Vocation


When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by
our lane,

Every day I meet the hawker crying, "Bangles, crystal bangles!"

There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must take,
no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.

I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying,
"Bangles, crystal bangles!"

When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school,

I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging the
ground.

He does what he likes with his spade, he soils his clothes with
dust, nobody takes him to task if he gets baked in the sun or
gets wet.

I wish I were a gardener digging away at the garden with nobody
to stop me from digging.

Just as it gets dark in the evening and my mother sends me to
bed,

I can see through my open window the watchman walking up and
down.

The lane is dark and lonely, and the street-lamp stands like a
giant with one red eye in its head.

The watchman swings his lantern and walks with his shadow at his
side, and never once goes to bed in his life.

I wish I were a watchman walking the streets all night, chasing
the shadows with my lantern.

Superior


Mother, your baby is silly!  She is so absurdly childish!

She does not know the difference between the lights in the
streets and the stars.

When we play at eating with pebbles, she thinks they are real
food, and tries to put them into her mouth.

When I open a book before her and ask her to learn her a, b, c,
she tears the leaves with her hands and roars for joy at nothing;
this is your baby's way of doing her lesson.

When I shake my head at her in anger and scold her and call her
naughty, she laughs and thinks it great fun.

Everybody knows that father is away, but if in play I call aloud
"Father," she looks about her in excitement and thinks that
father is near.

When I hold my class with the donkeys that our washerman brings
to carry away the clothes and I warn her that I am the
schoolmaster, she will scream for no reason and call me dâdâ.
[<i>elder brother</i> ]

Your baby wants to catch the moon.  She is so funny; she calls
Ganesh Gânush.  [<i>Ganesh, a common name in India, also that of
the god with the elephant's head.</i>]

Mother, your baby is silly, she is so absurdly childish!

The little big man


I am small because I am a little child.  I shall be big when I am
as old as my father is.

My teacher will come and say, "It is late, bring your slate and
your books."

I shall tell him, "Do you not know I am as big as father?  And I
must not have lessons any more."

My master will wonder and say, "He can leave his books if he
likes, for he is grown up."

I shall dress myself and walk to the fair where the crowd is
thick.

My uncle will come rushing up to me and say, "You will get lost,
my boy; let me carry you."

I shall answer, "Can't you see, uncle, I am as big as father.  I
must go to the fair alone."

Uncle will say, "Yes, he can go wherever he likes, for he is
grown up."

Mother will come from her bath when I am giving money to my
nurse, for I shall know how to open the box with my key.

Mother will say, "What are you about, naughty child?"

I shall tell her, "Mother, don't you know, I am as big as father,
and I must give silver to my nurse."

Mother will say to herself, "He can give money to whom he likes,
for he is grown up."

In the holiday time in October father will come home and,
thinking that I am still a baby, will bring for me from the town
little shoes and small silken frocks.

I shall say, "Father, give them to my dâdâ [<i>elder
brother</i>], for I am as big as you are."

Father will think and say, "He can buy his own clothes if he
likes, for he is grown up."

Twelve o'clock


Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now.  I have been at my
book all the morning.

You say it is only twelve o'clock.  Suppose it isn't any later;
can't you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve
o'clock?

I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the edge of
that rice-field, and the old fisher-woman is gathering herbs for
her supper by the side of the pond.

I can just shut my eyes and think that the shadows are growing
darker under the <i>madar</i> tree, and the water in the pond
looks shiny black.

If twelve o'clock can come in the night, why can't the night come
when it is twelve o'clock?

Autorship


You say that father writes a lot of books, but what he writes I
don't understand.

He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really make
out what he meant?

What nice stories, mother, you can tell us!  Why can't father
write like that, I wonder?

Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and
fairies and princesses?

Has he forgotten them all?

Often when he gets late for his bath you have to go and call him
an hundred times.

You wait and keep his dishes warm for him, but he goes on writing
and forgets.

Father always plays at making books.

If ever I go to play in father's room, you come and call me,
"what a naughty child!"

If I make the slightest noise, you say, "Don't you see that
father's at his work?"

What's the fun of always writing and writing?

When I take up father's pen or pencil and write upon his book
just as he does,--a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,--why do you get
cross with me, then, mother?

You never say a word when father writes.

When my father wastes such heaps of paper, mother, you don't seem
to mind at all.

But if I take only one sheet to make a boat with, you say,
"Child, how troublesome you are!"

What do you think of father's spoiling sheets and sheets of paper
with black marks all over on both sides?

The wicked postman


Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me,
mother dear?

The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all
wet, and you don't mind it.

Do you hear the gong striking four?  It is time for my brother to
come home from school.

What has happened to you that you look so strange?

Haven't you got a letter from father to-day?

I saw the postman bringing letters in his bag for almost
everybody in the town.

Only, father's letters he keeps to read himself.  I am sure the
postman is a wicked man.

