The Land of Cards: Stories, Poems, and Plays for Children

by Rabindranath Tagore

  As for my bhaipo Bolai, my brother’s son, in his nature, the basic notes of plant life have somehow gained predominance. Ever since infancy, it has been his habit to gaze silently at things, not to move about here and there. When the layered black clouds stand frozen in wonder in the eastern sky, his whole being seems pervaded by a moist breeze laden with the fragrance of a forest in the wet month of Sravan. When the rain comes down, the sound of that torrent seems to resonate through his entire body. When the sun declines in the late afternoon, he roams bare-chested on the terrace, as if absorbing something from the whole sky. In late Magh, when the mango blossoms appear at winter’s end, an intense rapture arouses his blood, awakening the memory of something unspoken. In the spring month of Phalgun, his inner nature expands, spreading its branches like a blossoming sal grove, acquiring an intense hue. Then he feels like lingering alone, talking to himself, patching together all the stories he has heard: such as the tales of byangoma-byangomi, the pair of legendary tattler birds who nest within the hollow of an ancient banyan tree. He can’t say much, this boy with his large, protruding, wide-open, ever-observant eyes. That’s why he has to spend so much time thinking.

  Once I had taken him to the hills. Gazing at the dense green grass stretching from the front of our house to the bottom of the mountain slope, he was filled with elation. To him the grass cover did not seem like an immobile substance; he felt that this expanse of grass was a game that rolled on, rolled on forever. Often he too would roll down that slope—becoming the grass, surrendering his whole body—rolling and rolling, the grass tips would tickle his neck and he would burst into peals of laughter. After a rainy night, when pale golden sunbeams slanted from the mountaintop on to the forest of fir trees at daybreak, he would creep away without telling anybody, to stand beneath the silent shade of that fir grove, alone and full of wonder, his body prickling with an eerie sense of awe—as if he could see the human beings within these giant trees. They said nothing, yet seemed to know everything. As if they were ancient dadamoshais, grandfathers from the age of ‘once upon a time’.

  Not that his dreamy gaze was always directed upwards. Often I have seen him roaming in my garden as if searching for something in the earth. He is intensely eager to see new seedlings emerge into the light, raising their curled heads. Every day, he bends over them as if to ask: ‘And then? And then?’ They are his ever-unfinished story. Those new-grown tender leaves—how can he express his sense of affinity with them? They seem eager to ask him some unknown question. Perhaps they ask, ‘What is your name?’ Or perhaps, ‘Where has your mother gone?’ ‘But I don’t have a mother!’ Bolai answers silently.

  It hurts him deeply if anyone plucks flowers from a tree. He has also realized that his anguish means nothing to anyone else. So he tries to hide his pain. Unable to protest when boys his age throw stones to bring down the fruit of the amla tree, he just averts his face and leaves the scene. To tease him, his companions lash out with their sticks at the trees on either side as they cross the garden, or swiftly snap off a bakul branch. He is ashamed to cry, lest someone should think he is crazy. Most distressing for him is the day the ghasiara comes to mow the grass. For in his daily wanderings he has observed, concealed inside the grass, tiny little creepers; purple and yellow flowers, nameless and miniscule; here and there, the prickly nightshade, with a minute golden drop at the centre of each blue flower; in places, growing close to the fence, the bitter kalmegh vine; elsewhere, the medicinal root anantamool; and small seedlings sprouting from bird-pecked neem fruit, their leaves so exquisitely lovely. All these are rooted out by that cruel weeding instrument, the neerani. They are not among the fancy plants in the garden; no one hears their plaint.

  Sometimes he climbs into the lap of his paternal aunt, his kaki, twines his arm around her neck, and pleads: ‘Please tell that ghasiara not to destroy those plants of mine.’

  ‘Bolai,’ his kaki expostulates, ‘what crazy things you say. All those wild weeds, how can we avoid clearing them?’

  Bolai has long realized that some kinds of pain are for him to bear alone—they elicit no response from the people around him.

