Читать книгу The Autobiography of an Indian Princess - Maharani of Cooch Behar Sunity Devee - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The Asram near Coolootola consisted of two houses joined together, and there we lived for a time with many of my father’s followers as one big united family (a thing hitherto unheard of in India), addressing each other as sisters and aunts, uncles and brothers. My father held a service in the hall every morning. His motto was “Faith, Love, and Purity,” and upon this he always acted. His life was a pilgrimage of extraordinary faith which made him trust in the infinite mercy of God even in the darkest hour, of love which enabled him to view the failings of others with perfect charity and compassion, and purity which kept the lustre of his private life undimmed to the last.

My father formed a Normal School for our girls, called the Native Ladies’ Normal School. This school was at one time the only institution of the kind in India. To-day there are hundreds of colleges and schools all over India for Indian girls and women. My father fought for female education. How keenly he was opposed by the leading men at the time! Curiously enough, some of the men who spoke most strongly against female education were the first to bring their wives out of purdah; indeed, to my idea, they are now too English. Later on my father established a college in Calcutta named after her late Majesty Queen Victoria. This college will always be associated with the name of Keshub Chunder Sen. He did not believe in the importance of university degrees; he maintained that for a woman to be a good wife and a good mother is far better than to be able to write M.A. or B.A. after her name. Therefore, only things likely to be useful to them were taught to the girls who attended the Victoria College. Zenana ladies also came to the lectures, and the good work flourished. I always remember the name of Miss Pigot in connection with the educational movement in India. She was the head of an institution close to where we lived. One of the objects of this institution was to train Christian Indian girls to visit Hindu houses and give lessons to the women who wished to improve their education. Miss Pigot also took charge of Hindu ladies while their husbands were in England. She always showed the greatest interest in our family, and called my grandmother “Mother.”

Miss Pigot is still alive; I am very fond of the dear old lady, she has been a true friend to us all.

Sadhankanan was the name of the country house belonging to my father, not far from Calcutta, in which we lived later on. The house itself was small, but the grounds were charming with their beautiful trees, flowers, and fruit. There we lived an open-air life among the flowers by which the air seemed always perfumed. I remember a curious thing happening there which filled me with fresh admiration for my father and helped to make me think he was more than human. The gardens at Sadhankanan were full of snakes. As I stood by a hedge of pineapple trees one day, I suddenly saw a frog hopping at a tremendous pace in the direction of the praying-ground where my father and his followers were engaged in their devotions; it was chased by a snake. The frog jumped straight on to my father’s knees, and the pursuer, stopping bewildered in front of his quarry, swayed to and fro for a moment with his hood ominously raised, then turned and glided away, greatly to my relief, whereupon the frog jumped down from his sanctuary. “How wonderful he is!” I thought, “the weakest thing would be safe with him,” and indeed no creature ever appealed to my father’s pity in vain.

My mother loved Sadhankanan, and I remember how pretty she used to look among those beautiful surroundings. She was small, with tiny hands and feet and a wealth of dark hair, and she had a lovely voice which was heard to the best advantage in our hymns and Bengali songs. Mother’s gentle influence kept us very much together. She was a woman of strong convictions, and would never countenance anything which her conscience told her was wrong. She was a charming story-teller, and would often tell us fairy tales when we were in bed. We loved these stories and never wearied of listening to them; some of them I have collected together in a little volume, and one I will include here.

A Maharajah had two wives, and he loved the second far more than the first. Yet the first wife was lovely, gentle, unselfish, and kind-hearted, and the second was just the reverse; she was haughty, vain, ill-tempered, and very jealous of the first wife. The first wife had a baby boy, the heir, to whom the Maharajah was very devoted, and much to the annoyance of the second wife he often played with the baby, who was just beginning to crawl. One day, while he was playing with the child, he sang to him over and over again: “I love this face with its toothless smile,” and the second wife hearing, could not get the expression out of her head, “toothless smile.” The next time the Maharajah came to see the second wife he found her crawling on the floor, and thought she had gone mad. He asked her what she was doing, and when she opened her mouth to answer he saw, to his horror and disgust, that she had no teeth. “What have you done to yourself?” he asked angrily. She answered him with a hideous smile, “Did you not say to your baby that you loved the face with a toothless smile?” With a furious look he said, “Begone, you are no longer my wife. Your insane jealousy banishes you for ever from the palace;” and weeping and lamenting, she was turned away.

My mother lived for my father and his beliefs. The world never troubled her. “You cannot impede my work, for it is God’s work,” were the words which formed the keynote of my father’s steadfast faith, and my mother accepted it with perfect conviction. She never seemed distressed by her loss of caste, although she was left out of many a family gathering in consequence. I think my mother, however, sometimes pitied us, for we shared her fate when festivities took place in the old house, and she then made much of us in her gentle way. But we led our lives secure in the belief that the religion practised by my father was the highest. His life and his teachings were so beautiful that it was impossible not to try and live up to his ideals, and his yoke was so light that we never felt it.

