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Song of India - VIII - Santiniketan, part 2 Another activity on campus was music: this was close to their hearts. From the first thing in early morning at 5 or 5:30 one or two girls would rise and start practicing on the veena or altar. Hour after hour you could hear the resonant notes of the scales, and a voice to match, along with it. Up and down, up and down, in minute variety. At first I thought they were practicing scales, and listened for the real pieces to begin, but it was only scales. Then I found out that this was one type of ancient music, accompanying the voice up and down in ever-varying scales. So the “scales” continued! It was wonderful to wake in the grey dawn, the voice and sitar playing the melody of India. How ancient, how lovely. A song ever-flowing as India herself. I loved to listen to it. The music hall was one of the main centers on campus too. Tagore himself was not only a poet but had composed hundreds of songs to be sung with his poems. In one of them he asks only to sit win a small corner and watch God’s wonderful world. In another he speaks of the lovely stars at night and says in the dark night of my soul let them come out one by one. His music was an integral part of the school. And dance, too, was held nearby on a stage behind the music buildings. Dance, rhythm, music, poetry…all a part of one large complex of sound and movement. The voice and music related…poetry and tone. How often in class did he emphasize the tones of Tagore’s poetry. Thus were dance, music and poetry related here. In the music hall the students studied veena, sitar, esraj, drums and other Indian instruments. There was no piano. It was truly India. It was for a rebirth of the Indian culture that Tagore had started the school and we were surrounded with the best in Indian music and art and culture. I took one music class while I was there. It was to learn Bengali songs of Tagore. I confess it was very difficult and I could neither keep the tunes in memory nor read the music quickly enough tho I tried. Somehow the nuances always stopped me in the most frustrating fashion. About eight of us came to this class, both boys and girls. We were mostly the foreign students. We would sit on the rug facing the teacher and he would give a tempura to one of the Indian girls to keep time with by a continuous repetition of the four notes of the strings. It was sort of a counterpoint of our melody. Then he would begin and wing and play the esraj and we would try to follow. Our teacher was a genius. He played the esraj, seated cross-legged on the floor with the instrument in front of him something like a small cello. Its tones were sweet and even sweeter than a violin, with much sliding from note to note and delicate half and fourth steps. It was beautiful to hear. He was rather roundish with smooth brown skin and oval face as he sat there in his Indian clothes of vest and draped pants. He was quite a picture and I loved to watch him! He spoke to us very quietly and patiently and had a beautiful voice, both speaking and singing. I wondered that he, one of the best esraj players and singers put up with us so patiently when we learned so little. Could he have imagined how much it meant to us, a beautiful image never marred in its beauty by look or gesture or anything but quiet gentleness. It was lovely. I was fortunate in my stay to be part of a birthday celebration. It was for a famous folk artist living at the school. He was semi-retired and lived in a home about a half-mile from the girls’ dorms. As at Sevagram we rose early at 4:30 AM for the celebration. A long line of singers formed on the road outside the dorms. About four deep, we started walking and singing. We sang the same song over and over in beautifully rising melody in the early darkness. In spite of the repetition, the subtle melody eluded me and I could not fix it in my mind. It was beautiful thought as we walked along. Finally we arrived at his home and he came out and sat on a chair on the porch for us. A garland of flowers was put around his neck and the students one and two at a time went forward and bending touched his feet in the traditional Indian mode of respect. After all the students had gone forward we turned to go back, leaving him sitting like a picture on the porch of his home. It was another of the unforgettable ceremonies centuries old. One other beautiful memory was of the picnic we all took in the spring. It was warm as usual and we gathered in the morning in front of the library, and when most were present, took off. I walked with a group of girls and we set off on the main road from town going on into the country in the other direction. There were about six of us and we had no sooner set off than a wagon made of the bamboo poles bound together, with the great creaking, wooden wheels, came by us. He offered us a ride and we all piled on, picking our places among the poles. It was the first time for some of the girls to ride in a cart, and I mused on the fact I had done it as soon as they. It was a bumpy ride, but fun. It was no faster than walking actually. Some way down the road we all got out and thanked him and continued walking. Most of the girls spoke only Bengali but knew a little English, and one of the girls could speak with me. It was always fun thought, however little I could understand. We went on down the road across the desert-like country. It was almost flat, and barren and dry. The monsoons had not come for months, and for months not a drop of rain had fallen. The