj. Rabindra Nath Tagore.
(1)
WHEN the girl was named Subhásini,[1] who knew that she would grow up a dumb girl! Her two elder sisters were called Sukeshini and Suhásini, and for the sake of alliteration the father gave the name of Subhâsini to his youngest daughter. And people abbreviated the name into Subhà.
The two elder girls had been matched at great expense and after a mighty hunt for a bridegroom; now the youngest one weighed heavily upon the oppressed heart of her parents.
It does not come home to every one that one who cannot speak, is capable of feeling; and so, everybody gave vent to their sense of dark misgivings with regard to her future in her very presence. It was borne in upon her from her infancy that she had been born as the curse of God in her father's house; and in consequence of it she always tried to hide herself away from the view of observing eyes. She thought that it would be mighty relief to her if every one could forget her. But does any one forget his pain? She was ever-present in her parents' minds.
Especially, her mother looked upon her in the light of a defect of her own self. For, a mother often deems her daughter to be more closely a part of herself than her son, and any imperfection in the daughter is considered by her to be an occasion for her own disgrace. The father Banikantha rather loved Subha more than his other daughters; but her mother thinking her to be the curse of her womb did not take kindly to her.
Subha had no power of speech, but she had a pair of large, dark, long-lashed eyes, and her delicate lips quivered like tender shoots at the slightest touch of feeling.
The thoughts that we express through the medium of language have to be shaped and moulded to a great extent by our own efforts,—something like the process of translation; it does not always come quite up to the mark, and often we blunder for lack of power. But dark eyes have to translate nothing,—the mind directly casts its image on them; the thoughts sometimes dilate upon them, at other times contract; now they light up brightly and now they turn dim; at one moment they gaze steadily like the setting moon and at another they reflect and refract in all directions like a sudden, swift flash of lightning. The eloquence of the eyes of one who has, from her birth, no other language than the expression of the face, is unlimited, unfathomable, deep and vast—much like the transparent sky, the silent stage of the rising and setting of the bright orbs, of light and shade. In this speechless creature there was a lonesome majesty as that of Great Nature herself. For these reasons, she was held in something like an awe by the common herd of boys and girls; and they did not play with her. She was silent and solitary like the still mid-day.
(2)
Chandipur was the name of the village. The river was a little stream of Bengal—a village maiden, as it were. She did not stretch far; the tiny rivulet flowed along 'without haste, without rest'; doing her work and never straying beyond the bourne of her banks; she was connected, as it were, in one way or another with everybody in the villages along her course. On either sides stood human habitations and high banks over-shadowed by trees and the stream, like a veritable goddess of plenty presiding over the village, glided along swiftly and merrily all forgetful of self, busy with her numberless beneficent deeds.
Right on the bank of the river was Banikantha's house; his bamboo fencing, his thatched house, his cow-shed, his shed for the husking pedal, has straw-heap, his tamarind tree, his orchards of mango-trees, jack-fruit-trees, and plantain-trees attracted the notice of every one sailing by. I cannot say whether any one noticed the dumb maiden in the midst of this domestic ease and affluence; but whenever she found leisure, she came to the river-side.
Nature compensated, as it were, for her lack of language. Nature seemed to speak for her. The babbling of the brook, the busy hum of men, the songs of boatmen, the twittering of birds, the rustling of leaves, all blended together into one harmonious whole with the bustle and movement on all sides, broke against the ever-silent beach of the girl's heart, like the surging waves of the sea. These various notes and strange motions of Nature, too, are, as it were, a language of the mute—a world-wide expansion of the long-eye-lashed Subha's language; from the grassy plot resonant with the chirpings of the crickets up to the starry regions beyond the range of sound—there are only signs, gestures, songs, sobs and sighs.
And when in the mid-day, the fishermen and the boatmen retired for their meals, when the householders enjoyed their siesta, the birds hushed their singing, the ferry-boats stopped their course, when the noisy world suddenly stopped in the midst of its work and assumed an awful aspect of solitude, then under the great fiery firmament sat silent and face to face, mute Nature and a mute maiden, one under the wide expanse of sunlight, the other under the shade of trees.
