Niskriti - Translation From Rabindranath Tagore Poem by banamala sen

Mother cried and said - " Manjuli is my baby girl

You are going to get her married, to someone

who is five times older than her -

my darling is scared to see him.

I can't allow this marriage".

Father answered  "keep your wails aside.

We found Panchanan after a long search -

Don't you know how high his status is according to the caste!

Do you ever realize that we have to move higher in the society?

Where am I going to get another groom if I let him go? "

Mother said, "Why? There is Pulin from the Chatterjee family,

He may not be of the highest caste,

But he is good-looking, so pleasant as well,

He has graduated, also got a scholarship,

He is like a piece of gold.

They live in the same community; playing and laughing with him

My daughter grew up - if I ask him today

He is going to give his consent right now."

Father said, "Stop it.

That's utter nonsense!

They are the lowest in the society,

Can everybody become a Brahmin only if they have the sacred thread?

Is a groom acceptable only if he is good-looking and pleasant?

This is why our scriptures condemn the intellect of the women! "



From the day the family met the bride with the gift of a gold coin,

Manjulika's heart

started bleeding every minute with a hidden prick.

Mother's love knew everything, nothing could be hidden from her,

Mother's pain, daughter's pain, while moving or eating or sleeping,

A lightning stroke every moment in the sky of their dwelling.



The Father was proud of being so decisive -

In happiness, in sorrow, in enmity, in anger,

He did not deviate from his religion, he had no weakness,

The wheels of his life-chariot moved

On a route made of iron, every minute,

No way it was going to move an inch to one side, or the other.

He said, his commitment was very strict,

Nothing else, it was all mental strength -

It was comparable with the saints like Astabakra, or Jamadagni,

Women were not going to understand its value!



With a quiet stream of the river of tears concealed underneath,

The days of two women quietly passed by.

At last one night in Baisakh (the first month of Bengali Calendar)

Manjulika got married to Panchanon.

When bidding farewell, Father touched his daughter's forehead, and blessed her -

" Become like Savitri - that's my wish".



What a surprise! How strong was the father's prayer!

In two months the first part of the blessing came true -

The God of Death attacked Panchanon;

But unfortunately for the daughter,

The second part did not come true, God of Death did not return his life;

Manjulika wiped off the sindur on her forehead, and returned to her father's house.

Days went by in sorrow and in happiness,

Like floating flowers dropped in the tide of a river.

At last it happened,

Manjulika became sixteen.

Sometime in the childhood

Hiding behind the leaves of the creeper-like heart,

blossomed a bud,

bloomed from the hidden mysterious corner of the heart -

it didn't know itself,

the wild breeze from outside did not ask its name ever,

That bud was unfolding now in her heart

Filled with an enchanting nectar.

That was the flower of love.

It was overwhelmed with its own radiant petals.

It took no time to recognize itself -

That was why so often

She was shocked looking at her own self.

The message from beyond the horizon called her through the fountain of lights;

In the darkness of night

Which heartbreaking pain from the infinite dawned on her!

From the outside

All her jewellery had disappeared,

Her heart became lustrous with layers and layers -

Realizing, she herself became preoccupied.

Holding the windows, quietly she looked outside -

Where the cluster of Sajina flowers beside the fence,

like bunches of smiling faces striking

and turning the sky infatuated day and night.

The one who was her companion at play in the childhood,

How he had

Filled her heart on water and on land,

As if without having any form, now he had been fused into all forms,

Blending secretly.

The sound of his footprints

synthesized with the murmuring rustle of the leaves.

His compassionate messages in her ears

Were the buzzing of the bees.



At daughter's speechless face,

What was it only a Mother could see? Something stroke her heart,

What an untold appeal of a hidden message,

A shadow filled with water in Manjulika's dark eyes,

A tearful sadness from the depth of her heart,

Brought to her face a hushed anticipation of a Spring evening,

Mother detested her meals,

Cried, " Oh God, Where are you, leaving this wretched woman? "



One day, The Father finished his lunch

And holding the pipe in his mouth

As his long-time habit was, before  a nap,

Was reading an English romantic novel.

Mother said, fanning him sometimes,

Or sometimes touching his feet,

" I don't care what people say, or die of jealousy,

I will, whatever way it takes,

Get Manjulika married again".

Father said, in a very cruel tone, "Both of you - Mother and Daughter

should marry at the same time after I pass away,

Please have your patience and wait for a few more days."

Mother said, " Oh, how merciless you are!

Your heart doesn't have a bit of a compassion! "

Father answered, " I am merciless!

The route to salvation is hard! If I were made of butter,

By now I would melt from crying! ".

Mother said, "Curse my luck! Who am I explaining to?

In the middle of all enjoyment, locking the door,

getting scorched every second from denial,

is alone only that little girl -

There is no other sin than that in the three worlds.

There is no life in the dry pages of your scriptures.

Only God the divine knows how it hurts the compassionate! "

The Father only smiled; thought, "women

are emotionally heated balloons!

Life is a difficult  salvation, they don't have that knowledge",

After having said that, he continued his reading of a romantic English novel.



After suffering from the continuous heartache, at last the mother's misery ended,

Father was alone in the household.

The eldest son lived, with his wife and children,

In Patna, another region of the country,

Other two daughters - they didn't live close by,

They lived with their in-laws.

