‘Himalaya Jatra’ (A trip to the Himalayas) has been excerpted from Jibon Smriti[1] and translated by Somdatta Mandal.
After my head was shaved for the upanayan (sacred thread) ceremony, I was seriously troubled thinking how I would go to school. However serious attraction the European boys had towards the bovine race; they did not have that much respect for the Brahmins. So even if they did not throw anything over the shaven head, they would surely make fun of it.
While I was worried with such thoughts, I got a call one day from the room on the second floor. Father asked me whether I would like to go with him to the Himalayas. If I could shout the words “Yes I do” at a sky-rendering tone, then the feelings of my heart would have been suitably expressed. Where was the Bengal Academy and where the Himalayas!
Before leaving, Father assembled everyone in the house and according to his tradition did the upasana – the traditional prayers. After paying obeisance to all the elders I entered the coach along with Father. At my age, this was the first time that clothes had been tailored for me. Father had personally ordered the colour and the quality of the fabric. A round velvet cap with design in zari [2] was also made for me. I held that in my hand because I felt reluctant to wear it on my shaven head. As soon as I entered the coach, Father ordered, “Wear it on the head.” He did not leave any scope for untidiness and so I had to wear that cap over my shameful head. In the train, I would take it off whenever I got an opportunity to do so but that did not escape Father’s notice. So, I had to keep it in its right place.
Right from youth to maturity, all the ideas and work of my father were always perfect. He could not leave anything hazy in his mind and could not do any work in a haphazard manner. For him his duty towards others and the duty of others towards him were defined very clearly. By nature, we are an easy-going people and not concerned when we deviate a little here and there. So, we were always very scared and alert about our behaviour towards him. Though it did not cause any serious damage, he felt hurt if there was any deviation from his agenda. Before making any resolution, he would mentally visualise everything clearly in all its details. So, for any occasion he would plan where each object should be placed, who would be placed in which position, who would be entrusted with which responsibility and to what extent there would be no deviation from that on any account. After the work was complete, he would gather reports from different people. Then he would compare each description and by putting them together in his mind, tried to see everything clearly. In this respect he did not possess our national character at all. There was no chance for the minutest deviation in his resolutions, thoughts, behaviour and performance. For this reason, for all the days I was with him on this trip to the Himalayas, I had plenty of freedom on the one hand but on the other, all my behaviour was determined in such a manner that it could not be transgressed. When he declared a holiday then he would not prevent one doing anything for any reason whatsoever; when he fixed some rules then he didn’t leave any scope for minute lapses.
Before our journey to the Himalayas commenced, we were supposed to stay for some days at Bolpur. Satya had gone there some time back with his parents. No nineteenth century child from any respectable household would ever believe his travel accounts. But we had not yet learnt to decipher the demarcating line between possible and impossible acts. Even Krittibas or Kashiram Das could not help us in this matter. The colourful children’s books and magazines with pictures in them did not warn us beforehand about the difference between fact and fiction. We had to learn the hard way that there was strict discipline in the world.
Satya[3] had told me that boarding the train was a dangerous act and one could not do it if one did not have special abilities for it. There was no way to save oneself if one slipped and fell. Also, when the train would start moving after that, they would need to assemble all the strength in the body and force themselves to sit down otherwise they would be pushed in such a strong manner that everyone would just get thrown out, scattered, and lost. So, I was quite scared when I reached the station. But when I got onto the train so easily, I started doubting whether the actual part of the boarding was yet to take place. After that when the train started to move very smoothly then I became demoralized that there was no sign of danger.
As the train kept on moving rows of green trees, blue bordered fields and shady villages ran past on both sides like a flood of mirages. We reached Bolpur in the evening. As soon as I got inside the palanquin, I closed my eyes. I wanted to discover all the surprises that Bolpur had in store for me only the next morning when I would open my eyes again. If I got a hint of it in this hazy unclear evening, then I would miss the charm of total happiness the next morning.
Early next morning, I came and stood outside with a tremble in my heart. The erstwhile traveller had told me that Bolpur was different from all other places in the world because though there was no roof over the pathway leading from the main house to the kitchen one would not have to face any rain or sunshine. So, I started looking for that strange path. Readers please do not be surprised to know that I have not found that path to date.
Being a city-bred boy, I had never seen paddy fields before and had painted rosy pictures about shepherd boys in my imagination after reading about them in books. Satya had told me that the fields around Bolpur were full of paddy and playing every day with the shepherd boys was a daily affair. The main aspect of this game was to collect rice from the fields, cook it and sit down with them to share that meal.