ground made dust as we walked, the red-brown dust of the country. After a while we came to a cluster of small trees, and hidden in them was one of the tiny nearby villages. It had a few mud houses, and a tank or pond of water with grasses growing around the edge of it, the same as everywhere in India. There was still water in the tank. It had not yet dried up. We walked down the road through the houses, and on farther to the picnic ground. It was by a stream flowing thru the countryside. How nice to have chosen to picnic by its banks. For once the boys and girls played together, splashing and wading in the water. They kicked off their chapels (the ones who had not walked barefoot) and lifted up their saris and waded in the water. Some of us even went upstream quite a ways where the river forked around a small sand bar. Some of us even went further in later in the day, off on the barren land to another nearby village. Tho the plains seem barren and empty actually they are full of villages. India is village-India and only a fraction of its people live in the cities. Within these ten miles of Santiniketan were many villages tho you could not have guessed any existed. The village had rows of mud houses, very neat, and some rice drying in one of the yards on woven mats. It was a small village of perhaps several hundred, tho sometimes many people will manage to live in a small cluster of houses where you never would guess so many would fit.
The students cut the vegetables. They sat on blankets spread under the trees and used the bug Indian knives which are a stationary blade sitting upright about two feet tall and curved in mango-leaf shape, wide at the bottom. Next to the pots was a huge board with three piles of ground spices they had brought – one of orange ginger, one of green spices and one of red pepper. All of it was used. The vegetables are then cut on it. One keeps all the pieces in one’s hand till they are cut tiny, and then drops them in the pot. So the students sat on the blankets and cut potatoes and onions and all kinds of vegetables for dinner. After the food was prepared some of the students played in the river and others prepared to sing. A large blanket was placed under one of the trees and the students of the music school sat with their Indian instruments under it – like Omar Khyyam. Then the other students gathered around. At first the girls were too shy to go over but gradually they were drawn, and a large group sat on the blanket. How they sang! Hour after hour, on and on, under the trees. How lovely it was, and how like magic. And to the music were figures playing with kites in the air by the river bank. How like fairyland, the figures with the kites and the music. Always it will be engraved in my memory. It was like something flung in the air. In late afternoon the food was ready and the feast began. Leaf plates were distributed and some served while others ate. The buckets went around and around with rice and curry and sweet chutney for a treat. Even curds had been brought. We ate our fill and then I noticed how some people and children of nearby villages had gradually crept closer to us while we ate. They knew it was picnic day and were eager to eat what was left. They ate what was left over on the plats and then they gave them the rest, in little groups. After all had eaten, we again sang, and the magic returned. I was proud that even some of the village people stood nearby with us, and watched some of the games too. They played games for several hours and then some started returning home. It had been a lovely day, never-to-be-forgotten. We walked homeward barefooted along the path, singing as the dusk gathered on the plains. One of the girls had a strong, lovely voice as she strode along healthy, barefoot and young. What a pleasure to watch. And so this memorable day drew to a close, ever to remain in memory. Of course everything was not so happy in this paradise – food continued to be a problem. When I was living with the girls we often went to the little store to shop. It was a small weather-beaten shop about the size of a house. On one side were canned goods and rice and flour in gunny sacks, and on the other were hardware and utensils and supplies. The whole was rather dingy and run-down. On the front porch a man squatted selling a few vegetables. There were almost always potatoes and onions. The most common vegetable, surprisingly enough, was cauliflower. Always you felt the scarcity of India. For most people of course the common diet was rice and dahl, or here in the north chapattis instead of rice. Chapattis were the big round pancake like bread made from water and flour and then fried in oil. They were a staple diet here. In the store however were all kinds of canned supplies that the foreigners might buy – fruits, vegetables, cocoa, cookies and powdered milk. You could also buy Indian powdered milk in sacks. A tin of powdered milk would cost five rupees, which was only about a dollar, but the same as five dollars there. It seemed like cheating and unfair when you knew a whole family probably ate for a week on such an amount. However for reasons of health and monotony of diet I finally gave in and bought some of the luxuries. One always took a basket shopping in which to put purchases. Vegetables however were sometimes wrapped in paper. But the paper that was used was old ledger sheets full of writing and figuring of all sorts! Far from Japan where everything was wrapped so prettily and daintily and paper so abundant, tho in the markets things were wrapped in