Not that Subha had not a number of intimate friends. These were the two cows of the cow-shed—Sharvasi and Panguli. They had never heard their names pronounced by her lips but they knew the sound of her foot-steps which had for them a speechless pathetic tune and was more eloquent and suggestive to them than any language. They could understand Subha's caresses, rebukes, and entreaties more clearly and fully than human beings.
Entering the cow-shed and encircling her arms round Sharvasi's neck Subha rubbed her own cheek against her ear and Panguli gazed at her and licked her body. The girl regularly visited the cow-shed thrice a day and besides that, there were surprise visits too; and when she met with any hard words at home she repaired to these her dumb friends at unexpected hours; they could, by some blind instinct, feel, as it were, the heart-ache of the girl from her sad, gentle looks of patient endurance and drawing closer to her they rubbed their horn against her arms and thus tried to solace her with a mute eargerness.
Besides these, there were a goat and a kitten; but with them Subha's friendship was not on such a footing of equality; yet they shewed enough of obedience to her. Day and night, in season and out of season, little pussy unhesitatingly availed herself of Subha's cosy warm lap with the purpose of indulging in a sweet nap, and shewed by signs, that her sleep would be much expedited if Subha would smooth her neck and back with her soft delicate fingers.
(3)
Subha managed to pick up another companion from among creatures belonging to a higher scale in creation; but the exact nature of the relation between them is rather difficult to ascertain, for he was a creature gifted with the power of speech and so they had between them, no common language.
He was Protap, the youngest scion of the Goswami family. He was a hopeless ne'er-do-well. After many efforts his parents had given up the hope that he would ever exert himself to better the condition of the family by some work or other. Worthless people have this advantage that though their own kith and kin become disgusted with them, they become favourite with aliens, for being tied to nothing they become public property, so to say. As a few public parks not attached to dwelling-houses are necessary to a town, so a few men without occupation, who are a sort of public property, are absolutely necessary to a village. They always come handy whenever a hand falls short in a festivity or a ceremony.
Angling was Protap's main hobby. It easily killed a great deal of time. In the afternoon he was often found engaged in this occupation by the river-side, and on these occasions he often met Subha. In whatever work he might be engaged, Protap liked to have a companion; and a silent companion is the best during angling; hence Protap appreciated Subha's worth. For this reason, he called her Su with an extra dose of fondness, though everybody else called her Subha.
Subha sat under a tamarind tree, and near by, dropping the rod on the ground, Protap gazed at the water. He used to get regularly his daily allowance of pan her, which she prepared with her own hands. And I suppose, sitting there for long hours, she looked and looked and desired to be of some help to Protap, to be of any service to him, and to intimate to him that even she was not an insignificant creature after all in the world. But she had absolutely nothing to do. Then she inwardly prayed to Heaven for some supernatural power and she wished to perform by the power of mantras some marvellous feat, at which Protap would be astonished and would say "Ah! who knew that our Subhi possessed such marvellous powers?"
Suppose, Subha were a water-nymph; slowly emerging from her watery bed, she would place a jewel of the serpent's crown on the ghat. Leaving his contemptible occupation of angling, Protap with the jewel in his hand would dive into the water, and lo! there in the nether regions, his eyes would light upon—whom? seated on a golden bedstead in the silver palace—that dumb girl Su of our Banikantha's house—our Su, the sole princess of that deep, silent, diamond-illumined Patala. Could it not be so? Was it so very impossible? No, nothing is impossible in reality. But still Su was born in the house of Banikantha instead of in the royal family of the deserted Patala and could, by no means, astonish Protap, a scion of the Goswami family.
Subha was growing fast. By degrees, she could, as it were, realise her own self. As if, on a certain full-moon night a flood-tide from an unknown sea was filling her innermost self with a new unutterable sense of life. She looked to herself, thought, questioned, and could not understand.
It was on a bright full-moon night that she opened the door of her bed-room and timidly peeped outside. Nature, too, on that moon-light-night sat like her waking, companionless, brooding over the sleeping world—she had reached, as it were, the utmost limit of the illimitable stillness—nay beyond that—and was shimmering with the mystery of her youth, with mirth and pensiveness, and could not utter a single syllable. On the verge of this silent craving Nature, stood a craving mute maiden.
