Fiction
<i>The Golden Deer</i>
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Translation MOHIT UL ALAM
Adyanath and Baidyanath Chakroborty are the two sharers of their paternal property. Of them Baidyanath's financial situation is a little worse. Baidyanath's father Moheshchnadra had absolutely no worldly knowledge, and he used to depend wholly on his elder brother Shibanath. Shibanath used a lot of affectionate words for his brother, and in return grabbed his property. Only a few sheaves of company papers were all that Baidyanath had in his possession. They were the only support Baidyanath had against the sea of life.
Shibanath, after a long search, had found out the only daughter of a rich man to marry his son Adaynath, and thus had opened the opportunity to increase his property. Moheshchnadra had taken pity on a poor Brahmin burdened with seven daughters and married his son Baidyanath to his eldest daughter taking not a single farthing as dowry. That he didn't bring all his seven daughters to his house was because he had only one son, and the Brahmin didn't request him for that either. But, Moheshchnadra helped the Brahmin at the wedding of his other daughters, by going beyond his means.
After his father's death Baidyanath was living listlessly happily being satisfied with the company papers in his possession. The need for work never occurred to his mind. The only work that he did was to cut off branches from the trees and make walking sticks out of them with great care. The whole lot of children and youths of the village came to him with demand for the sticks. And he gave away the sticks to them free. In addition, inspired by an altruistic feeling, he would spend much time in making kites and kite-pins for them. The work which required much care and much chiseling for a long time, but which from a practical estimate had no value whatsoever, and was sheer loss of time and labor, was something he would pursue with infinite zeal.
When internal squabbles and groupings between the rival neighborhoods were raising a smoke of confusion at the big temples in Bengal, it was a common scene to watch Baidyanath sitting in front of his house on the verandah and busily working at a branch of a tree with his pen-knife from dawn to noon, and, after the noontime meal followed by a nap, to continue to work until dusk.
In course of time, by the blessings of Goddess Shashthi, Baidyanath became the father of two sons and a daughter, thereby, throwing ashes at the face of the enemy. Wife Mokhshadasundari's anger was rising by the day. At Adyanath's house there was always this or that going on, but in Baidyanath's house nothing like that ever happened. What more can go so much against logic than the fact that being of the same family, while Bindhabasini, wife of that house, sported so much jewellery, wore so expensive Benarasi saris, and moved and talked with such airs, she, on the other hand, felt being out of depth at everything. They became that rich by depriving the brotherthat is the plain truth. The more Mokhshada listened to these stories of filching, the more her mind became filled with disrespect for her father-in-law and his only son. She turned disregardful, and nothing in her house seemed to be enough to her liking. Every article in the house was found to be inconvenient and cumbersome and a cause for embarrassment. Their very bedstead was not even fit to carry a corpse, and even the young of a bat, who had no shelter in the wide world around, would not like to make its lodge in the worn-out wall of the house, and looking at things inside the house even the great saint Paramhangsha would shed tears. But to protest against all these outpourings was beyond the power of the cowardly manly race. So Baidyanath continued chiseling the sticks at his verandah with double attention.
But mere silence is no guarantee that you would escape danger. On some day, interrupting him at his artistic employment, the wife would call the husband inside the house for a chat. Looking away from her husband, she would most gravely say, "Ask the milkman to stop supplying milk."
Baidayanth, after keeping silence for a moment, would softly say, "If you stop the milk, what would the boys drink?"
The wife would reply, "The rice-washed water."
On some other day she would exhibit a totally opposite mood. She would call him, and then declare, "I don't know anything. You do, whatever has to be done."
Baidayanath, in a diffident voice, would ask, "What has to be done?"
The wife would say, "Buy this whole month's provisions." And then would thrust in his hand such a big list which would be sufficient to cover a royal feast.
If Baidyanath had the courage to ask whether such a big purchase was necessary, the reply would instantly come, "Then let the boys die without eating and me too, and then you would be able to run the house cheaply."
In this way, Baidyanath gradually realized that it was not enough to chisel canes only. Something must be done. It was beyond his capacity to either do business or get a job. So a shortcut to discover the treasure of Kuber had to be invented.
One night lying in bed he prayed to Mother Jagadambe earnestly: "You mother Jagadambe, if you just gift me a patent medicine in dream to cure a complicated disease, I'll bear the expenses for advertising it in newspapers."
He dreamt that night that his wife was very angry with him, and swore that she would marry as a widow. And he was protesting this idea saying that he didn't have the money to buy the jewellery, and she was also arguing that a widow had no need for gold to marry. He thought there was some sure answer to it, but as he was trying hard to figure out what it was, morning had already broken out and the answer to why his wife couldn't marry as a widow flashed through his mind at once. And he felt a little bit sorry about it.