I looked desperately on all sides. Where were the paddy fields in this desert land? There might be a few shepherd boys in some field somewhere but there was no way to identify them. It did not take long to regret what I could not see because what I saw was enough for me. There was no control by the servants here. The only line of control was the blue line on the horizon which nature had demarcated and so there was no deterrent for me to roam about freely.
Even though I was quite small, Father did not prevent me from moving about freely on my own. At some places in the meadows of Bolpur the sandy topsoil on the ground had eroded in the monsoon rain and below that level created small caves, rivers, streams, and tiny hillocks full of red gravel and different kinds of stones. It was a complete geographical world for young children. The hillocks and pits here were known as the Khoai. From here I collected different kinds of stones in my pockets and took them to Father. He never made fun of this childish effort even for a single day. He would express interest and say, “How nice! From where did you get them?” I would reply, “There are thousands of stones like this. I can bring them for you every day.” He would then say, “That would be nice. Why don’t you decorate this hill with those stones?”
Earlier an attempt had been made to dig a pond but was left midway because the soil was very hard. Part of the soil from that incomplete hole was heaped up on the southern side like a hill. Father would sit there on a wooden stool early every morning for his upasana. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon in front of him. He would encourage me to decorate that hill with those stones. When I left Bolpur I felt very sad because I could not carry that huge collection of stones along with me. I had not realised then that there was a responsibility and cost for carrying any sort of burden. I could not even claim the ownership and maintain relationship with them just because I had saved them. Even today I sometimes fail to realise it. If God then listened to my sincerest prayers and blessed me with a boon, “From now on you will go on bearing the weight of these stones forever,” I would not be able to laugh and make fun of it as I am doing now.
There was a place in the Khoai where water had seeped through the soil and accumulated in a deep hole. This water would sometimes overflow and trickle very slowly through the sand. Near the mouth of that hole, I found many small fish that dared to swim against the flow of that water. I went and told Father, “I have seen a very beautiful stream, and it would be nice if we could get our drinking and bathing water from there.” He added to the excitement by saying, “Is that so? It will be good then.” and then decided to bring water from there just to award a prize to the discoverer.
I would roam around the hillocks and pits of Khoai at any time of the day and would look for discovering something extraordinary. I was Livingstone in this tiny unknown land. It seemed like land on the opposite side of a binocular. The rivers and the hillocks were so small, the scattered wild berry and wild date palm trees were equally stunted. The fish that I had discovered in that tiny river were equally small and of course there was no need to mention that the discoverer was small as well.
To develop my alertness, Father would give me two or four annas to keep and I had to account for it. He also entrusted me with winding his expensive gold watch regularly. He did not think that there was a possibility of damage; his mission was to teach me a sense of responsibility. When he went out for a walk in the morning he used to take me along. If he met a beggar on the way he would instruct me to give him alms. At the end when it was time to submit the accounts, I could never tally the amount received and spent. One day when my funds extended, he said, “I think I will have to appoint you as cashier; money grows in your hands.” I would take great care to wind his watch regularly. But the amount of care was perhaps a little more than required because very soon the watch had to be sent to Calcutta for repair.
When I grew up later, I remembered those days when I had to submit all accounts to him. At that time, he used to live on Park Street. I had to read the accounts to him every second or third day of the month. He could not read anything by himself then. I had to compare the accounts of last month and last year and place them in front of him. First, he heard the big figures and calculated them mentally. If he had any doubts in his mind, I would have to read out the smaller expenses. Sometimes it had also happened that I had evaded some sections of the accounts which did not tally so that he would not get annoyed but somehow it could never be suppressed. He would sketch the complete accounts in his mind and could detect wherever there were lapses. For this reason, those two days were full of anxiety for me. I have already mentioned how it was his habit to frame a clear picture in his mind – whether it was accounts or any natural scenery or arranging for any celebration. He had not seen the new mandir (prayer hall) and many other things at Santiniketan, but he got the details from different people who went there and then collated the picture in his mind. He had an extraordinary memory and power of assessment. So, once he had something in his mind it could never be erased.
