EYESORE
By Rabindranath Tagore.
X
VIHARI got Mahendra to write that letter while he waited, and armed with the missive he went off the next day to fetch Rajlakshmi. The mother could see that the letter was of Vihari's contriving; none the less, she could no longer remain away. Binodini came along with them.
The sight that met the eyes of the mistress of the house on her return—the whole establishment upside down, unkept, uncared for—turned away her heart still more from her daughter-in-law.
But what a change had been wrought in Asha! She would follow her mother-in-law about like her shadow, she would hasten to help her without waiting to be asked, till Rajlakshmi would have to exc1aim—"Let it be, let it be, you'll only spoil it! Why fuss about with things you don't understand!"
Rajlakshmi concluded that Annapurna's departure was responsible for this improvement in her daughter-in-law. "But," she argued, "I mustn't let Mahendra feel that unalloyed happiness with his wife was possible only so long as his Kaki was there and that the sorrows of separation begin with his mother's arrival. That would never do!"
Now-a-days if Mahendra sent for his wife when she was with his mother, Asha would hesitate to go. But Rajlakshmi would rebuke her, saying, "Don't you hear, Mahin wants you,—or is that beneath your notice? The result of being over-petted I suppose! You needn't pretend to be attending to the cooking—there's nothing to keep you here."
Then the farce with slate and pencil and reader began all over again! The charging each other with fancied offences against love's code! The futile quarrels over weighing one's love against the other's! The making the rainy day into night and the moonlight night into day. The getting so habituated to each other as to lose all delight in companionship and yet be afraid to free oneself from its toils! Verily lies the curse of the life of indulgence in the evanescence of its pleasure, the permanence of its bondage.
When things had come to this pass, Binodini one day threw her arms round Asha's neck and said, "May your good fortune last for ever, my dear, but am I not worthy even of a glance from you because I am destined to sorrow?"
Brought up as a stranger in the house of her guardian, Asha was morbidly shy of new acquaintances—she seemed to be in chronic dread of a rebuff. So when Binodini first arrived with her chiselled features, pencilled eyebrows, keen glances and full-blown youth, Asha had not dared to make any overture.
Asha found Binodini to be on very familiar terms with her mother-in-law. In fact Rajlakshmi made a point of impressing on Asha that she was making much of Binodini, and would lose no opportunity of waxing eloquent in her praise. Asha could see that Binodini was well trained in household work; that the role of mistress came naturally to her; that she was not in the least shy in ordering about or scolding the servants, and was an adept in exacting from them their appointed tasks. All this made Asha feel so insignificant in comparison!
Consequently when Binodini, the paragon, came forward to solicit her friendship, the poor girl's joy, checked for a moment by her diffidence, overflowed in a redoubled shower. As with the juggler's magic tree, the seed of their love sprouted, branched and flowered all in a day.
"Let's have a pet-naming ceremony,"[1] said Asha.
"What name shall it be?" asked Binodini with a smile.
Asha suggested Ganga,[2] Vakula and many such names of nice things.
"All these are so hackneyed!" complained Binodini. "Pretty names have lost their pretty meanings."
"What would you like, then?" asked Asha.
"Eyesore,"[3] laughed Binodini.
Though Asha had a leaning towards sweet-sounding names she accepted the pet term of raillery suggested by Binodini. "O my Eyesore!" she cried, as she clasped Binodini round the neck, and then she went off into a fit of laughter.
- ↑ Girl-friendship in Bengal is cemented by giving each other the same pet-name—the ceremony including an interchange of gifts.
- ↑ The sacred stream of the Ganges.
- ↑ Lit. Grit-in-the-eye. Such inverted pet-names are not uncommon, being prompted by much the same feeling from which mothers employ apparently abusive terms of endearment.