I SHALL GLADLY suffer the pride of culture to die out in my house, if only in some fortunate future I am born a herd boy in the Brinda forest. The herd boy who grazes his cattle sitting under the banyan tree, and idly weaves gunja flowers into garlands, who loves to splash and plunge in the Jamuna's cool deep stream. He calls his companions to wake up when morning dawns, and all the houses in the lane hum with the sound of the churn, clouds of dust are raised by the cattle, the maidens come out in the courtyard to milk the kine. As the shadows deepen under the tomal trees, and the dusk gathers on the river-banks; when the milkmaids, while crossing the turbulent water tremble with fear; and loud peacocks, with tails outspread, dance in the forest, he watches the summer clouds. When the April night is sweet as a fresh-blown flower, he disappears in the forest with a peacock's plume in his hair; the swing ropes are twined with flowers on the branches; the south wind throbs with music, and the merry shepherd boys crowd on the banks of the blue river. No, I will never be the leader, brothers, of this new age of new Bengal; I shall not trouble to light the lamp of culture for the benighted. If only I could be born, under the shady Ashoka groves, in some village of Brinda, where milk is churned by the maidens.
THE SANTAL woman hurries up and down the gravelled path under the shimool tree; a coarse grey sari closely twines her slender limbs, dark and compact; its red border sweeping across the air with the flaming red magic of the palash flower. Some absent-minded divine designer, while fashioning a black bird with the stuff of the July cloud and the lightning flash, must have improvised unawares this woman's form; her impulsive wings hidden within, her nimble steps uniting in them a woman's walk and a bird's flight. With a few lacquer bangles on her exquisitely modelled arms and a basket full of loose earth on her head, she flits across the gravel-red path under the shimool tree. The lingering winter has finished its errand. The casual breath of the south is beginning to tease the austerity of the cold month. On the himjhuri branches the leaves are taking the golden tint of a rich decay. The ripe fruits are strewn over the amlaki grove where the rowdy boys crowd to pillage them. Swarms of dead leaves and dust are capering in a ghastly whirl following sudden caprices of the wind. The building of my mud house has commenced and labourers are busy raising the walls. The distant whistle announces the passing of the train along the railway cutting, and the dingdong of the bell is heard from the neighbouring school. I sit on my terrace watching the young woman foiling at her task hour after hour. My heart is touched with shame when I feel that the woman's service sacredly ordained for her loved ones, its dignity soiled by the market price, should have been robbed by me with the help of a few pieces of copper.