  This boy really belongs to that era, ten million years ago, when the future forests of this world had raised their birth-cry from the landmasses newly arisen from the womb of the sea. There were no animals then, no birds, and no clamour of living creatures; just rock and slime and water all around. On the path of time, the tree preceded all other forms of life. Raising its folded hands to the sun in prayer, it declared: ‘I will remain; I will survive; an eternal traveller am I; after death, I shall journey beyond death, through sun and shower, night and day, to the sacred place where the eternal soul attains fulfilment.’ The cry of the tree still resounds, in forest, mountain and field; in the branches and foliage of the tree, mother earth’s incessant refrain is heard: ‘I will remain! I will continue to exist!’ The tree, mute nurturer of life on earth, has been ceaselessly drawing vital energy, vigour and beauty from the heavens, to add to the earth’s store of immortality. And, day and night, its spirit raises an urgent cry to the skies: ‘I will remain!’ Somehow, Bolai alone heard the message of that universal spirit, felt its resonance within his own bloodstream. We found this laughable.

  One morning, while I was immersed in my newspaper, Bolai rushed up to me and dragged me to the garden. Pointing to a sapling growing at a particular spot, he asked: ‘Kaka, what plant is this?’

  I saw that a shimul sapling had reared its head in the middle of the paved garden path.

  Alas, Bolai made a mistake, summoning me to that spot. When the tiniest sprout emerged like an infant’s first incoherent babble, it caught Bolai’s eye. Ever since, he had watered it slightly every day with his own hands, monitoring its growth eagerly, day and night. The red-silk-cotton plant was a fast-growing variety, but it could not keep pace with Bolai’s enthusiasm. When it was about three feet high, he assumed from its lush foliage that it was a wonder plant—as a mother, when she detects the first traces of intelligence in her infant, immediately assumes that her child is a prodigy. Bolai thought the plant would leave me wonderstruck too.

  ‘I must tell the gardener to uproot this tree and throw it away,’ I said.

  Bolai was aghast. What a terrible decree! ‘No Kaka,’ he protested, ‘I beseech you, please don’t uproot this tree!’

  ‘What nonsense!’ I scoffed. ‘It’s growing right in the middle of the pathway. When it’s fully grown, it will create a nuisance, scattering cotton-fluff all around.’

  When he failed to convince me, this motherless child went to his kaki. Crawling into his aunt’s lap, he clung to her, sobbing: ‘Kaki, please forbid Kaka to cut down that tree.’

  He had found the right strategy. His kaki sent for me. ‘Listen to me,’ she pleaded. ‘Ah, the poor boy, spare this tree of his.’

  I allowed the tree to remain. If Bolai had not pointed it out to me at the outset, I would probably not have noticed it at all. But now it caught my eye daily. In a year or so the tree grew shamelessly tall. Bolai was so taken with it that it became his favourite tree.

  The tree looked more stupid every day. To grow in such an odd spot, showing no respect for anyone, shooting up so straight and tall! Anyone who saw it wondered why that tree should grow there. A few more times, I proposed that it be sentenced to death. I tempted Bolai with the offer of some excellent rose cuttings in exchange.

  ‘If shimul is the only tree you fancy,’ I urged, ‘I’ll send for another sapling and plant it near the fence. It will look very beautiful.’

  But he would shudder at the very mention of cutting down the tree. And his kaki would say: ‘Ah, the tree is not so unsightly, after all!’

  My Boudidi had passed away when this boy was an infant. Perhaps it was from grief at his wife’s demise that Dada, my elder brother, went to England on a sudden whim, to study engineering. His son was reared in my childless home, cradled in his kaki’s lap. About ten years later, Dada came back. To give Bolai an Engli
sh education, he first took the boy to Shimla, with plans of moving him to England later.

  Weeping, Bolai vacated his kaki’s lap, and left our home desolate.

  Two years went by. Meanwhile, Bolai’s kaki hid her tears, going to the boy’s empty bedroom to finger his torn shoe, cracked rubber ball and illustrated storybook about animals. There she would linger, musing that Bolai by now must have outgrown all these mementos, and become much more mature.

  One day, I found that the shimul tree had crossed all limits—it had grown too unruly to be indulged any further. Eventually, I chopped it down.

  Meanwhile, Bolai wrote to his kaki from Shimla: Kaki, please send me a photograph of that shimul tree of mine.

  He was to have visited us once before leaving for England, but that did not happen. So Bolai wanted to carry his friend’s picture with him.

  His kaki called to me: ‘Listen, please send for a photographer.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  She showed me Bolai’s letter, written in his childish hand.