newspaper. And the string so thin it was barely thread. It would just do. In back of the shop was a tea stall and occasionally we would stop and have tea and sweets. About once a week I went with the girls to town to the market for bigger shopping. We would hail a tonga pulled by a bicycle and the driver would take us to the market. Occasionally I would ride a bicycle to town and I often wandered what the people thought of the American girl sailing along so buoyantly on her bike. The market was behind some old buildings and was a bedlam of people buying and selling in old stalls and on the ground. It was so crowded you could barely walk over and around the people and goods everywhere. People squatted selling vegetables and fresh spices and fish and meats. Some sold the varicus colors for the red dot on the forehead, and had piles of colored powder for it. One of the most awful things was the meat. In order to prove to you that the goat was fresh, they went along the market holding up a freshly killed goat to prove to everyone that the meat was fresh. We would go along making our purchases, and at first I would stay close to Matsu as she spoke some Bengali with them, and try to learn some of the words as she bargained with them. Typical Indian buying is bargaining, and the price is never stated outright. Then they would place the food on the balance scale with a weight on one end and the food on the other. Altho we bargained like everyone else, Matsu had a kind heart and one day before we left she bought a candy sweet for each of the two children in one of the stalls. Tho they were only two annas each, she had heard they practically never got them, she said. So she carried the sweets back to the delighted children. On the way home we stopped at a general supply store for rice and flour. It was a big cement shop with open front. Inside were sacks of different types of rice, and dark ground wheat flour. There were also huge sacks of beans for dahl, some red and some yellow. Other sacks had sugar and salt. On a shelf above were tins of oil. There were also matches and supplies of other kinds. Here we made our purchases which were wrapped in the same ledger paper and tiny string, and loaded them in the tonga which waited for us and rode home. Eating in the school dorm was one of those experiences best to be forgotten. Dr. Ali perhaps best explained it later when he said that dining together in India is a relatively new thing. For centuries each has eaten in his own home, with many rules governing washing and eating. Moslems not eating with Hindus, etc. Eating together even here represented a real advance. The dining hall was next to the girls’ dorms and both boys and girls ate there tho in different rooms. The girls’ side descended three steps into a long cement dungeon. There were rows of long narrow tables, the grey boards unpainted, and benches. It was a dingy atmosphere. The girls took their places at the tables, eating in groups of friends, and everyone lined up facing the same way. The plates were metal and there was no silver since we ate Indian style with our hands. A few girls remained to serve, and the passed up and down the boards ladling rice and dahl from big pails. Even tho they were copper they seemed too much like slop buckets to be enjoyable. All the food was served in them. Always there were rice and chapattis both, for some were used to one and some the other. There was also dahl, and some kind of curry, mostly potatoes and sauce. It didn’t seem very rounded, rice and wheat and potatoes for a diet. At noon was the one treat when they served a large helping of either sweet or sour curds. Some of the girls ate a hard boiled egg too if they were not vegetarian. I ate with my hands like the others, and after the meal we carried our dishes to a table in the rear and rinsed off our hands. For breakfast or tiffin, the small meal twice a day, we had tea and cakes. This was early in the morning and again about 4 in the afternoon. The tea was poured from large pitchers and already fixed with milk and sugar. The large meals were at 11:30 and about 8 o’clock. With these meals only water was served. Some of the Indian girls complained f the food too. They said it was the preparation they were not used to. Some of them were used to the cocoanut oil used in south India instead of the mustard oil of the north. It changed the taste of the curries. Indians away from home quite often complain of the ‘preparation’ of the food! Thus did the girls and I cope with the food problem, which rather exhausted us. For the girls living together in the back it was not quite so bad as they shared dishes and thus managed a little variety. They also decorated their rooms. At Christmas Walla made the special German straw designs by weaving bits of honey-colored straw into stars of different sizes. They looked delicate and sweet hanging there, like Walla herself. She was delicate in many ways, yet said she could be strong if she had to. Her father had died when she was young and she and her mother lived together. Once or twice she became very ill at school but then recovered just as suddenly, which she said was her way. The school surprised her in many ways, so different from home in its relaxed and rather non-studious atmosphere. What did a degree mean in India? And some of the questions the students asked annoyed her. Some of them told her there was a real iron curtain that was drawn every night between Russia and the West and she told them, “Well if you’ve seen it, it must be.” Others asked her if Hitler had been