Father had identified certain slokas[4] he liked from the Bhagavad Gita and asked me to copy them along with their Bengali translations. I was an ordinary boy at home, so I basked in the glory of that very serious task assigned to me. In the meantime, I had done away with that tattered blue exercise book and collected a bound Lett’s Diary. To maintain the prestige of a poet my attention was now focused on keeping proper notebooks and other external manifestations. Apart from writing poetry, in my own imagination I tried to establish myself as a poet. For this reason, whenever I wrote poems in Bolpur I would stretch my legs and sit below the small coconut palm tree at the end of the garden and love to fill up my notebooks. This felt quite poetic. Sitting on that grassless stony bed in the heat of the sun I had composed a heroic poem called ‘Prithvirajer Parajoy’ (The Defeat of Prithviraj). Despite having such heroic rasas, that poem could not be saved from destruction. Like its elder sister, the blue notebook, that bound Lett’s Diary also got lost in oblivion.
Starting from Bolpur we went to Sahebgunj, Danapur, Allahabad, Kanpur, and other places. After halting at some of them, we finally reached Amritsar. On the way one incident remains clearly etched in my mind. The train had halted at some big station. A ticket checker came to verify our tickets and after looking at me once he suspected something but did not dare to mention it. After some time, another checker arrived, and both stood uneasy for some time near the door and then left. The third time probably the station master himself arrived. He checked my half-ticket and asked Father, “Isn’t this boy above twelve years?” Father replied, “No.” I was eleven years old then but had more intelligence compared to my age. Then the station master said, “You will have to pay full fare for him.” My father’s eyes glowed in rage. He took out some notes from his box and gave them. When they deducted the fare and returned the change, Father took the money and threw it on the platform which made a jingling sound on the stone and was scattered everywhere. The station master was ashamed and left immediately. That Father would be lying for such a petty thing just to save money was something that made him bow his head in shame.
I remember the gurdwara[5] in Amritsar like a dream. On several mornings I would walk along with Father to that Sikh temple in the middle of the lake. There worship would go on throughout the day. My father went and sat among the Sikh worshippers and would suddenly start singing the hymns along with them. Listening to this song of praise being sung by an outsider, they got excited and got up to welcome him. On our way back we were given pieces of sugar candy and halwa.
Once, Father invited one of the singers of the gurdwara to our house just to listen to his bhajans[6]. The singer would probably be happy even with the lesser amount of money that was given to him. As a result, there were so many enthusiasts willing to come and sing at our house that a strict arrangement had to be made to prevent their entry. Unable to enter the house, they started attacking us on the street. Every morning, Father would take me along with him for his morning walk. During that time singers with tambourines on their shoulders would suddenly appear from nowhere. Just as a bird gets startled when it sees someone with a gun on his shoulders and thinks he is a hunter, so we would also get scared whenever we saw the tip of a tambourine at a distance. But the prey had become so clever that the sound of the tambourine was merely an empty one; it would chase us far away and couldn’t capture us.
In the evening Father would sit in the verandah in front of the garden. I was then called to sing Brahmasangeet[7] for him. The moon would rise, and moonlight infiltrated through the leaves of the trees and fell on the verandah while I sang a song in the raga Behag:
Without you Lord who is our saviour
Who is our support in this dark world?
I can still recollect that picture – Father sitting quietly in the evening with his head bent low, listening to the song with his palms folded on his lap.
I had mentioned before how Father had heard from Srikantha babu and laughed at the two spiritual poems which I had composed. I could take revenge for that much later when I grew older. Let me mention it here. Once I had composed several songs to be sung at the Maghotsav celebrations in the morning and evening. One song among them was worded, “I cannot see you, but you are there in all our eyes.” Father was then staying at Chinsurah and Jyoti dada and I were summoned there. He asked Jyoti dada to sit at the harmonium and asked me to sing all the new songs one by one. He even asked me to repeat some songs. After that he said, “If the king of this land knew the language of this country and could appreciate her literature, he would reward the poet. Since there is no such possibility for the king to do so, I will have to perform that duty.” Saying these words, he handed me a cheque for five hundred rupees.
Father wanted to teach me English and had carried with him several volumes of the series called Peter Parley’s Tales. Among them he selected for me the biography of Benjamin Franklin. He had thought that the biography could be read like a story, and I would benefit from it. But he realised his mistake soon. Benjamin Franklin was surely an intelligent man, but his religious worldview pained Father. At times while reading the text, he would become very annoyed with the extremely materialistic knowledge and advice of Franklin and could not stop without protesting it.
Except for learning Mugdhabodh by heart, I had not learnt any Sanskrit before this. Father started teaching me directly from the second volume of Rijupath and along with it asked me to memorize the word formation from Upakramanika. The way we had been taught Bengali helped us in our learning of Sanskrit. He encouraged me to learn Sanskrit right from the beginning. I would reverse all the words I had learnt and created complex sentences on my own by adding grammatical notes wherever I felt like. In this manner I transformed the language of the gods to the language of the demons. But Father did not make fun of my weird boldness even for a day. Besides that, he would explain to me many things about astronomy verbally from the simplified English text of Proctor. I would write them down in Bengali.