But don't be unhappy about that, mother dear.

To-morrow is market day in the next village.  You ask your maid
to buy some pens and papers.

I myself will write all father's letters; you will not find a
single mistake.

I shall write from A right up to K.

But, mother, why do you smile?

You don't believe that I can write as nicely as father does!

But I shall rule my paper carefully, and write all the letters
beautifully big.

When I finish my writing, do you think I shall be so foolish as
father and drop it into the horrid postman's bag?

I shall bring it to you myself without waiting, and letter by
letter help you to read my writing.

I know the postman does not like to give you the really nice
letters.

The hero


Mother, let us imagine we are travelling, and passing through a
strange and dangerous country.

You are riding in a palanquin and I am trotting by you on a red
horse.

It is evening and the sun goes down.  The waste of
<i>Joradighi</i> lies wan and grey before us.  The land is
desolate and barren.

You are frightened and thinking--"I know not where we have come
to."

I say to you, "Mother, do not be afraid."

The meadow is prickly with spiky grass, and through it runs a
narrow broken path.

There are no cattle to be seen in the wide field; they have gone
to their village stalls.

It grows dark and dim on the land and sky, and we cannot tell
where we are going.

Suddenly you call me and ask me in a whisper, "What light is that
near the bank?"

Just then there bursts out a fearful yell, and figures come
running towards us.

You sit crouched in your palanquin and repeat the names of the
gods in prayer.

The bearers, shaking in terror, hide themselves in the thorny
bush.

I shout to you, "Don't be afraid, mother.  I am here."

With long sticks in their hands and hair all wild about their
heads, they come nearer and nearer.

I shout, "Have a care!  you villains!  One step more and you are
dead men."

They give another terrible yell and rush forward.

You clutch my hand and say, "Dear boy, for heaven's sake, keep
away from them."

I say, "Mother, just you watch me."

Then I spur my horse for a wild gallop, and my sword and buckler
clash against each other.

The fight becomes so fearful, mother, that it would give you a
cold shudder could you see it from your palanquin.

Many of them fly, and a great number are cut to pieces.

I know you are thinking, sitting all by yourself, that your boy
must be dead by this time.

But I come to you all stained with blood, and say, "Mother, the
fight is over now."

You come out and kiss me, pressing me to your heart, and you say
to yourself,

"I don't know what I should do if I hadn't my boy to escort me."

A thousand useless things happen day after day, and why couldn't
such a thing come true by chance?

It would be like a story in a book.

My brother would say, "Is it possible?  I always thought he was
so delicate!"

Our village people would all say in amazement, "Was it not lucky
that the boy was with his mother?"

The end


It is time for me to go, mother; I am going.

When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out
your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, "Baby is not
there!"--mother, I am going.

I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you; and I
shall be ripples in the water when you bathe, and kiss you and
kiss you again.

In the gusty night when the rain patters on the leaves you will
hear my whisper in your bed, and my laughter will flash with the
lightning through the open window into your room.

If you lie awake, thinking of your baby till late into the night,
I shall sing to you from the stars, "Sleep mother, sleep."

On the straying moonbeams I shall steal over your bed, and lie
upon your bosom while you sleep.

I shall become a dream, and through the little opening of your
eyelids I shall slip into the depths of your sleep; and when you
wake up and look round startled, like a twinkling firefly I shall
flit out into the darkness.

When, on the great festival of <i>puja</i>, the neighbours'
children come and play about the house, I shall melt into the
music of the flute and throb in your heart all day.

Dear auntie will come with <i>puja</i>-presents and will ask,
"Where is our baby, sister?  Mother, you will tell her softly,
"He is in the pupils of my eyes, he is in my body and in my
soul."

The recall


The night was dark when she went away, and they slept.

The night is dark now, and I call for her, "Come back, my
darling; the world is asleep; and no one would know, if you came
for a moment while stars are gazing at stars."

She went away when the trees were in bud and the spring was
young.

Now the flowers are in high bloom and I call, "Come back, my
darling.  The children gather and scatter flowers in reckless
sport.  And if you come and take one little blossom no one will
miss it."

Those that used to play are playing still, so spendthrift is
life.

I listen to their chatter and call, "Come back, my darling, for
mother's heart is full to the brim with love, and if you come to
snatch only one little kiss from her no one will grudge it."

The first jasmines


Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!

I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands with
these jasmines, these white jasmines.

I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth;

I have heard the liquid murmur of the river through the darkness
of midnight;

Autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of a road in the
lonely waste, like a bride raising her veil to accept her lover.

Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white jasmines that I
held in my hand when I was a child.

Many a glad day has come in my life, and I have laughed with
merrymakers on festival nights.

On grey mornings of rain I have crooned many an idle song.

I have worn round my neck the evening wreath of <i>bakulas</i>
woven by the hand of love.

Yet my heart is sweet with the memory of the first fresh jasmines
that filled my hands when I was a child.