The next day after his morning washing, while he was applying the sharpening paste to the thread of the kite, a hermit suddenly turned up at the door shouting chants. That moment struck Baidyanath like a lightening in which he could see the bright image of his future fortune. He took great care of the hermit and entertained him with plenty of food. After much pleading, he came to know that the hermit had the power to turn things into gold, and, if he wanted, he agreed to teach him the gift as well.
The wife also jumped to the idea. When the liver is infected people see everything yellow, likewise Mokhshada was seeing everything across the wide world being wrapped in gold. She foresaw an imaginary goldsmith casting her sleeping bed, the furniture, and even the walls in gold, and in her thoughts she invited Bindhabasini for a visit.
The hermit was consuming two seer of milk and one and a half seer of royal sweets everyday, and also wrung out much silvery juice (money) by milking (using) the company papers.
The ardent customers for cane sticks and kite-pins came to Baidyanath's house and returned disappointedly seeing the door closed. The boys didn't have their meals in time, hurt themselves while playing, got their foreheads swollen, cracked the sky by their crying, but neither the house lord nor the house lady had any regard for it. All their attention was focused on the fire lit before them by the hermit, eyes without blinking and mouths without words. Their vigil was so intense that soon their eyeballs took the effect of the fire, the touching quality. Their eyesight adorned itself with the bright golden hue of the rays of the setting sun.
After using up two whole pieces of company papers as if they were useless documents to be burnt in the fire, the hermit solemnly declared one day, "Tomorrow things will turn to gold."
That night nobody had any sleep; the man and wife were building a golden palace. While doing it, they had altercations and differences of opinion from time to time, but all were resolved in view of the greater joy they were going to achieve soon. While arguing, each was ready to concede to the other, and so wonderful had been the conjugal reunion that night.
The hermit, however, was not to be seen anywhere the following morning. The golden lustre from everything had disappeared, and even the bright sunshine of the day looked dark. The old sleeping bed, the furniture, the walls all were now exposing their shabbiness and poverty four times as much as it did before.
From now on, if Baidyanath had passed not so much as a comment on any matter of the family, the wife would break out into a torrent: "Enough indication of your intelligence have you already given, now be silent for a while." Baidyanath was, thereby, put off completely.
Mokhshada had taken such a superior attitude as if she had had no faith from the beginning in the hunt for the golden mirage.
Feeling guilty, Baidaynath had tried to find out means to placate his wife. One day he brought a square-shaped packet to his wife, and, turning his neck, said with a mischievous smile on his face, "Can you tell me, what I have brought for you?"
Suppressing her curiosity, the wife said nonchalantly, "How can I say, I'm not a seer."
Deliberately Baidyanath took much time in untying the thread of the packet, and then blew off the dust from the paper, then carefully unwrapped the paper fold by fold and then took out a coloured portrait of the dashmahabidya (a portrait displaying ten qualities of Goddess Durga) done at an art studio and turned it to light for his wife to have a good view.
At once what came to the wife's mind is the English oil painting hanging in the bedroom of Bindhaybasini, and so she said with infinite sarcasm, "Ah, what can you say, better hang it in your living room, and watch it for yourself. I've nothing to do with it." A disappointed Baidyanath realized that like many other capacities, God has also deprived him of the difficult virtue of winning women's hearts.
In the meantime Mokhshada was having her palm read and family history examined by palmists and astrologers all and sundry. Everybody said that she would never die a widow. But she was not keen on meeting that very fortunate end, so her curiosity was not quenched by this knowledge.
She also was told that her luck for children was good, and that the house might soon be full of children. But even at that she didn't seem to be much pleased.
Finally, an astrologer told her that if Baidyanath hadn't come across hidden treasure in one year, then the astrologer would burn all his books. Hearing of this prophecy by the astrologer, Mokhshada had no iota of doubt about the good fortune to come their way.
The astrologer was well paid when he left, but Baidyanath's life became miserable. There are certain traditional ways of amassing wealth, like cultivation, jobs, business, thievery and forgery. But there is no definite way as to how to get hold of hidden treasure. For this reason, the more Mokhshsada inspired or admonished Baidyanath to find a way out, the more Baidyanath got puzzled about which way to go. He couldn't set up his mind as to where he would start digging, or which pond he would send the divers to, or which wall of the house he would drive the pickaxe into.
Out of utter annoyance Mokhshada let him know that she did have no idea before that a man could have had so much of dung in his head in place of brain. She said, "Move around a little bit. Will it rain money from the sky if you sit idle with a gaping jaw?"
Quite justified a comment, and Baidyanath also wanted to start doing something, but to which direction he would go, which way to ride on, nobody is there to tell him. So, sitting on the verandah, Baidayanath once again employed himself in sharpening cane sticks.
(To be continued next week)
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