One of them lived in Faridpur,

The other one even farther,

In Madras, across the Bindhya Mountains.

So Manjulika was handed over the responsibility of taking care of her father.

He detested the food prepared by a Brahmin cook,

Except his own wife's cooking

No one's could satisfy his taste or appetite.

In the morning, it was rice; in the evening, it was Roti or Luchhi,

An array of fish with rice,

Five or six  fried items.

Goat-meat with flatbread.

Manjulika cooked every item on her own, both part of the days.

Every day including Ekadoshi (The day of her fasting) , etc.,

That's what her menu of cooking was.

She mopped and dusted her father's room,

Put warm clothes in sun, got them back and organized,

sorted and arranged papers in separate categories,

copied lists from the washerman,

Tried to keep track of milkman and grocer's bills,

Got reprimanded by the Father if she made a mistake.

Her mustard was never like her mother's

That's why she had to

hear so many complaints,

Other than that, the way she prepared the beetle-leaves,

Was not close to her mother.

At every step she did blunders compared to her mom,

In short,

Today's girls were not like the previous generation.

Being quiet and docile,

Manjuli bears everything, she is calm all the time,

worked tirelessly.

Like the way a Mother, fulfills all demands

of a boy-child, being amused with affection,

The same way with a pleased face,

Manjuli listened to the complaints of her father, every hour of the day,

Smiled to herself,

How valuable was her mother's memory to her father

Her heart was full with that proud happiness to think that,

"One who has received my mother's care,

Will never be happy with any one else's! "



The Father was suffering from arthritis during the month of Holi,

Pulin was the doctor in the community,

He had to be called.

The heart might get inactive,

That was the scare!

So Pulin had to visit a few times a day,

Manjuli, with him,

planned to speak as normally as she could.

But that was hard,

How distressful!

Did it happen to anybody else?

Why her voice was shaking, why it sounded so feeble,

Why the eye-lids

became entangled with a heaviness.

She was so afraid,

As if someone would hear the reverberating sound in her blood,

Like dews on the lotus-leaf, the emotions in her heart

Why trembling so much as if to get caught!



Gradually the illness is in recession,

Arthritic pain is less,

The patient left  bed,

walked around moving his limbs.

In an evening at this time

when scent of Jasmine was in the air,

when darkness tried to talk to the moon,

but in the end ended up looking at her,

Then Pulin, in pretext of discussing patient-care,

Called Manjuli to the adjacent room, and said,

" You know that your mother wished for

getting two of us married.

that wish of hers

I want to fulfill by any means.

Why are we wasting our time? "



"No, no, no, what a shame"!

Saying this, Manjulika covered her face

Ran out the room.

Tears dropped incessantly from her eyes as if her heart would burst.

She thought, " I am not able to hide my feelings from him.

This is enough, it should be end of my life".



Manjulika started taking care of her father two times she did before,

Day and night,

When the essentials are done, she engages in non-essentials,

Washed again the pots and pans which were already washed,

Every two-three hours,

Dusted the room again which she dusted before.

When she took bath, when she ate -

She didn't care.

There was no stop until at eleven at night

until being tired, she fell asleep on the floor.

Whoever saw her, was amazed

and said " What a girl"!



The Father boasted with pride, " I am not bragging,

But remember she is my daughter.

Celibacy -

She has learned from me, it would be different otherwise.

Nowadays

without the restrictions of self-abstinence,

There wouldn't be any restraint in the society,

That's why women are following the ideas of indulgence."



After the demise of his wife,

It was about eleven months,

There were rumours,

Marriage counsellors are visible at this home.

When heard, Manjulika did not believe at first,

Later heaved a sigh after watching everything going on.

Everybody was busy, there was a strange feeling in the air -

some furniture from abroad appearing at home.

Observed her Father getting nicely attired again,

all of a sudden the eye-brows are dark,

grey hair turned black,

drizzle of perfumes every now and then on the shawls he wore.



Manjulika remembered her mother,

With a broken heart, with a terrible pain.

Didn't matter she had passed away, yet

She hadn't gone away from the realm of this house.

The image of a tender compassionate individual

was at the heart of this household;

The pious dedication of a saintly woman

touched all the activities of the family.

She would be really lost in that family, terribly disrespected -

Manjulika was completely heart-broken, thinking about that outcome.



Leaving all embarrassment and diffidence,

the daughter spoke without hesitation,

to the father,

" We hear you are going to get married.

We, all your children and grandsons and granddaughters -

you are going to humiliate all of us?

You are going to forget our mother?

You are so heartless? "

The Father smiled a dry smile, and said

"Everybody knows I am hard!

It is very difficult for me to get re-married,

But household duties

remain incomplete without a wife -

All scriptures - from Monu to Mahabharat will support that.

The path of religion is not easy.

It's not only shedding tears from our hearts,

The person who is afraid of accepting sorrow, and causing sorrow,

Why does that coward come to the earth? "



The bride's paternal home is in Bakhargunj,

The groom went there,

a few days before the wedding. At last when came back with a wife

to his own home,

Manjulika wasn't there. Learned from reading a letter

Pulin married her,

and they left for Farakkabad,

decided to settle there.

The Father was furious,

And cursed them again and again.







































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