  ‘But that tree has been cut down,’ I informed her.

  For two days, Bolai’s kaki refused to eat. She did not speak to me for several days. It was as if Bolai’s father had severed the umbilical cord when he took the boy from her lap. And when Bolai’s kaka eliminated the child’s beloved tree forever, that too seemed to afflict her entire world, wounding her to the heart.

  That tree was the very image of her Bolai after all. It was his twin spirit, his double.

  Shiburam

  I was enjoying the open air in the field at dusk, when the fox came to me and said:

  ‘Dada, you are busy raising your own young ones to make proper human beings of them, but what about me?’

  ‘Tell me, what can I do for you?’ I asked.

  ‘So what if I am an animal? Does that mean there’s no hope for me?’ complained the fox. ‘I have vowed to have you make a proper human being of me.’

  That would be a virtuous deed, I thought to myself upon hearing this.

  ‘What made you think of such a thing?’ I asked.

  ‘If I can become human, I’ll be famous in the fox community,’ he declared. ‘They will worship me.’

  ‘Very well,’ I consented.

  Our friends were informed. They were delighted. ‘A worthwhile effort indeed!’ they approved. ‘It will benefit the world.’ A few of us got together and formed a society, naming it the Fox-Reform-Federation.

  In our neighbourhood, there is an old, abandoned chandimandap, a prayer pavilion once used for Durga Puja. There, after nine every night, we applied ourselves to the worthy task of transforming the fox into a human being.

  ‘My son,’ I asked, ‘what do your folks call you?’

  ‘Hou-Hou,’ replied the fox.

  ‘Chhi chhi, how disgusting!’ we cried. ‘It won’t do at all. If you want to become human, you must first change your name, and then your appearance. From now on, Shiburam will be your name.’

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed. But from his expression we could sense that he did not find Shiburam as sweet a name as Hou-Hou. It couldn’t be helped though, for he had to be transformed into a human being.

  Our first task was to get him to stand upright on his hind legs. It took us many days. He would wobble along with great difficulty, falling every now and then. It took him six months to hold his frame erect somehow. To cover his claws, he was made to wear shoes, socks, gloves.

  Finally, our president Gour Gosain said: ‘Shiburam, come now and view your two-legged image in the mirror. See if you like it.’

  Standing before the mirror, turning this way and that, craning and twisting his neck, Shiburam inspected his image at length.

  ‘But Gosainji,’ he pronounced at last, ‘my appearance still doesn’t resemble yours!’

  ‘Shibu, is it enough to merely stand erect?’ Gosainji demanded. ‘Becoming human is not so easy. What shall we do about your tail, I ask you? Can you bring yourself to part with it?’

  Shiburam’s face fell. His tail was famous in the fox territory, across ten or twenty villages. The ordinary foxes had named him ‘Wondertail’. Those who knew Foxy-Sanskrit called him ‘Sulomlanguli’ or the Bushy-Tailed One. He spent two days thinking, three nights without sleep. Ultimately, on Thursday, he came to us and said: ‘I’m willing.’

  The brick-red, bushy tail was chopped off, close to its root.

  ‘Aha, what freedom for this beast!’ exclaimed all the members of our group. ‘At last he is free of all worldly attachment to the tail that kept his spirit bound! What glory!’

  Shiburam heaved a deep sigh. ‘Glory!’ he repeated with profound pathos, controlling his tears.

  He had no appetite for food that day. All night, he dreamt of that chopped-off tail.

  The next day, Shiburam appeared before our gathering.

  ‘So how are you, Shibu?’ asked Gosainji. ‘Doesn’t your body feel light?’

  ‘Yes sir, very light indeed,’ Shibu replied. ‘But my heart tells me that though my tail is gone, the shades of difference between me and the human race have not disappeared.’

  ‘If you want to match our complexion to become one of us, get rid of your fur,’ Gosain told him.

  Tinu the barber was sent for. It took five days for him to scrape and scrape with the blade of his khur to shave off all the fur. The figure that emerged left all our society members speechless.

  ‘Moshai, sirs, why don’t you say something?’ cried Shiburam anxiously.

  ‘Our own achievement has left us dumbfounded,’ the members responded.

  Shiburam was reassured. He forgot his grief for the chopped off tail and shaven fur.

