Chokher Bali by Tagore Rabindranath

Author:Tagore, Rabindranath [Tagore, Rabindranath]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9788184003635
Publisher: Random House India
Published: 2012-11-15T23:00:00+00:00

30

One day, Asha asked Annapurna, ‘Tell me, Mashima, do you remember Meshomoshai, your husband?’

‘I was widowed at eleven; my husband’s image has grown shadowy in my mind.’

‘Mashi, who do you think about, then?’

‘I think of God, in whom my husband now resides,’ replied Annapurna, with a faint smile.

‘Does that bring you happiness?’

Affectionately stroking Asha’s head, Annapurna said, ‘My child, how would you understand my state of mind? That is something known to my heart, and to Him I meditate upon.’

Asha thought to herself, ‘The person I meditate upon night and day, does he not know my state of mind? Because I can’t write letters properly, should he stop writing to me?’

Asha had not heard from Mahendra for several days. ‘If Chokher Bali had been close at hand, she could have inscribed my thoughts accurately in writing,’ she sighed to herself.

Thinking that a poorly written, paltry letter would not win her husband’s respect, Asha was reluctant to write to him. The harder she tried, the worse her handwriting became. The more she tried to arrange her thoughts, the more impossible it became for her to somehow complete a sentence. If a single term of address, followed by her signature, could have sufficed for Mahendra to have read her thoughts correctly, as if he was an all-knowing deity, then alone would Asha’s letter writing have proved successful. Destiny had endowed her with such capacity for love, but could she not have been granted a little felicity with language?

Returning home after the evening aarti, the lampritual at the temple, Asha sat at Annapurna’s feet, gently stroking her feet. After a long silence, she ventured, ‘Mashi, you say it is a wife’s sacred duty to serve her husband devotedly as if he were a deity; but a wife who is illiterate, who has no intelligence, who does not know how to serve her husband, what is she to do?’

Annapurna gazed at Asha’s face for a while. ‘My child, I am illiterate, too,’ she answered, suppressing a sigh, ‘but I still serve God.’

‘But He knows your mind, so He is pleased. But suppose a husband is not pleased at the devotion offered by an illiterate woman?’

‘Everyone doesn’t have the power to please everyone, my child. If a wife serves her husband and performs her household duties with heartfelt devotion, care and respect, then, even if the husband spurns her offering, God Himself would stoop to accept it.’

Asha remained silent. She tried to derive consolation from her aunt’s words, but her mind refused to believe that God could value someone who had been rejected by her own husband as unworthy. Her face bent low, she sat stroking her mashi’s feet.

Annapurna grasped Asha’s hand and drew her even closer; she kissed her head, and, struggling to free her choking voice, she said, ‘Chuni, just listening to wisdom will not grant you the knowledge that is learnt through the direct experience of pain and hardship. Once upon a time, even this mashi of yours had tried to bargain with the world, just like you.

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