Among the books Father carried with him for his own reading I noticed one book in particular. This was Gibbon’s Rome bound in ten or twelve volumes. From their appearance, they did not seem to have any entertainment value. I used to think that since I was a child I had no choice and was forced to read many things but if Father wished he could easily avoid reading this book. Then why this sorrow?
We stayed in Amritsar for about a month. Towards the end of Chaitra [mid-April], we started our journey from there towards the hills of Dalhousie. In Amritsar, time did not seem to pass, and the call of the Himalayas was making me restless. While we were climbing the mountains in a sort of litter used in the hills, the entire region was full of different kinds of seasonal crops which grew in layers on the mountain slopes and looked very beautiful. We would have milk and bread and then leave early in the morning and take a rest at dak bungalows in the afternoon. My eyes did not rest for the whole day; I feared that I might miss noticing something. When we reached a corner of the mountain at the turn of the road, the bearers would put down our basket carriage and take rest under the dense shade of the trees that bent down with the weight of their leaves; a place where one or two streams leapt down over the mossy black stones that resembled playful daughters of the sages sitting at the feet of old meditating ascetics. I would covetously keep on thinking why they did not leave us there as it would be nice to stay at such a place.
Getting acquainted with something new always has its advantages. Till then the mind does not know that there are many more places like that. Once you get to know it, the mind starts saving its attentive powers but when it sees that everything is very rare then it does away with its stinginess and pays full attention to it. Now on some days when I walk on the streets of Calcutta, I imagine that I am a foreigner. Then I can imagine that there are plenty of things to see, but we don’t see them because we don’t have a mind to value them. That is the reason why people go abroad to satiate their visual hunger.
Father had entrusted me with his small cash box for safekeeping. There was no reason to think that I was the most suitable person for that job. A lot of money was kept there to be spent during our travels. He could have been more assured if he gave it to Kishori Chatterjee, but he had a special reason for handing it over to me. One day after reaching a dak bungalow, I had left that box on the table in the room and Father had chided me for that. After reaching the dak bungalow Father would sit on a bench outside. When it was evening and the stars shone brightly in the clear mountain sky, Father would teach me how to identify the planets and the stars and would discuss astronomy.
Our house in Bakrota was on the highest peak of a mountain. Though it was the month of Baisakh, it was very cold. The snow had not melted at many places on the road, especially where the sunlight did not fall directly. Father did not apprehend any danger here and so did not prevent me from wandering in the mountains at my own free will. There was a big pine forest in the valley near our house. I went alone to that forest quite frequently along with my metal-headed stick. The trees along with their shadows stood like giants and were many hundred years old. But they could not even speak a word when a small human child roamed among them. I would get a special touch from those trees as soon as I entered the shadow of the forest. It seemed to have the coldness of a reptile. The light and shade that fell on the dry leaves seemed like various lines drawn on the body of a huge prehistoric reptile.
My bedroom was right at the end of the house. Lying on my bed at night I could see the faint light of the planets and the brightness of the snow on the mountain peaks through the windows. I don’t know at what hour of the night it was when I saw Father in a red shawl walking silently with a candle in his hand. He was going to the glass-enclosed verandah outside to sit and pray. After another bout of sleep Father shook me and asked me to wake up. The darkness of the night had not gone away completely. That time was fixed for me to learn by heart the “naroh, narou, narah” grammar from the Upakramanika. Getting out of the warm blankets in that cold weather was indeed a sad beginning.
At sunrise, Father finished drinking a bowl of milk after his morning prayers and then made me sit beside him. He would pray once more by chanting mantras from the Upanishads. After that he took me out for a walk. I could not compete with him. I would stop somewhere in the middle of the path and climb up through a short cut to go back to our house.
After Father came back, I had to study English for about an hour. After that a cold-water bath was scheduled at ten o’clock and there was no respite from this. The servants did not dare to mix some hot water against his orders. Father encouraged me by telling me stories about how he used to bathe in intolerably cold water in his younger days.
Drinking milk was another trial for me. Father drank plenty of milk. I wasn’t sure whether I inherited this strength of drinking milk from him or not, but I have mentioned earlier the reason why my eating and drinking habits went in a completely opposite direction. But I had to drink the milk along with him. I had to beg the servants and they took pity on me by filling up the bowl with less milk and more froth.
