Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7166] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on March 18, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Original html version created at eldritchpress.org
by Eric Eldred. This eBook was produced by Chetan
Jain, Viswas G and Anand Rao at Bharat Literature
Rabindranath Tagore
[1861-1941]
London: Macmillan, 1919
[published in India, 1915, 1916]
[Frontispiece: —see woman.jpg]
Bimala’s Story
Mother, today there comes back to mind the vermilion
mark [1] at the parting of your hair, the __sari__
[2] which you used to wear, with its wide red border,
and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and
peace. They came at the start of my life’s
journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden
provision to carry me on my way.
The sky which gives light is blue, and my mother’s
face was dark, but she had the radiance of holiness,
and her beauty would put to shame all the vanity of
the beautiful.
Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In
my childhood I used to resent this. It made
me angry with my mirror. I thought that it was
God’s unfairness which was wrapped round my limbs—that
my dark features were not my due, but had come to
me by some misunderstanding. All that remained
for me to ask of my God in reparation was, that I
might grow up to be a model of what woman should be,
as one reads it in some epic poem.
When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer
was sent, who consulted my palm and said, “This
girl has good signs. She will become an ideal
wife.”
And all the women who heard it said: “No
wonder, for she resembles her mother.”
I was married into a Rajah’s house. When
I was a child, I was quite familiar with the description
of the Prince of the fairy story. But my husband’s
face was not of a kind that one’s imagination
would place in fairyland. It was dark, even as
mine was. The feeling of shrinking, which I
had about my own lack of physical beauty, was lifted
a little; at the same time a touch of regret was left
lingering in my heart.