a saint of some kind. It was thru Walla that I met the man at the tea house, a little establishment in a group of houses on the other side of school. We walked over several times and had tea and cakes in a plain little room where we were the only ones there. Occasionally visitors would come and stay overnight in one of their guest rooms and eat there. Otherwise it was usually empty. The son was a supervisor of quite a bit of land which he owned, and many people in a nearby village worked for him. He had a paternalistic attitude toward them and treated them kindly and looked after their needs. We even got to meet the whole family. He took us in their home and introduced us to his mother and father. His mother showed us pictures of her family and children, and he, speaking English, explained them to us. She told us too how hot it got in the summer, and when it got about 118 degrees they closed all the windows and doors and lay on the floor inside trying to escape the heat. She was the one who cooked for them. We went out to the little room in back where she cooked and she showed us how to make chapattis which were very light and good. She mixed the flour and water and then took a little ball and rolled it between her palms until it was sort of springy and had a little hole in the middle. The hole was very important she said. It was in this art of rolling the dough that the leavening occurred. Done just right it would rise nicely. Then she cooked them in oil. She also showed us her cooking utensils, and a large grater she also had. I also met some of the other professors on campus. The most interesting people were not the students but rather the men forty and over who did seem like a special group of men who had surrounded Tagor in his work. They seemed altogether different than the young people. One of these men was Rychotree. He was almost retired also but went to Sriniketan every day on business. He always wore Indian dress and looked very fine in his long black flowing cape. He was willing to talk and graciously invited me over to his home. We sat on his stone front porch, with tea, and he told me something of his life. He had been one of Tagore’s secretaries for many years and he told me how Tagore had gotten angry because he had let him sleep one day instead of working. He also said the school was not like what it had been, and how we have to change with the times. He said that now there were so many visitors it was not necessarily a good idea to have classes out of doors because of so many people walking around and staring, and the we must remember the spirit not the form of the institution and change some things today. He was a thinking man. He also told me some of the strange experiences of his life. When he was a young man he often used to walk the forests, armed only with a heavy stick against the great Bengali tiger. What courage the man must have had! He said usually they don’t attack, but at night all that was visible was their eyes. One night he was going home late through the forest, and when he came to a certain tree he felt a pull there which went away as he passed the tree. His feet became heavy as if he couldn’t walk. He went back again to check it out and felt the same pull, diminishing as he walked away. He later found out that on that very tree two men had been hanged. Could it have been their spirit, or some attraction? He told me other curious stories too, of strange things that had happened, adding to the mystery of India. I loved to hear him talk and respected him so much. He also told of the native Santals of the region, how these people had at first been so simple, and had gradually learned discontent and our ways. He said that formerly they didn’t wear blouses or underclothes, only the single piece of cloth. But their contact with the Bengalis had gradually changed them until now they needed blouses like the others. Originally they had been wanderers but had finally settled down here near the school and swept the walks and other jobs here. He cited this as an example of Indian’s growth of discontent and complexity of needs. Another professor whom I met was Dr. Ali. He also worked in the Tagore library, and so we came to know each other. He invited me to his home, so one day found me searching for his house on the other side of the campus. Dr. Ali lived alone. He answered the door. The first thing that struck me was the beautiful music coming from a radio set. It was the first I had heard in India, and it was Western music. How hungry I was for it I hardly realized. I sat on his back porch in a chair, surrounded by a small garden, and tears came to my eyes from the beautiful sounds of violins sweeping up and down. He must have guessed my mood, for he came over and put an old slouch hat over my face, making me laugh. My hunger for the music surprised even me. He was quite a learned man, and discussed many subjects. He said he was more impressed with Tagore’s older brother even tan Tagore. He just was a more retiring man. His powers of concentration were so great that a bird could come down and peck at his eyes and he wouldn’t move. And when Tagore died he came around comforting them, and telling them not to be distressed over the loss. Dr. Ali seemed more affected by the West than the others. Not only the music but his home was more decorated. He had a sense of humor along with his learning. He amused me with a tale of how he would spend his last days in the dreamland of the West – going to the town pub to talk, roaming the streets, coming home to dinner at night – all