Meanwhile the parents burdened with this marriageable daughter grew anxious. People, too, had begun to talk. Even a rumour that they would be excommunicated, was afloat.[2] Banikantha was in easy circumstances and had his two meals of rice and fish every day.[3]—So he had many enemies.
After much laying of their heads together, the parents came to a definite point. Banikantha went abroad for some days.
Returning at last, he said "Come, let us repair to Calcutta."
Preparations were forward for the journey. Like a misty morning, Subha's whole heart was enshrouded, as it were, in the mist of her tears. For some days, she, like a dumb animal, persistently followed her parents with a vague sense of some uncertain dread. With her large, wide eyes she looked to their face and tried to understand she knew not what; but they did not tell her aught by way of explanation.
Meanwhile, one afternoon while angling, Protap laughingly said "Hey, Su, has a bridegroom at last been found for you?—and you are going to be married! Look here, don't forget us!" After which he directed his attention towards his fishing-rod.
As a deer pierced to the heart looks towards the hunter and seems to say in silent speech "What had I done to you!" thus did Subha cast her glance at Protap. That day she sat no more under the tree. She came where Banikantha was pulling at his hookah in his bed-room, after his mid-day siesta, and sitting near his feet she began to weep with her eyes fixed upon him. At last while he tried to console her, tears began to steal down his withered cheeks.
The day after had been fixed for their trip to Calcutta. Subha went to the cow-shed to bid adieu to the companions of her childhood. She fed them with her own hands and with arms round their necks she looked at their faces with her eyes eloquent with all the words that she could pack into them—tears trickling down the eye-lashes.
It was the 12th night of the waxing moon. Subha came out of her bed-room and rolled on the grassy bed on the ever-familiar river-side, and clasping, as it were, the earth,—this mighty mute Mother of Mankind—with her two hands, she would fain tell her "Don't you let me go, mother. Clasp thou too with thy two hands and keep me back."
One day, in a hired house in Calcutta, Subha's mother dressed her in a superb style. She did her hair tightly with gold lace round her chiquon, covered her whole body with articles of jewellery and thus obliterated her natural beauty as much as she could. Tears flowed fast from Subha's eyes and her mother sharply reprimanded her fearing lest the swollen eyes would make her look ugly, but the tears brooked not these accents of reproof.
The bridegroom came in person with a friend of his to see the bride. The parents grew anxious, afraid and uneasy, as if some god had himself came down to choose the animal to be sacrificed at his altar. The mother doubly increased the girl's torrents of tears by her rebukes and reproaches administered from behind the scenes and sent her to the examiner.
After protracted scrutiny the examiner gave in his verdict "So, so."
Specially, from the girl's tears he came to infer that she possessed a heart; and he counted that the heart which now wept at the sad prospect of separation from her parents, might but tomorrow come to his own use. Her tears only increased her worth like the pearl in the oyster-shell and did not plead a word in her behalf.
After a consultation of the almanac the ceremony was performed on a very auspicious day.
The parents gave away their dumb daughter to a stranger and returned home—thus their caste was preserved and the life after ensured.
The bridegroom served in the N. W. P.[4] and very soon after the wedding he took his wife there.
Within a week or so, all came to see that the new bride was dumb. None understood that she was not to blame for it. She had not deceived any one. Her big pair of eyes had told everything but none could understand it. She looked in all directions but could find no language. She did not see the faces familiar to her from her birth, that understood the mute's language;—a never-ceasing incommunicable cry of sorrow began to ring within the girl's ever-silent heart; none, save the Searcher of hearts did hear it.
This time her husband examined with both the senses of ear and eye and brought home a bride gifted with the power of speech.
Bangabasi College,
Calcutta.
- ↑ The epithet is in the feminine gender and literally means 'One who speaks well'.
- ↑ In Hindu Society, every girl must be married, and married before she reaches the age of puberty. Otherwise there is strong social odium.
- ↑ This is after all the standard of comfort in Bengal.
- ↑ Now, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.