  ‘No more, Shiburam,’ declared the members of our gathering, closing their eyes. ‘Our society is hereby dissolved . . .’

  ‘Now I must dazzle the world of foxes,’ said Shibu.

  Meanwhile, Shiburam’s pishi, his father’s sister Khenkini, had been crying herself to death. She went up to the village headman, Morol Hukkui, and said:

  ‘Morolmoshai, it’s over a year now, why don’t we get to see my Hou-Hou? He hasn’t fallen into the clutches of tigers or bears, I hope?’

  ‘Why fear tigers and bears?’ replied the Morol. ‘It’s the species called “human beings” that we must fear. Maybe he has fallen into their trap.’

  They began to search. Wandering here and there, the group of volunteers arrived at the bamboo grove near that same chandimandap.

  ‘Hukka huaa!’ they called.

  Shiburam’s heart began to tremble. He longed to join that full-throated, monotonous cry, just once. With great difficulty he suppressed that urge.

  In the late hours, from the bamboo thicket, rose that same call, once more:

  ‘Hukka huaa!’

  This time, a small sound like a choked sob escaped from Shiburam’s throat. But still he stopped himself.

  In the darkest hours, when they called again, Shiburam could contain himself no more.

  ‘Hukka huaa!’ he cried out, ‘hukka huaa, hukka huaa!’

  ‘There! That’s Hou-Hou’s voice I hear!’ said Hukkui. ‘Just call out to him once.’

  ‘Hou-Hou!’ came the call.

  ‘Shiburam!’ cautioned the president of our society, who had left his bed to rush to the scene.

  ‘Hou-Hou!’ came the call again, from outside.

  ‘Shiburam!’ warned Gosainji again.

  Upon the third call, Shiburam rushed outside. At once, the foxes ran away. Hukkui, Haiyo, Hoohoo and the other great fox-heroes vanished into their respective holes.

  The entire fox world was stunned.

  Six months passed.

  At last, there was news. All night, Shiburam would wander about, crying out: ‘Where’s my tail? Where’s my tail?’

  Perched on the ledge outside Gosain’s bedroom, face upraised, every few hours he would sob piteously: ‘Return my tail to me!’

  Gosain did not dare open his door, fearing he might get bitten by the mad fox.
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  Shiburam could no longer visit the thorny sheyalkanta woods where his home used to be. If his relatives saw him from afar, they would either run away, or rush at him threateningly, baring their teeth as if to bite. He stayed in that same ruined chandimandap, where no creature lived, save a pair of owls. Even Khandu, Gobor, Benchi, Dhenri and the other big, naughty boys did not come there to pluck the sour koromcha fruit from the forest, because they were afraid of ghosts.

  The fox had written a poem in the foxy tongue. It began like this:

  O my tail, my lost tail, my world has grown dark!

  My heart is full to bursting, hukka hua hua!

  ‘How unfair, how very unfair!’ cried Pupe, my granddaughter. ‘Tell me, Dadamoshai, won’t his own mashi, his maternal aunt, accept him into her home?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘When his fur grows back, they will recognize him.’

  ‘But what about his tail?’

  ‘Maybe Kobirajmoshai, our medicine man, has some Languladya Ghrita—tail-fixing ghee—in his house. I’ll check with him.’

  A Feast for Rats

  ‘This is unfair!’ the boys complained. ‘We refuse to be taught by a new pundit.’

  The new Punditmoshai they were expecting was named Kalikumar Tarkalankar.

  After the holidays, the boys were returning to school by train, from their respective homes. One of them, a witty fellow, had composed a poem against the new pundit, called ‘Kalo Kumror Balidan’—’The Sacrificial Death of the Black Pumpkin’—which all of them were reciting at the top of their voices. Just then, an old gentleman boarded the train at Arkhol Station. With him he carried his kantha-wrapped bedding roll, two or three earthen handis sealed with rags, a tin trunk and a few bundles. A tough-looking boy, known to everyone as Bichkun, called out:

  ‘There’s no room for you here, old man. Go find another carriage.’

  ‘It’s too crowded,’ the old man replied. ‘There’s no room anywhere. I’ll just take this little corner; I won’t bother you at all.’ With these words, he left the bench to them and moved to a corner of the floor, where he had spread his bedding.