In the days of my youth, as well as at the present time, I found the greatest consolation in religion. Not the fierce fanaticism which scourges the trembling soul, not the appeal of beautiful music and gorgeous vestments which attract the eye and drug the heart, but the simple and direct appeal to God as a father and a friend, the close and perfect understanding between the Creator and His creature.

We children loved the religious services, and the remembrance of my father’s face as he prayed often comes back to me. I have another vivid memory of those days: sometimes, long before the servants were awake, a beautiful voice filled the dawn with melody. It was one of my father’s missionaries who, alone upon the roof, sang the praise of God in that sweet and silent hour. I can hear the echo of his song even now. We children used to think that we were very near to heaven then, and we secretly imagined that the singer was an angel visitant.

We were kept quite apart from the world, and light talk and unkind gossip were things unknown to us. Some of my readers may think that I must have led a dull kind of life. Possibly I did in the eyes of the world, but it was happiness to me. As for clothes, we were content with our ordinary muslin saris, and did not see the beauty of foreign goods.

We are very hospitable in the East. In our home, if unexpected guests arrived, mother would say to us girls, if we were at home in the holidays, “Go and take what is wanted out of the store.” One would cut the vegetables, and dear mother would cook, and within a short time quite a good meal would be prepared. There is such a nice word used in the Indian housekeeping world, “bart-auta,” which means “end to an increase”; we never say: “there is none,” or “it is finished.” The stores should never be empty, but the new supplies come in before the old are finished.

I was always very much attached to my eldest brother, Karuna. I called him “Dada” (elder brother); he and I were great friends. I remember that once a fine idea struck him. “Let’s make soap,” he said; “everybody uses soap, and there is a lot of money in it. Sunity, we will become very rich.”

My youngest uncle (my mother’s brother) was asked to be a partner in the scheme, and we collected quantities of lime, oil, and essences wherewith we thought to produce the ideal cleanser. These we heaped anyhow into a frying-pan and began to heat them up. But to our dismay we found something was wrong. The smoke and flames nearly blinded us, and we were forced to retreat and let the horrid mess burn itself out.

Coolootola was our playground, and I think if the walls could have spoken to us they might have related some very strange stories of the old doings at “Sen’s House.” I always felt the rooms had histories, and I remember a certain staircase which report said was haunted, and which was the scene of two uncanny happenings when I was a child. Once when my cousins were playing hide-and-seek, one of them seemed to be held back by some unseen force as he ran down the staircase. When at last he managed to shake off the terror which possessed him, he fainted.

I was equally frightened at the same place, but in a different way. My father always cooked his own breakfast, and it was a great privilege to me in my holidays to be allowed to help him. One day he had finished his breakfast, and I was bringing away the curry which was left, and walking very carefully down the staircase, my thoughts set on the dish I was holding, when suddenly I had the impression that a whole army of cats was after me. I looked back. There was nothing to be seen. I went on, and again the feeling of being stealthily followed came over me; I felt I was in the midst of furry, wicked-eyed creatures, and almost heard their velvety paddings around me. I was suffocated with the presence of cats, and dreaded the spring which I felt every moment they would make. Shaking with terror, I kept myself from dropping the dish only by a great effort.

Once when we were playing, my sister Bino and I were left on the roof. I was like a boy, and ran and jumped, and I said to Bino, “I shall run down the stairs much faster than you can, and you will be left alone in the middle of the haunted staircase.” Poor Bino looked alarmed, she was slim and delicate; she began to run, but long before she reached the terrace I got there and closed the door, expecting her to cry or try to push the door, but nothing happened, and I got so frightened I flung open the door. There was no Bino to be found. I had a fright. I ran up and down the stairs several times and searched the enormous roof above, but could not find her. I felt something must have happened to Bino, as “the ghost lives in the staircase.” I cried a great deal, and then walked slowly down to the bedroom verandah feeling miserable and most ashamed of myself. There I found Bino looking quite happy, and instead of scolding me she said in her sweet way, “I went downstairs when I found the door closed.” It was a greater punishment than if she had scolded me.

My brothers and sisters have all followed my father’s teachings throughout their lives. I am sure there is not one of that happy band of children who played about “Sen’s House” who has not found the greatest comfort and support from our upbringing. My eldest brother, in particular, was very religious, and carried on my father’s work, helped by his wife, who copied many of my father’s prayers and taught in the Victoria College when it needed teachers.

My second brother, Nirmal, is a most amiable and easy-going man. He is now in the India Office in London and works hard for the welfare of Indian students in London, a subject upon which he has very decided ideas. He is very popular, always ready to help others, and is very happy in his home life. He married a Miss Luddhi.