very relaxed. I told him America was not like that anymore but he said not to spoil his dreams. One other thing which occurred was the graduation ceremonies of the school which were held in December. As acting head of the school Nehru came. The exercises were held outdoors and he spoke. It was only a few days after Goa and he spoke about it in an entirely non-military way, about how they had tried so many years other methods and finally took this. Only a few soldiers had been lost. I was impressed with the way he spoke of it and felt they were right. There was also atta for the foreign students, to come and meet Nehru. We all came over to the big house and sat n the rug around him on the couch. He seemed very tired. We asked many questions and he answered them. His mind was quick and brilliant but he was very tired. Pictures were taken also of the event. It was quite an honor to have met him. He spoke well of the United States and in a very friendly manner. I also had another adventure at the school. This took place thru Walla who introduced me to the tea shop man. He promised to take the Japanese boy and me to see his village, not just during the day, but at night to see them dance. At the time I was living in the dorm and it was not allowed to go out at night so I sneaked off after dark. We met him at the tea house. He led the way thru the darkness over the path thru the field to the cluster of houses in the distance. Soon we came to the thatched roof houses. The entire village was dark; there was not a light anywhere. First he led us to the house of his foreman. It was a grey mud hut of fair size, one rather large room. We stepped over the threshold and a circle of faces showed up around the fire. The faces looked up at us and welcomed him to their group. We sat on the floor near large barrels. Different ropes and things hung from the ceiling. Part of the harvest or food supply was also in the room. He spoke to them while we sat there, watching the faces. One child sat in an adult’s lap. They talked and laughed with each other. Soon our hose brought over a cup of rice wine, the homemade wine of the villagers. Tho he said it would be strong, actually it was very good. I was glad they had one treat here. We stayed quite a while and watched them. It was thrilling to be in an Indian village hut at night! Even our host could not understand all they were saying, for the native Santale spoke their own dialect. Only some of them knew Bengali. He said he followed fairly well tho. The Santals were the wandering group that Tagore had persuaded to settle near the school and work for them. Now they had these small villages. Finally our host bid farewell and we thanked them in our few words of Bengali. He took us to another, almost bare house of an old woman but we did not stay long. The dancing had already begun outside in the pure darkness! A line of women with their arms around each other had formed. In front of them, facing them, were two or three men with drums. As the drummer approached them the dancing line of women moved backwards, and as the drummer retreated they moved forwards. All the movement was with the feet, sidestepping first right and then left, to the steady rhythm of the drums. I kicked off my sandals and joined the barefoot line of dancing women. They took me in. With the same rhythmic side-step we moved right and left, forward and backwards. It was thrilling and humbling to be accepted in this dancing of the villagers, here in the dust of their village. The drums went on late into the night but I had to go back. I never did find my sandals. Luckily I arrived just as the girls were returning from dinner, and so went back inside the dorm with them. I listened to the drums and pictured the dancing in the darkness in the village. It was one of the best experiences in India. In February was the mala or fair at Srinitetan, the industrial school close by. As before, there were booths with all kinds of things to sell. I bought a little set of religious things for the home – made of copper – little incense and oil burners that were very pretty. They reminded me of India. There were also the Santal beads and I took some home. There were all kinds of exhibits of farm produce and methods of growing. There was an exhibit of how the Japanese plant rice in rows for better yields instead of haphazardly like the Indians, but I think it is hopeless to try to change them. The best thing was the religious Basol singers who came again to this fair and danced and sang under a canopy. One of the professors translated some of their songs to me as they sang. They sing longingly of Maner Manush, the Man-of-my-heart. One of their songs thus is written below. They wander over the countryside singing, and their name means “mad man”. Gradually they are becoming extinct however and their songs need to be preserved. Their songs greatly influenced Tagore and he included the sakti or spiritual power. Some of these couples live together in Brahmacharya or sexual abstinence. Their principle instrument is the ektara, with one string. A stick is split and the open ends fastened wish bone like on each side of a bowl at the base. Then a metal wire is strung from the bottom of the bowl to the stick at the top. It is strummed as they sing and tambourines and tiny hand cymbals are also used. The melancholy, sometimes joyful songs of these gentle, kindly religious folk thrum into the night. They look far-off as the sing. Here are some of their songs. BAOOL SONGS
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Carolyn W.