After lunch Father sat down once again to teach me but it was impossible to keep my eyes open as the spoilt morning sleep would take its revenge now. I would just doze off to sleep. Seeing my condition, Father would let me go but then the sleep would instantly run away. After that it was the turn of the mountains. On some afternoons I would take my stick and walk alone from one mountain to another. Father never expressed his anxiety over it. Till the end of my life, I have seen that he never wanted to restrain our independence. I did a lot of things that were against his taste or will, and if he so wished he could have scolded and prevented me from doing it. But he never did that. He would wait and see whether I performed all my duties from the core of my heart. He did not accept that we followed truth and beauty only as external manifestations; he knew that if we moved away from truth, we could return to it once again but if we were forced to accept truth through false discipline then it would block the path of our return.
At the beginning of my youth, I had the fancy that I would travel by bullock cart on the Grand Trunk Road and go up to Peshawar. No one approved of my proposal and cited various reasons against it. But when I went and told Father about it, he said, “This is a very good idea. Travelling by train is not real travel at all.” Then he narrated tales of how he travelled to different places on foot or in a horse carriage. He never for once mentioned that it would be difficult or dangerous for me to travel in that way.
On another occasion when I was newly appointed as the secretary of the Adi Samaj, I went to his house at Park Street and told him, “I do not like this idea that only Brahmins can become Acharyas at the Adi Brahmo Samaj and non-Brahmins cannot do so.” He then told me, “All right try and bring a remedy to this if you can.” After I received his permission, I realised that I did not have the power to do so. I could only see the deficiency but was unable to create something wholeheartedly. Where was my strength to do so? Where was the ingredient with which I could break something and rebuild something else? He knew that until the right person came forward, it was better to follow the old rules, but he did not discourage me by mentioning any such problem. Just as he had given me the freedom to roam around in the mountains alone, in a similar way he gave me the freedom to find the right path on my own. He was not scared that I would commit mistakes, did not express his doubts so that I would suffer. He just held the ideals of life in front of us but did not use the rod of discipline.
I would often spend time with Father talking about things at home. As soon as I received any letter from home I would go and show it to him. I am sure he got a lot of information from me about things that he did not have the possibility of getting from anyone else. He would also let me read the letters he received from Baro dada and Mejo dada, my elder brothers. In this manner I also learnt the art of writing letters and he knew that I also needed to learn all these external ways and manners as well.
I still remember that in one of Mejo dada’s letters he had used a phrase which meant that he was slogging at his workplace with a rope tied around his neck. Father repeated a few of those words and asked me the meaning of it. He did not approve of my explanation and offered a different meaning to it. But I had such impertinence that I was unwilling to accept it and argued with him for a long time. If it was anyone else, he would surely have scolded me and asked me to stop, but Father listened to all my protests with patience and then tried to make me understand.
Father even told me many funny stories which included stories about the whims of the rich people in those days. Since the border of the sari or dhoti would hurt their delicate skin, some of these fanciful people would tear the border off and then wear the cloth. Since the milkman used to mix water with the milk, a servant was appointed to look after it. Then another inspector was appointed to keep an eye on that servant. In this way the number of inspectors went on increasing while the colour of the milk turned paler and gradually became as crystal clear as water. When asked for an explanation the milkman replied that if the number of inspectors went on increasing then there would be no other way but to add snails, mussels, and prawns in the milk. I really enjoyed listening to this story when I heard it from him for the first time.
After several months passed by in this manner, Father sent me back to Calcutta along with his assistant Kishori Chatterjee.
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[1] An early translation of Tagore’s Jibonsmriti (1911, Memories of Life), entitled My Reminiscences, had been done by Surendranath Tagore in 1916 and was reprinted in 1990 by Mitra and Ghosh Publishers, Calcutta. The translation of this particular section has been done by Somdatta Mandal from the original Bengali text.
[2] Gold or silver embroidery
[3] Satyaprasad Gangopadhyay was the son of his eldest sister, Soudamini Devi, and was a sincere student and brilliant in academics.
[4] Chants
[5] A Sikh temple
[6] Hymns
[7] The songs sung by the people of the Brahmo faith and popularised by Tagore’s father, Debendranath Tagore.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941) was a brilliant poet, writer, musician, artist, educator – a polymath. He was the first Nobel Laureate from Asia. His writing spanned across genres, across global issues and across the world. His works remains relevant to this day.
Somdatta Mandal is a critic and translator and a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.
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