My third brother, Profullo, was wonderfully gifted. He was a most affectionate little friend to me when I was a bride in the big house in Calcutta, and was almost always with me. On several occasions when I went to England with my children, and my dear husband could not go, Profullo went instead and managed everything. He was my children’s favourite uncle.

A wonderful thing happened to Profullo when he was a few weeks old. He fell ill, and the doctors gave him up; at the time my father was away at Belghuria garden-house, and the sad news had to be sent to him. When at length my father arrived every one was weeping, thinking the boy was gone. My father entered the room with a lovely rose in his hand, and they all saw what a wonderful expression there was upon his face. Father touched Profullo’s face with the flower, and the boy opened his eyes and said, “Father, have you come?” and from that day he rapidly recovered. Profullo had several pet names, Pepery, Peter, and Pip and Peroo.

He married an English girl. He was always a devoted follower of my father’s.

My husband used to say that my father’s great gifts and devoutness were inherited by my fourth brother, Saral. Every one thought he would become a missionary. When he was a small boy, he always said he would carry on my father’s work. He is unselfish, most kind-hearted and simple minded. His pet name is Bhopal.

My youngest brother’s name is Subrata, and his pet name is Bhajan. He was my eldest son’s best friend: the boy was devoted to him and asked for him till the end. Subrata is now a doctor, yet we still regard him as our baby brother, and I do not think he will ever grow up; he behaves like a baby. He married a pretty French girl and did well during the War, although I am sorry to say he did not obtain a permanent post.

My sisters are the dearest of women. The second, Savitri, is quiet and retiring, with many good qualities. Her pet name is Bino. She is a tall, handsome girl, the best of wives, and a very good mother. She married a cousin of my husband’s, and it has been a great happiness and comfort to me to have her with me all these years in Cooch Behar, where we have worked hand in hand.

My third sister, Sucharu, is most unselfish, and her experiences have made her more than usually sympathetic with the sorrows of others. She was engaged when quite a girl to the Maharajah of Mourbhanj, but his family came between them and he married a Hindu girl.

My sister suffered for several years, as it is an unknown thing for an Indian girl to be an “old maid,” and we were disappointed, annoyed, and distressed that such trouble had befallen her. But my sister loved the Maharajah just the same all through, and never said an unkind word. “It is my fate, don’t blame him,” she said.

We tried to persuade her to marry, but nothing would induce her to forget her lover. Fourteen years passed, during which she was an angel in our house. Then she found her long-delayed happiness. The Maharajah’s wife died, and he came back to ask my sister to marry him. The marriage took place in Calcutta, and for some time the Maharajah and my sister led the happiest of lives. But Fate, mysterious Fate, ordained that Death, which had given them happiness, should destroy it. The Maharajah was accidentally shot at a shooting party, and my sister’s life was darkened for ever.

She lives for her children and for her stepsons. Some English ladies once said to me that they had no idea the Maharajah had any children by his first marriage, as the whole family seemed so united and devoted to the Maharani.

My fourth sister, Monica, who is very handsome, prayed that luxury might never come into her life for fear the world should make her forget God. We call her Moni; she has the most happy, contented disposition imaginable. No one has ever heard her utter an unkind word. She takes everything as it comes, quietly and without complaint, and thinks herself the happiest woman in the world. Her faith in God is wonderful. She married a Professor in the Education Department, a very clever man, whose name is Sadhu Mahalanobis.

Sujata, the youngest, has always made sunshine in our midst. She is as sweet as some lovely flower, and I think her one idea is to give every one as much pleasure as she can. She was so pretty that when our present King as Prince of Wales lunched with us he asked, “Who is that very pretty girl in the sari?” Sujata married a Mr. Sen, brother of my fourth sister-in-law.

How happy we were! I think that Providence always gives us compensations for our sorrows. There are some hours the glory of which triumphs over the darkness which later clouds our lives: some loved voices whose sweet remembrance deadens the sound of unkind tongues: some faces that in our memory have always a loving smile.

I am happy and proud to say that my brothers and sisters have always been most kind and loving to me.

I was not considered a pretty child, but I remember that a great-uncle once said to my mother: “This little girl, Sunity, will be somebody one day, for I see a lotus in her eyes.” “I shall have a handsome son-in-law,” my mother laughingly replied, and I was greatly amused. When I was twelve I thought I would make a vow never to marry. My ambition was to be clever, to travel a great deal, and to be a sort of nun. I asked a school friend of mine named Kamari if she also would promise not to marry. To my great disappointment she said: “It is too hard a vow to take,” but added affectionately, “we will try.” Once some of the nuns from Loretto Convent visited my father’s school, and one of them, looking at me gently, asked: “Would you like to be a nun?” We frequently visited this convent, and the kind nuns often came to see us. I admired and loved those nuns.

Even now whenever I get an opportunity I go to see the Convent Sisters.