Krishna Kanta's Will (Chatterjee, Knight)/Part 1/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
Oh! Kokil! Sweet harbinger of spring! Sing out thy joyous lay; it ill becomes me to object, still would I counsel thee to choose aright thy times for song. It is not well to sing alike in season and out of season. See! after much search, I had found pen and ink, and after yet more labour, had collected my ideas, and had sat down to write in full detail the story of Krishna Kanta’s will, when from the sky comes kuhu! kuhu! kuhu! You have a fine voice, I admit, but that alone does not give you the right to call to any one you choose. However, with me, whose hairs are grey, and whose pen runs smoothly on, your calling matters little. But, see! when a man in youthful prime, worried with money matters, sits poring over his accounts, and racks his brain in vain attempts to set them straight, maybe, you, from the broken office wall, call out kuhu! How is he then to balance his accounts? When a lovely woman, grieving at the loss of her lover, sits down, the long, long day over, maybe at nine o'clock, to take her simple fare of rice, and has just taken up the cup of boiling milk, straightway you call kuhu! She leaves the milk untouched; or perhaps, her thoughts far off, she mixes salt with it and drinks it up. In truth there is some enchantment in your voice, else, when you were sitting singing in the bâbul tree, and the widow Rohini was going to fetch some water, carrying the kalsi on her hip, then―but first of all let me account for her going to fetch water.
It was thus: Brahmânanda Ghosh was a poor man. He could not afford to keep many servants. Whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage I can't say; whichever it is, he who keeps no women servants is free from four things—cheating, false reports, wrangling, and dirt. The gods have embodied these four things in the maidservant. Especially where there are many female servants the house is a veritable battle-field of Kurus,[1] or like an oft-repeated killing of Râban. One, brandishing her broom, parades about the house, like Bhim of old, the Pandava prince, who, arming himself with his club, was wont to stalk across the field of battle. Another is always scolding, even as the Kuru king, Durjyodhan, with Bhishma, Dron, and Karna, were ever hurling execrations at their foes. One, like Kumbhakarna, sleeps six months straight on end, and, on awaking, eats up all there is. Another is like Sugrib, who, twisting his long neck about, was always bent on killing Kumbhakarna.
Brahmânanda was free from these troubles and annoyances, but the bringing of water and the scouring of dishes fell on Rohini. She went of an evening to fetch water when her other work was done. The day after that on which the events already narrated took place, she went at the usual time, with her kalsi on her hip, to fetch water. There was a large tank belonging to the zemindâr, called Bârunî, the water of which was very good. It was there that Rohini was accustomed to go for water, and to-day also she was wending her way thither. She always went alone; she had not the habit of going in company with light women, lightly laughing, carrying light kalsis, lightly filled with water. Her kalsi was heavy as was her walk. Then Rohini was a widow; yet in no sense like a widow. The red of the betel nut was on her lip and bracelets on her arms. She wore a bordered garment, and her splendid tresses of jet-black hair fell in bewitching snake-like curls around her shoulders, the brass kalsi on her hip swaying slowly with the swaying of her walk. As a swan dances on the wave, so, gently, with the motion of the body, danced the kalsi. The two feet very slowly, like flowers falling from a tree, pressed the ground softly, the merry kalsi keeping time therewith. Swaying from side to side like a sail-burthened ship, the beautiful Rohini, with slow and measured steps, came to fetch water from the tank, lightening up the paths as she went, when from the boughs of a bakul tree the spring cuckoo piped his note.
"Kuhu! kuhu! kuhu!" Rohini looked all round. I could swear that if that bird, sitting on the bough, had seen that upward-thrown, agitated, tremulous, roguish glance of Rohini's, that small bird, pierced by such an arrow, turning topsy-turvy, with its feet gathered up, would have fallen down plump; but that was not in the bird’s destiny—it was not included in the endless chain of cause and effect, or it was not a merit arising from the bird’s actions in a previous birth.
The stupid bird again called, "Kuhu! kuhu!"
"Be off with you, Black-face!" exclaimed Rohini, and went on her way; went on, but she did not forget the cuckoo. My firm belief is that the cuckoo had sung out of season. When a poor widow is going alone to fetch water, it is not good to call after her, because the voice of the cuckoo brings painful thoughts into the mind, such as: "I have lost something, and through that loss my whole life is wasted; I shall never find it again; something has gone; some one has left me; there is something unattained; something I shall never get." It seems to say, "I have lost a jewel somewhere; some one calls and makes me weep; my life is spent in vain; my cup of happiness has not been filled; I have tasted nothing of the unceasing joys of life!"
Again "kuhu! kuhu!" Rohini, looking round, saw the blue, clear, boundless sky, silent, but yet in harmony, with that cuckoo-strain. She saw the newly swollen mango buds, golden white, peeping out from masses of dark leaves, cool, sweet-scented; only the humming of the bees blending with the cuckoo-song. She saw on the banks of the tank Gobind Lâl’s flower garden, where flowers were blooming in clusters on clusters, thousands upon thousands, rows upon rows, on every bough, with every leaf-everywhere were flowers blooming: white, red, yellow, blue, small and large; in some the honey bee, in some the humble bee—all in harmony with that cuckoo-song. On the air their perfume came blending with that cuckoo-strain in sweetest harmony. And in that flowery wilderness, standing in the shade, Gobind Lâl himself. His dense black hair fell in ringlets on his splendid shoulders, beautiful as the champak flower, and exceeding the tree in beauty; a lovely flowering creeper swayed over that noble figure—how blent in unison! he, too, in sweetest harmony with that cuckoo-song. From an asoka tree the bird again called "kuhu!" Then Rohini descended the steps of the tank, and, reaching the lowest one, floated her kalsi on the water, sat down and wept.
Why she wept I do not know. How can I tell what passes in a woman's mind? But I much suspect it was that wicked cuckoo that caused Rohini to weep.
- ↑ See Appendix, Note 5.